Renee shares her journey
Freediving isn’t just something I do, but it’s a lifestyle I live.
For the past 4-5 years I’ve been teaching freediving courses and coaching freedivers in Dahab, Egypt. I truly enjoy sharing my know-how and personal experiences to help and inspire others about a lifestyle where passion for the water, health, yoga, physical training and meditation all play a special role.
Earlier this year, when I found out that there will be a PADI Freediver Instructor Trainer Course taking place in September in Dahab, right where I live, I was SO excited!
What are the chances of that?! My first thought was, ‘This is my chance!!!’
I felt ready to go to the next level of teaching freediving and was (still am) ecstatic about the idea of teaching freediving instructors, and passing on my knowledge and things that I’ve learned about teaching freediving to new instructors, things that I wish that I knew and tools I wish I had when I first taught freediving courses!
It was a challenge just to work it out to enroll in the instructor trainer course due to limited finances, so I was extremely, extremely grateful to find a solution at the very last moment.
A massive thanks to the PADI team and especially my regional manager, Ahmed, who took the time to support me in that process and help me work toward finding a solution.
I remember walking in on day one, and feeling so grateful and so happy just to be there. To just be able to participate in the instructor trainer course was really a dream come true!
The course itself was six long and very intensive days, much more than I imagined!
I would leave my house around 6:30 am, and after a day full of presentations, in water sessions, and workshops, I would not arrive home until after 7-8:00 pm, and with 2-3 presentations to prepare by morning.
I remember one night, I was up until 5:30am working on the presentations, slept for an hour, and was ready at 6:30 am to head to the course to do it all over again.
I’m a competitive freediver at heart and this made a competition day look like a total piece of cake!
BUT – it was SO worth it in the end!
The amount that I learned, the absolutely incredible people that I got to meet and work with, and the amount that I got to develop myself as a communicator and as a leader in freediving education, made everything SO worthwhile.
There were so many things I loved about the course and that I learned, but I’d say the thing that I enjoyed the most and what I think I benefited from the most, was ironically the most challenging aspect; the teaching presentations.
We had to do several teaching presentations in the classroom and also in the water (confined and open water) And, the thing is, I’ve always wanted to improve my presenting and public speaking skills, so this was finally my opportunity to do so. It’s funny how the universe works in mysterious ways!
So typically, I would get very nervous when speaking in front of groups; large and small. And many times to compensate for my nerves, I’d end up talking too much, going off on tangents and forgetting to mention important information.
So although my presentations weren’t absolutely horrible, they certainly weren’t great or nearly as effective or clear as they could’ve been, and often they were way too long and my audience would lose focus.
But what was really awesome about the Instructor Trainer Course, what I really liked, is that it gave me a structure to use for organizing my presentations and my communication.
I also learned a lot of lots of tips and insights for public speaking and presenting. For example, how to keep the audience engaged, how to gain their attention at the beginning, how best to conclude and recap the presentation, how to use visuals and aids, etc.
By learning and applying the structure and the techniques, my presentations and my communication became clearer, much more concise and effective, AND more fun! And it gave me A LOT more confidence in public speaking; it was all so incredibly helpful.
So I am super excited and extremely grateful.
Now, I feel I have pretty much all the tools and information I need to teach Freediver Instructor Courses effectively and confidently, AND I can use a lot of the same tools for any kind of teaching, presenting or public speaking events that I want to do in the future.
A massive thanks to the staff; Richard Somerset, Kostas Triantafyllou, and Eric Albinsson, who were so helpful, patient and supportive during the course and just genuinely kind people.
Also, it was so nice to meet everyone who was involved in the course, and was such a pleasure to spend the six days with. I really hope to see them again in the future.
And a huge thanks again to my regional manager, Ahmed Sayed, who has always been super helpful and supportive of getting my little freediving business here in Dahab off the ground. It really does go a long way.
I’m excited to be a part of this amazing team!
