Shenzhen technically has a sea. It just has the visibility of a cup of milk. So if you're preparing for AIDA 2 here — or in any landlocked city — the ocean isn't your training ground. The pool is.

This is the exact 8-week schedule I used before passing. I'm writing it up partly as a record for myself, and partly because I keep getting the same question: "I want to learn freediving but I don't live near good water."

The short answer: you don't need to live near the ocean to get certified. I trained entirely in a Shenzhen pool and only got in the sea at the course itself. What nearly stopped me wasn't breath-hold — it was equalisation.

Read this first: this is a personal training log, not instruction. Freediving carries real risk — never train breath-holds alone, never dive alone, and do all apnea work under a certified instructor or a qualified buddy. Exact performance requirements vary between agencies and instructors; confirm yours with your course provider.

First: know what you're actually being tested on

Freediving certifications are confusingly named — AIDA, CMAS, Molchanovs, SSI all use different labels, and "AIDA 2", "two-star" and "Wave 1" get used interchangeably. Ask which system your course belongs to before you pay.

For AIDA 2, assessment generally covers three disciplines (numbers vary by version — confirm with your instructor):

  • Static apnea (STA) — floating face down, holding your breath
  • Dynamic apnea with fins (DYN) — horizontal underwater distance
  • Constant weight (CWT) — descending to depth with fixed ballast

Plus theory, rescue protocols and equalisation. So it's four things to prepare, not one.

Most people don't fail on breath-hold. They fail on equalisation. They get stuck at five metres because their ears hurt — not because they ran out of air.

The 8-week plan

Weeks 1–2: rebuild water comfort

Two pool sessions a week, no breath-hold work at all. The goal is relaxation, because freediving is about oxygen consumption rate, not lung capacity. A tense person suffers at 30 seconds; a relaxed one is calm at two minutes. I'm doing floating, slow breaststroke, and learning how the body sinks on exhale.

Weeks 3–5: static and dynamic, separately

  • STA — start at 45 seconds, add 5–10 seconds per session. The critical part is the recovery breath: don't gulp. Inhale, top-up, slow exhale.
  • DYN — train finning efficiency before breath-hold. How far you glide per kick matters more than how long you can hold.

Week 6: CO2 tolerance

The least pleasant and most effective block. Repeated breath-holds with shrinking rest intervals — hold one minute, rest one minute, repeat eight times with decreasing rest. Do this with an instructor. Diaphragm contractions are genuinely alarming if you don't know they're coming.

The counter-intuitive bit
The urge to breathe isn't caused by low oxygen — it's caused by building CO2. Training tolerance means getting comfortable with that discomfort, not expanding your lungs. It's why people with huge lung capacity sometimes can't hold for a minute.

Week 7: equalisation, daily

Practise out of the water. If you can't do Frenzel, you'll stall around five metres. Short and frequent worked far better for me than long sessions — 20 reps, three times a day.

Week 8: taper

Cut volume. Test your gear, confirm logistics, sleep. Don't cram the week before.

Looking back, two things actually decided whether I passed: whether equalisation worked smoothly, and whether I could stay relaxed with an instructor watching me. The second is harder to train, because it isn't a technique problem.

Choosing an instructor — five questions

  1. What's the student-to-instructor ratio? Over 4:1, I walk away.
  2. Is the pool instructor the same person doing depth? Switching is rough on beginners.
  3. What's the O₂ and emergency plan? Asking tells you a lot about how seriously they take it.
  4. Can I do a trial session first? Reluctance is a red flag.
  5. Which agency are you certifying under? Get the actual system, not a nickname.

Gear: rent almost everything

My rule: rent everything except the mask.

  • Mask — buy. Low volume, good seal, fits your face. Try it on in person; don't order blind.
  • Fins — rent. Long vs. short feels completely different. Buy after you know what you want.
  • Wetsuit — rent. Thickness depends on your course water temperature.
  • Weight belt, dive computer — rent.
  • Snorkel — cheap, just buy one.

Why I keep doing this

The thing that hooked me about freediving is that it isn't about fighting. It's about stopping the fight. Your performance underwater is almost entirely decided by how quickly you stop struggling — which, on land, seems to hold up too.

That's how I got certified. Next up: AIDA 3, plus Open Water and Advanced Open Water in Egypt — I'll write a follow-up comparing freediving and scuba once I've done both.

If you're training too, or you're stuck on something specific, come say hello.

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