CMAS is killing U/W sports

[SanSan]

It must have been a hard decision for Carlos but I think it was the right one. I don't think that CMAS has a chance to compete against AIDA on the long run but still he can cause much trouble and bad karma.
Hope others will follow Carslos. Thanks for showing us the way.

Just remember no competitors no CMAS .

[donmoore]

In the thread on this a few years ago, it was one of the few times I really blew my cool on db.

This is from an e-mail of Carol Rose, president of the Underwater Society of America (the U.S. CMAS organization that hosts the U.S. Spearfishing Championships and Underwater Hockey in the U.S.).

“CMAS was very clear at their meeting in late November. If athletes dive a competition which CMAS already holds, the athletes may be barred, and the country will certainly 'hear' about it. If the competition offers an event, discipline, whatever that CMAS does NOT offer, then, grudgingly, OK.”

I can’t read the languages in the previous links, but maybe CMAS has pulled their heads out enough to realize they are really making a lot of people mad! As far as Carol Rose’s statement, the only discipline that both AIDA and CMAS used to do was dynamics. Their doctor believed depth disciplines were dangerous for a divers health, and they thought static was too boring for spectators.

This year I plan doing both the U.S. Nationals Spearfishing tournament and an AIDA competition. If they want to kick me out of CMAS, so be it.
don

[jome]

They have precisely as much power as people give them. I applaud Carlos' choice! That's the spirit.

Luckily it's not a problem for me...All I ever got from CMAS was a scuba license and I would not be heart broken even if they somehow could revoke it...I guess it could be a problem for finswimmers and uw rugby players in our country (is UW rugby a CMAS discipline?), who would also like to compete in freediving...

An organization should realize, that when they have to bully people into sticking with them, they have seriously derailed. The only way you can compete in a free society is by making your offerings appealing enough that people will WANT to stick with you. Otherwise someone else is just going to move into that business. Just look at all the record labels...At least some of them are coming around and noticing that someone invented a little thing called "the Internet" and it's not an evil invention from Satan, but a great tool and a lot of money can be made from it.

[Absolute]

So mabey AIDA should step up to the plate for the finswimmers and under water hockey and rugby athletes. Then everyone would migrate to AIDA and stupid CMAS would go away.

[donmoore]

So mabey AIDA should step up to the plate for the finswimmers and under water hockey and rugby athletes. Then everyone would migrate to AIDA and stupid CMAS would go away.

Good idea, and most of all spearfishing! A lot of people seem to forget that spearfishermen out numbers pure freedivers. I would guess about 5 to 1. Many of the best competitive freedivers started as spearfisherman looking for ways to improve their time and depth for better spearing opportunities.

Divers are tired of the politics. AIDA has proven themselves, in my mind, to be a better organization. Now they just need to realize there is more to apnea diving then pure depth, distance, and time.
don

[laminar]

I think AIDA has its hands full with the depth, time, distance sport and getting a network of instructors and training opportunities and supervising world records. They are getting better and better at it and I think will continue to attract good people to the executive and most importantly, at the national and local levels.

Jome is completely right. You have to have the approach of offering events and services that people WANT to be a part of and you will probably succeed. In my mind, finswimming and spearfishing are very separate sports with their own cultures and histories. I would think they would be served best by their own organizations. Does AIDA know what spearos and finswimmers want? Probably not. Ideally, you'd have an organization for those sports run by professionals from that sport. Same as AIDA. I think that the Achilles heel of CMAS is the very fact that they want to be THE organization for all of the high profile underwater sports and activities. The Olympic carrot, no matter how far ahead of their outstretched hands, is their main motivation, I would imaginge. I think it would be a mistake for AIDA to seek the same goal.

My 2 cents.

[ggarrett]

Originally Posted by laminar

...depth, time, distance sport... finswimming and spearfishing are very separate sports... Does AIDA know what spearos and finswimmers want?

Two of the three main freediving disciplines are pool events. When I entered freediving I came to it from the pool to find that most people come to freediving from the sea. On this continent, at least, I would guess that the majority of freedivers enjoy depth diving in the seas more than the pool disciplines.

In trying to establish freediving as a sport in the United States, the USAA looks to the scuba and spearfishing communities for prospective new recruits. The main event last for the USAA was DEMA to publicize this new sport. DEMA looks to be the centerpiece of USAA's 2006 calendar again as well. In the USA, it seems that the AIDA (USAA) feels it needs finswimmers and spearfishers in order to grow and survive. Therefore, separating these sports might stunt the growth of freediving as we know it on this continent.

In the USA, I believe most attendees at freediving clinics come from the scuba-spearfishing-finswimming communities. Right or wrong, that appears to be the market that has the money. So, it's not surprising that there's a turf war over who will sanction the sport, make certifications, train judges, teach clinics, etc. The answer, of course is to make a bigger pie so everyone can have their own piece of the action.

