The 'hang' of it!

Hello Friends!

The days are getting warmer, the trees blow almost as though they want to entice you into the gorgeous spring season that’s around the corner and I’m here for all of it!

Today I wanted to talk about hangs,

Hangs are when you dive down to a particular depth and you just hold on the line and hang for a little, somewhere when you start feeling your contractions, you can start making your way back up again, you can do 2 or 3 of these before you start your depth work, either going deeper or holding longer at the initial depth.

Why?

There’s something about warming up your body for the fun that it’s about to have. The dive reflex already kicks in when you submerge and hold your breath, leading to 3 amazing things,

1. Your heart rate slows down to conserve oxygen.

2. Your blood vessels constrict in your extremities (legs and arms) to focus the blood in your core, nourishing you with haemoglobin rich blood that’s supporting your vital organs (think brain and heart)and lastly,

3. A blood shift phenomenon happens, the short of this is that, this is how we don’t crumble like a plastic bottle from the external pressure.

Sometimes from just touching your wetsuit your heart rate starts slowing down and your body readies for the fun, so still, why the hang?

Though these amazing things are all happening, your contractions only come when you start holding your breath for longer periods, and the short dive – preferably half the depth you intend to train that day gets you nicely warmed up.

You're at a comfortable depth where you can start the dance with your contractions and get an actual feel for how the body is doing and feeling. On this dive you can check if all is well - from equalising, to the body’s response to the space, at least that’s what I’ve found in my experience.

I often start my dives with a 5m hang, just because it’s good flow, also, the quarry I dive at has a grid at 5 metres, and again at 12m and so on, so the equalization check and hold is at 5m, then a free immersion down to 15 and somewhere between these dives is backflips, euphoria, surfacing, hook breathing and the biggest geekiest smile on my face!

Everyone says super calm is important, it probably is and I’m just an excitable human so am often laughing and playing and then calm enough to lay on the surface of the water breathing through my snorkel… I start watching the sun’s rays dance on the surface of my hand and between this magic and the reflex feeling strong, the body leads itself into a big belly inhale, snorkel out… and we submerge… I get butterflies writing this!

How was that little dive we just went on?

Hope this helps you find you calm in preparation for your dive, it works every time with me :)

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In other news!

We had Elizabeth Sneed aka Curvy Surfer Girl on this weeks IG live, she lives on the island of Oahu in Honolulu Hawaii, is a surfer, body positivity activist, psoriasis advocate. curvy model, entrepreneur & dog/wild life enthusiast.

We chat about representation, history and its importance, preservation of traditions and culture in and amongst everything under the sun! And the story of loving self snd seeing this same love in other people! Link to the IGTV is here

Our first Newsletter went out this morning! Chatting all things the Black Mermaid Brand has been up to! If you didn't receive it, please do pop your email in the subscribe form box below and I'll forward it to you so you don't miss out!

Theres exciting things coming in August and I'd love for you to be a part of it all!

Have a stunner week! Xx