Freediving as a Path to Healing, Health, and Happiness, with Freedive Taiwan’s Donny Mac
“For many people, going deeper and deeper causes their anxiety to go up, but you need it to go down as you go deeper. That’s where the steadiness of yoga and meditation can come in handy.”
Freediving is a sport and a mental and physical discipline that is growing in popularity globally. Simply put, freediving is any kind of underwater activity done on a breath-hold. Hailing from Scotland, Donny Mac now resides in Taiwan, running the Freedive Taiwan shop and his two podcasts: The Freedive Cafe and Thrivers. In this interview, Donny shares his journey from the highlands to the islands and what freediving means to him, the industry in Taiwan, the connection between yoga, meditation, and spiritual practice to freediving, as well as his favorite books and podcasts!
Curito:
Hi Donny, the man behind Freedive Taiwan and The Freedive Cafe Podcast, could you introduce yourself a little?
Donny:
Originally from Scotland, I left when I was pretty young, and I have lived in many countries since then, including The Netherlands, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Greece, and Taiwan for the last 8 years.
Curito:
Could you share how a Scotsman ended up starting a Freediving school in Taiwan back in 2017?
Donny:
I came to Taiwan in 2013 or 2014? I’m not sure. I can’t remember now! I was teaching English for a few years, and then I decided to do a freediving course in Indonesia, which was a long-term dream of mine, but I just never got my act together to go somewhere to do it. Then I had an opportunity to do it in 2016, so I did. As soon as I did my first freediving course, I fell in love with it, and I knew that was what I wanted to do. I completed all my studies, including the instructor course, and wanted to start teaching right away. So I registered the website address in 2017 and began teaching in 2018.
Curito:
What is Freediving? Have you seen this sport grow over the years?
Donny:
Freediving is any kind of underwater activity done on a breath-hold. But specifically, it could be seen as a sport or as a mental and physical, and even spiritual discipline. So, for instance, you can also freedive for fun, take your snorkeling to a new level, do underwater photography or spearfishing, and gathering food.
Freediving has grown massively since I first started. When I did my first course, there wasn’t much of a social media scene around freediving. It was very much a niche sport around the world composed of a very small group of core competitive divers. I would say that in the last 4 years, freediving has exploded as a global sport, as evidenced through the growth of my podcast and business. More and more people are getting interested in it, there is more social media and online education and exposure to freediving now for everybody.
“I’ve often said that freediving is an abbreviated yoga journey; the process of doing deep diving, where you are diving pretty deep depths, not only requires a physical ability; it also requires strong mental stability and equanimity. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, how good a swimmer, or how athletic you are. If you don’t have a good mental game, too, freediving is still going to be difficult. ”
Curito:
Is Taiwan known for Freediving? (Was there a potential market opportunity you saw?) If you could share with more freedivers out there about freediving in Taiwan, what would that be? Could Taiwan be a potential market known globally for freediving? Are most freediving shops based out of Xiao Liuqiu?
Donny:
I think in other parts of the world, Taiwan is not known for freediving. But in the last 3 years in Taiwan, freediving has exploded. I mean exploded probably 10 times as much as other places. So it is a different kind of freediving culture in Taiwan.
Regarding market opportunities, to be honest, I don’t care about that. I’m terrible with business. I just wanted to do something I enjoy doing and share it with other people. If I could make a living out of it while fulfilling my purpose, that’s all I’m looking for.
Freediving in Taiwan is 90% based on the young people freediving for fun and getting nice pictures as a social activity, which is fine. A very small percentage of people in Taiwan are focused on it as a sport or as a combined physical and mental discipline - that is more common in other places. But it is a growing part, I think. Recently Taiwan held its first freediving depth competition in March. When the border opens up and international athletes start to attend these competitions, I am sure Taiwan can begin to grow as a top freediving location in the world.
Taiwan could potentially be a good market for freediving, and it’s interesting because in the south of Taiwan, where I am located, in Xiao Liuqiu, it is a prime example. You have beautiful tropical water that is warm throughout the year. It gets pretty deep too, not too far from the shore. But, because Taiwan sits in a typhoon zone, the weather through the summer is often unpredictable, so it is difficult to guarantee its conditions. But on average, you get good conditions 7 out of 10 days. That’s the way it is here. If you go somewhere like the Philippines, Caribbeans, or Egypt, you have more reliable conditions most days throughout the year.
In Taiwan, yes, most freediving shops are located in Xiao Liuqiu, probably for the reasons I had mentioned above. Other places in Taiwan, like the Divecube in Taichung, Kenting, and other outlying islands in Taiwan have some freediving shops as well like Orchid Island and Green Island.
Curito:
What are some of the urban myths about freediving you would debunk?
Donny:
One of the urban myths about freediving is that it’s dangerous. Freediving is often called an extreme sport, and it’s not really; it’s incredibly safe. For this reason, I think it is so important to take a freediving course. You learn some basic information on a freediving course that takes freediving from being a dangerous activity to being an extremely safe activity. As long as you are with somebody else when you are freediving and following the correct safety protocols, it is very unlikely that anything will happen to anyone. But even at the highest level, in freediving, we don’t see people dying left, right and center; in the last 25 years, I think we have only seen one death in a professional competition. So, it’s not dangerous; most people are surprised that it is possible for everybody, thst regardless of who they are they can hold their breath for 1-2 minutes in a day or two when they start their freediving course. So, I think that the biggest myth is that freediving is dangerous, but it isn’t.