I agree with Peter that AIDA has it hands full with depth, distance, and duration. It would be nice if AIDA North America could focus on just those three disciplines, but that's not the world we find ourselves in. In the end, Apnea distinguishes the AIDA from CMAS. Keeping the focus on Apnea will assure AIDA of its identity. Apnea is what AIDA does best.

[donmoore]

Peter, you have some very good points. Likewise so do you ggarrnett. It maybe unrealistic to ask AIDA to hold other apnea competitions and events, but it sure is sad that we can’t either all be under one roof or at least in complementing organizations! As ggarrnett pointed out so well - AIDA needs the other apnea divers for growth and survival.

The other thing AIDA needs other apnea divers for is fan support. The only people who really care how long, far, or deep a diver can go on a single breath, are those who can relate. Those are people who have held their breath underwater. Only a small minority have the natural ability or will develop the ability to do well in an AIDA competition. But if there are other apnea sports they can do without looking ridiculous, then the may choose to participate and at the very least will be fans of AIDA athletes.

Where I live there are many tasty fish and almost everyone fishes. What potential freedivers usually want to know is with their limited skills (like 20 foot depth limit and 30 second breathhold) can they shoot a good eating fish. Fortunately the answer here is yes and if they go and try they quickly learn that although there are fish to spear within their ability, there are many more just out of their reach. That’s were many start.

I’m sure this is true in many parts of the world and the same desire to learn from pure discipline freedivers probably works for hockey or any apnea water sport.
don

[spaghetti]

As I wrote in this thread, i think that Cmas is unefficient, old minded, even ridiculous. But let me say, with no offense for anyone of you mates, three things pro Cmas and against all this easy pro Aida enthusiasm.
1-Cmas officials rejected "constant" not because they're pervert fools, but because they consider it dangerous for the life and health of the athletes and referees. There's a Cmas scientific board, composed by valuable doctors and officials, who responsibly stated that "constant" competitions can not be held in acceptable safety conditions, and that long-term consequences on human health have not yet been clinically tested enough to give green light.
2-Without one world federation recognized be the olimpyc committee, without one rule protocol valid for all, without credible medical-scientific certainties, freediving as a sport has no future. You may dive, you may set records, you may have fun. But this will never be an organized, respected,massively popular sport. By now, Cmas miserably has failed in achieving this goal. But I don't think that a private organization as Aida will succeed: what if, after aida, other private org's may be set, with different rules again, and others again? The best thing should be changing and modernizing Cmas from inside. Hard, I know...
3-Love it or leave it makes no sense to me. Cmas is a world comitee made up of national federations, and national federations have elective organisms, elected by local clubs and circles of divers, spearos and finswimmers. There could have been, and there could be, a democratic way to change Cmas, starting from the people. Trying this is better than fragmentation into private associations in struggle between them basically for $.

Respectfully, just my opinion. Please, feel free to tell me how i'm wrong.

[PoseidonSv]

How is CMAS going to change when the mass of people you say will be the ones who democratically decide from the bottom of the organization theough the club is infact 99.9% scuba divvers? I think they have no idea and dont give a dman about freediving or breatholding activities of activities when swimming underwater. This is the problem with CMAS it would be like if the soccer agency would start to decide over the rules for volleyball games.

[DeepThought]

I'll make a short attempt at a few:

1- Yes, this is what CMAS thinks, but I just disagree with their resolution (no constant). The researches I am aware of that helped CMAS shape that point of view discuss lung squeezes and long lasting damage from BO/LMC's.
I think most health risks in constant are due to the divers themselves. There are freedivers among us who consider a constant dive that was successful by the AIDA rules still successful if they spit blood afterwards. Same for broken eardrums (and not to troll this thread assume I mean avoidable ones). I also think some people might not consider their sambas and blackouts seriously enough.
CMAS's action was to stop constant and put JB on, what they got? (so I've heard) more blackouts and they weren't short on lungsqueezes as well - yes at 15m of depth. I think blackouts and apnea are too connected to be abolished by such a solution (if such a solution even exist!).
Regarding their referees risking their life, I think that's just plain arrogance from CMAS not acknowledging tech diving because it isn't a part of their organization. I think tech diving has a high enough safety record to claim we can support freedivers, I doubt people would have risked their life otherwise so some dude will get on top in some competition.
And beside that point, it seems to me that people who have been freediving for many years are healthier than most of ex-professional sportsmen, all those runners/football/hocky players with ruined joints and ex-athletics with legiment problems and lets not start with boxers and grand-prix drivers...
At the end of all, I am anyway willing to accept those minor risks left for my enjoyment.

2- I don't care about the olympics, and If only AIDA would deal with freediving (as it should from CMAS's act) and the IOC will want freediving inside the olympics being AIDA and not CMAS shouldn't disturb them much in my opinion (I find it hard to believe that agreement is binding forever under all circumstances).

