Note to Sponsors
About the BFA (www.britishfreediving.org)
Freediving is the sport of breath-hold diving in which the freediver descends under water on a single breath of air. Freediving includes leisure activities such as spear fishing and snorkelling as well as competitive disciplines: Constant Weight, Free Immersion, Variable Weight, No Limits, Dynamic and Static Apnea. Freediving has many benefits and can be compared to a martial art. It promotes increased lung capacity, deeper levels of awareness and perception and control over your body. The British Freediving Association (BFA) is the UK governing body of the international freediving organisation AIDA. We promote recreational and competitive freediving, ratify freediving records, and sponsor events for our members. The BFA also supports a growing network of affiliated freediving clubs throughout the UK.
About freediving
As with any extreme sport, there are dangers connected to freediving. However, with training, and education, and ensuring you always train with a partner or coach, it is fun, challenging and extremely rewarding. It is a growth sport that attracts women as much as men, as it is as much about beauty, grace and nature, as it is about strength, power and fitness. Freediving dates back at least 4500 years to the pearl hunters and fishermen of the South Pacific. More recently, its popularity can be traced to the film The Big Blue, a fantasy documentary about the ‘fathers of freediving’, Enzo Majorca and Jacques Mayol, and in the present day, Tanya Streeter’s recent BBC series on freediving with whales and dolphins.Part of the fascination of the sport is that humans train their body to become more like fish. We all carry a natural ‘dive reflex’ which traces our origins as humans back to the oceans millions of years ago. With training, this reflex response can be increased, slowing the heart and constricting the peripheral blood vessels, ensuring oxygen-rich blood is directed to the essential organs of the brain and heart and away from other ‘non-essential’ organs.
BFA and sponsorship and brand integrity
As an organization we have an ethical responsibility to support both UK freedivng as a whole and our prospective sponsors. We are seeking partnerships with sponsors who fit well with the ethics and standards of the BFA. We will endeavour to ensure that any sponsorship is a congruent fit with the sponsee and we will ensure that there are no conflicting sponsorship deals with competitors for the same event.