Hello and welcome to you. My name is Jan Thomas, I am just over 30 on the year scale and a fairly recent freediver. I work professionally as a sound technician, mainly in the music and concert industry, but also in other cultures, events, as well as some film and TV.
In 2020, after four years of quite hectic tournaments, I suddenly had much more free time than planned. After a few weeks of a well-received "holiday", after perfecting my Pinà Colada recipe and after updating the game library on Steam, I knew the time had come. I had already studied approximately all the package offers on frivannsliv.no fourteen times, and assessed whether I was going to use it enough to be able to cover the spending. I'm writing here, so it was probably inside.
For several years, I have followed with great fascination various channels on YouTube that engage in freediving, harpoon hunting and snorkelling, mainly in warmer regions. People like Brody and the gang at YBS Youngbloods (Australia), for example, have been a big influence, where they catch giant crayfish and explore the seabed. I lived in Brisbane for several years while I was studying, so it was quite natural for me to gravitate towards the warmer type of content, where the water is clear and bright. Here at home, I have always been quite afraid of everything that could hide beneath the surface. The dark sea and my thoughts about all the scary things that could pop up from the depths probably did their part in why it took me so long to try. Actually quite strange since I practically lived on the lake in a five-horsepower rubber boat every single summer.
While I was in Australia I got to try diving at the Great Barrier Reef, I got to snorkel at shipwrecks and even did a quick dive with sharks (in a tank under very controlled conditions). All these experiences are perhaps some of the ones I remember best, and it has become clear that I had to try this here at home as well (even if I still keep a bit of a sensitive country, and preferably with a reference point to the bottom/bridge pillars).
I'm pretty new to the game. I know I want to develop towards hunting and gathering, at the same time I want to develop good techniques and time under water. But most of all I want to have fun, and experience the wonderful extraterrestrial world that is so close. To have a hobby, where I get to explore the nature that I have grown up with outside the window, so to speak, my whole life. I would very much like to share some of the (often childish) fun I experience when I am under (and a little above) water. So I take a GoPro with me, pretend I know what I'm doing, and throw together some clips when I have the time. I might also write a few things about things I experience and learn along the way. You can find me here on the free water life blog, or you can listen to my very inappropriate "tutorials" on Instagram under the name soundguyjan .
Warm greetings,
John Thomas
