Deep thoughts in deep waters

For French freediving champion Guillaume Néry, giving up control leads to oneness with the oceans

ABy Lubna Salim

t a time when the whole world seems out of control, it’s rather lovely to hear what French freediving champion Guillaume Néry has to say about how he had to change his ideas about control while learning to freedive.

“In normal life when things are hard to obtain, you fight more and more for them,” he explains. “In freediving, this logic doesn’t work. You have to let go, accept and stop fighting so that you can find harmony and peace with the water. You have to change your mindset to understand that you have to be one with the water. When you understand it, you feel the doors of the deep are open to you.”

Commitment to excellence

In the world of freediving, a sport in which divers do not use breathing apparatus but simply hold their breath until they resurface, Guillaume specialises in disciplined depth. In 2002, at the age of 20, he became the youngest man in the history of freediving to break the world record when he went down 87 meters in the Villefranche-sur-mer Harbour in the Alpesmaritimes of France. Next, between 2004 and

“IN FREEDIVING, YOU'VE TO LET GO, ACCEPT AND STOP FIGHTING SO THAT YOU CAN FIND HARMONY AND PEACE WITH THE WATER”

2008, he broke three world freediving records and bagged his first world championship gold medal in 2008, together with the French team. Three years later, he became world champion at the Freediving Individual World Championship in Kalamata, Greece. You can see him in short films such as Narcose (2013), Ocean Gravity (2014) and Haven (2016) and read the two books he’s written – Profondeurs and Reconn exion.

It’s this zeal for excellence that’s made Guillaume the brand ambassador for the Swiss watch company, Panerai, which has released a limited Néry edition in the last two years and a third such edition this year.

“It’s an honour for me because Panerai is one of the biggest brands in the watch industry and to know they trust me and my expertise and choose to put my name on the watch makes me very proud,” says Guillaume. He wears his Panerai Submersible Chrono Guillaume Néry edition (limited to only 15 pieces) every day. “It’s like a commitment. I wear it whether I’m on land or in the water,” he says.

“WITH YOGA, YOU CAN IMPROVE THE FLUIDITY IN YOUR MOVEMENTS AND THAT'S USEFUL FOR FREEDIVING”

From the start

Guillaume got interested in the extreme sport of freediving quite by chance. “I was lucky to have grown up very close to the sea, so it has always been a part of my life,” he says. “The first time I did freediving was when I was 14. It was a challenge with a friend over which of us could hold his breath for the longest time.”

He got so fascinated with the capacity of the body to live and resist without breathing that from that very day he decided to improve his performance every day. “It was a kind of experiment with the body and the human capacity and I love that,” says the champion.

What Guillaume likes about freediving is that it’s not a sport but a lifestyle. You can still improve even as you get older. “I’m 38; in July I’ll be 39. I still feel my body capacity is improving for freediving and with training, I can still develop good adaptation,” he says. “After 25 years of doing this activity, I still learn new things. It’s like yoga. You never become a master, you always keep learning.”

Yoga has been a huge part of Guillaume’s life since 2004, when he began learning it in Reunion Island, a French island near Mauritius that’s home to a big Indian community. The practice is used by many freedivers to improve their lung capacity.