Natalia (Molchanov) was regarded as a sort of sage in the sport. “Freediving is not only sport,” she once said, “it’s a way to understand who we are. When we go down, if we don’t think, we understand we are whole. We are one with world.” Through deconcentration, a form of advanced meditation she described as having evolved from techniques used by ancient warriors, she could reset her mind and feel more prepared to take on the world. But in 2015, during a presumably routine training dive near the Mediterranean island of Formentera, she disappeared. She never resurfaced—just literally vanished into the sea. Secrets of The World’s Greatest Freediver, Alexey Molchanov, from GQ.
…Freediving is, after all, a lifelong opportunity to radically reshape one’s body and mind in the process. In pursuing depth, humans must train their lungs and brains to unlock secret sources of clarity and strength and oxygen and potential that are hidden within the body. They are secrets that, once revealed, make the divers not just more effective at their craft, they argue, but more effective, conscious, skillful, and thoughtful as human beings. There is a shift in perspective. A global realignment within one’s consciousness. The look in their eyes when they talk about this thing…every diver who’s gone truly deep sounds like those rarest of individuals who’ve seen the earth from the moon, or died and been resuscitated.