Monday, September 9, 2013
Breathe Deep
![]() |
Trubridge Ascending |
I was thinking about my favorite videos the other day and remembered Hectometer, the short film documenting William Trubridge's record-setting 101 meter freedive. That's 101 meters straight down into a blue hole in the Bahamas.
No air tanks, no fins, just a thin wetsuit, pair of goggles, nose plug, and whatever breath and sanity he brought with him.
Turns out this sort of thing requires a bit of a special mental space, I would suggest altered state is not an exaggeration, in order to simply survive the ordeal. And lots of practice, and lots of support. Going that deep is dangerous; there is absolutely no margin for error and the sport takes the lives of its athletes with some regularity.
To be honest, I cannot come up with a metaphor or connection from the film and its subject back to agile, other than to be deeply moved by William's commitment, courage, and to see yet another example of a human being pushing against the limits of what we have agreed is possible.
If a man can take a single breath, dive 303 feet into the ocean, and return to the surface with nothing but his own strength of body and mind, most of the challenges I face in my world seem pretty simple.
Here is Matty Brown's Hectometer featuring William Trubridge.