3- So one should stop doing constant weight while waiting for the change to come within CMAS? admireable if you're willing to do this, I wouldn't have. Their draconic rule feels to me like a stab in the back of any person who appriciate freedome of choice. I would've let them kick me out for not going with their rules (so I'll be a part of their statistics).
Although I find their scuba array to be of better quality than PADI's I'm actualy ashamed I have a certificate of an organization that will do such a thing.

[PoseidonSv]

Regarding CMAS and Tech diving.

In my country there is Tech oriented courses that is possible to go and get a CAMS certification in this. I think CMAS has finally understood that deepdiving is not to be made on only air.

[fpernett]

Originally Posted by spaghetti

1-Cmas officials rejected "constant" not because they're pervert fools, but because they consider it dangerous for the life and health of the athletes and referees. There's a Cmas scientific board, composed by valuable doctors and officials, who responsibly stated that "constant" competitions can not be held in acceptable safety conditions, and that long-term consequences on human health have not yet been clinically tested enough to give green light.

I'll not compare freediving with other sports that are more dangerous, by far. But, I really want to know what evidence they have to ban it (which is not a good way to improve the safety). The main concern as mentioned before are lung edema (lung squeeze) and long term effects on Central Nervous System.

The lung squeeze is not exclusive to constant ballast, in fact, the main literature reports are from spearfishing. There is no evidence that is related only with depth, but in diving habits of the victim, behavior like huge depth increases (seasonal diving), contractions, amount of exercise or eves stress, among others, can make you prone to lung squeeze. So it's not a depth only related problem, and deserves more investigation.

The long term adverse effects on the brain has been studied in Amas and is mainly related with Inadvertent or Sub-clinical Decompression sickness. Again, this is not only related to extreme depths. Again, the reported cases are from spearfishing divers (nothing against spearos, just an example to make my point). It's mainly related to the type of diving (inhale, full pack, FRC), depth, underwater time, surface interval time, dehydration, etc. So just blaming Depth as the Evil part is not fair.

I'm aware that with increasing depths we must redefine and test our security systems in order to respond to deep blackouts or "not-so-shallow black out".

CMAS is taking an ostrich attitude, education and research will make it safer, not banning

[SanSan]

Originally Posted by fpernett

CMAS is taking an ostrich attitude, education and research will make it safer, not banning

Yes, but if they are banning it then nobody can't point a finger and blame them. I haven't seen any effort from cmas to make the UW sports better, safer... No they are just what they like regardles of any athlete. They'd like to join all under them but nobody would like to work to make things better and something like this is the result:
A finnswimming competition got canceled again yesterday because of CMAS politics: http://www.h2oteam.com/index.php?menu_item=hppp
And the organizer said he will stop organizing it for good.

A 4 round championship, that was well organized and most imoprtantly cheap for the athletes is now gone. There were ower 300 competitiors on each round for 14 years, this year I think only about 50 registered.

I know our finswimming team is falling to peaces. Without propper competitions they can afford to attend they wont last any longer, as I think is the case in most other countries.

[jome]

I only read the full translation of the CMAS "ultimatum" from that link now and I have to say, it is ridiculous. They want to have full monopoly of all uw-activities.

I don't see it as a problem for scuba-divers and free divers. They can just laugh at their face and move on to another organization. That's what I will do anyway, if being forced to choose, and I'm sure the majority of my country men would choose similarily. My affiliation to someone sitting thousands of kilometers away, making money off my back is a fragile bond, which is solely based on MUTUAL benefit of this relationship. I have absolutely no problems severing it and saving a few bucks in the process...I don't pay them to tell me what to do, I pay them to enable me to better do what I like doing (and will keep on doing) anyway.

It is a problem for sports like finswimming and uw rugby, because there is no alternative. Either CMAS or no international federation (as far as I'm aware). I can only hope that people "see the light" and decide that no federation or rebuilding a new one is better than this utter bullshit. And I use the word bull***** because from the tone presented in that ultimatum I get the feeling that we are not treated in a nice and civil manner, so I see no reason to respond that way either...But finswimming is alread a pretty big and established sport. Just tearing it down and rebuilding it would be a very tough thing for the top athletes...

I don't see AIDA taking those sports under it's wings anytime soon. But maybe they could do a sort of a gesture to encourage some to choose a side. Introduce a new dicipline, such as 50m timed dynamic apnea. All it would take would be half a paragraph more in the current rules and we'd have something to offer to pissed of finswimmers... All it would take then is the desicion of a few idealistic elite swimmers to go with that and CMAS would probably start moving back to the "real world" from what ever "bizarro world" they're living in...

It would be funny if AIDA issued a parody of that message, mimicing the style and structure, but the message would be something like:
"AIDA whole heartedly welcomes everyone interested in underwater activities, of any race, nationality, religion or affiliation to join our common love of all things underwater. Let the recreational divers as well as professional sportsmen unite in peace love and harmony and celebrate the busum of mother earth, also know as the ocean" Or some new age hippie rhetoric like that...