Freediving is basically a sport where people hold their breath and see who can sink the deepest. In detail, it combines physical training and lung endurance, with mental focus to create the most effective and safest way down.

For Australian record holder Adam Stern, freediving isn’t just a sport. Sharing with us his passion and love of everything it has taught him, Adam has taken the competition out of the water and made it his way of life.

Diving-bum Days

In his younger years, like many of us wasn’t too excited about being a worker or a corporate employee, or to be under any boss. After earning his degree in theatre, Adam spent years backpacking across Asia and the Caribbean.

One day in Koh Tao, Thailand, he came across a sign that offered freediving lessons which then led to the athlete and Youtuber who we know now as Adam Freediver.

Living affordably in Asia, he could afford to train full time and dedicated his life to training in various waters in different parts of the world. Though despite his dedication to the sport, going professional in the sport wasn’t enough to support him financially, but the sheer passion of Adam kept him going.

“I would go home—absolutely broke—and I would get some horrible job in like a factory or something that was gonna pay really well,” Adam narrated, “so I could make a lot of money in a short period of time, and go away again to a new place to train and dive with new divers and learn from them. I wasn’t making any money out of freediving, I just loved diving, I love training, and I was just happy to be doing that.”

Choosing to Freefall

Describing each dive and training session as a form of meditation, Adam takes in every instance of life as he would do underwater.

He describes that a freediver will let the air escape him and his lungs will then compress to start sinking. Here he would stop paddling and let the intoxicating feeling of sinking down take over—the freefall.

For one to really enjoy and make the most of that one breath that we have, you have to be in a state of total relaxation and understand that you are in full control of how this dive will go.

As Adam put it, “I can be in control of my body—I can be in control of myself—even if I’m in a situation that might be adverse. How I respond to things can be absolute and so no matter what’s going on in life, as long as I’m in control of myself, I’m fine.”

For him, the unconventional life means to always be in control of himself—liberating freedom wherein he can choose to do what he is passionate about, and he is also wishing that people also have the courage to take that brave step of taking control and make the most of that one breath we all have.

More from Adam:

• Follow his work at www.adamfreediver.com
• Instagram: @adamfreediver
• Youtube: Adam Freediver 
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/adamfreediver
• Facebook: Adam Stern Freediver