MANDY RAE CRUICKSHANK

Multi-time national- and world-champion free diver and free-diving instructor; has set several Canadian and world records.

One of the biggest hurdles in free diving is your own mind. Training hard physically is one thing, but conquering the mental side of it is much harder. I absolutely love being underwater, but there are still those “evil monkeys” that chatter at you and tell you that you won’t be able to do something — “turn around on this dive,” or “You won’t be able to go this deep,” and so on. My biggest breakthrough was figuring out how to overcome myself, to let myself succeed.