Curito:
For those who are familiar with yoga, meditation, plant-based diet practices, could you share how these disciplines and freediving complement each other, if at all? How can each discipline help the other?
Donny:
You find that freediving is often connected and linked to the yoga and meditation community, and other alternative communities. I’ve often said that freediving is an abbreviated yoga journey; the process of doing deep diving, where you are diving pretty deep depths, not only requires a physical ability; it also requires strong mental stability and equanimity. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, how good a swimmer, or how athletic you are. If you don’t have a good mental game, too, freediving is still going to be difficult. However, yoga and meditation can complement freediving very well. If you are talking about yoga in terms of asana and stretching, stretching is good for freediving. Experience in meditation and being a stable meditator is going to be helpful in freediving. As you are freediving, you are getting deeper and deeper all the time and further away from your safety zone and oxygen. So you need to be at your most relaxed and most focused and aware of the present moment at the deepest point of the dive. For many people, going deeper and deeper causes their anxiety to go up, but you need it to go down as you go deeper. That’s where the steadiness of yoga and meditation can come in handy.
Regarding the question about a plant-based diet, I am not on a plant-based diet anymore. I was a vegetarian all of my adult life and plant-based for several years but, I am one of those people who switched to eating meat after being mainly vegetarian for my whole life. I wouldn’t say that a plant-based diet is a healthy option for everyone, it really depends on the individual so I won’t comment more about the food side of things.
Curito:
Mindfulness and mental health has been a huge center of conversation during this pandemic, do you see a correlation with breathwork and freediving that people could better understand the sport to see it as another activity to learn to heal perhaps?
Donny:
An activity to learn to heal, definitely. For me, a big part of why I do freediving is that it helps me with my own mental health. I have had to deal with mental health issues in the past, mainly to do with anxiety of various kinds, from underlying general anxiety to acute anxiety attacks. Freediving has helped me to overcome that, and I don't even understand fully why yet, but the fact that you have to control your mind in a very obvious way when you are freediving, I think that helps to keep my mind in check. Freediving is physically demanding, and that means that you have to be very conscious of your physical condition. You need to eat well, sleep well; you can’t have an unhealthy lifestyle and enjoy freediving, especially deep freediving at the same time. I think the whole lifestyle for a freediver goes towards having a healthier body which in turn goes towards a healthier mind which leads to helping with mental health issues. For me, it is always healing to go into the water, no matter what I am feeling I always feel better when I come out of the water, every time.
“One of the urban myths about freediving is that it’s dangerous. Freediving is often called an extreme sport, and it’s not really; it’s incredibly safe. For this reason, I think it is so important to take a freediving course. You learn some basic information on a freediving course that takes freediving from being a dangerous activity to being an extremely safe activity. ”
Curito:
Tell us more about why you started The Freedive Cafe Podcast when you decided to dive into pursuing Freediving as your professional career, to this date you have covered over 100 episodes! Which episode/s is your favorite thus far?
Donny:
I started The Freedive Cafe Podcast because I love podcasts, I just thought it would be great if there was one where I could just listen to people talk about freediving all day long. I thought, I have a laptop, a microphone, so why don’t I just do it myself, and I did. That was the first freediving podcast, the first podcast that focused on freediving as a sport, the athletes, and freediving as a mental and physical discipline.
Why did I choose to do this as a career? Well, I had nothing else at the time. I was just teaching English in a cram school in Taiwan. At a certain point, you need to do something in life that you really want to do. Since I fell in love with freediving, I very quickly moved towards a professional career in this field. Yes, I have done over 100 episodes and there are way too many episodes for me to pick a favorite. Normally, once I make an episode I don't listen to them again. But definitely, stand-out episodes would be the ones with my freediving coach, Aharon Solomons, as well as William Trubridge, especially the latest one.
Curito:
Taiwan was relatively unaffected by the pandemic in 2020, was the overall Freediving industry affected globally? What did people in the field do during this time? How are you coping with the recent Level 3 alert Taiwan is experiencing now?
Donny:
Yes it was! While we were sitting comfortably in Taiwan last year during the pandemic teaching freediving courses here, the rest of the world had to change and adapt. A lot of people unfortunately were not able to teach and had to shut down their businesses. A lot of the instructors were not at their schools, they were scattered around the world in different locations. Some of them started teaching online workshops and theory classes but it definitely affected this industry. It is an entertainment and tourism industry. So, yes, a lot of online webinars and seminars were created during this time.
A couple of days before we went into level 3, I had all my courses canceled for the next 6-7 weeks so straight away I lost thousands of dollars. It's a pretty stressful time to own a freediving school right now. I am lucky I have some savings, I won’t survive if this continues throughout the year. I’m really hoping for some improvement in the next couple of months. I am hoping we can go back to teaching freediving courses by the end of the summer, but honestly, I don't think it will happen before then. But who knows!
Curito:
Personally and professionally where do you see growth for you in this next decade? What would be your two-cent recommendation or suggestion to anyone who may be interested in learning more about freediving?
Donny:
I’m not sure what is going to happen but personally, I want to become better at the things I like to do. I want to be a better version of myself. I am quite focused on wanting to overcome my anxiety and traumas, want to become a happier person, and help others to do the same. I think that one of the most important things is to help others grow. Professionally I'm not really sure, I'm much more concerned about developing happiness rather than developing my business!
If you want a great resource, of course, check out The Freedive Cafe Podcast. If you want just an introduction to freediving, there are a couple of books you could read. William Trubridge’s book, Oxygen, James Nestor’s book called Deep, and another book called One Breath by Adam Scolnick gives you insights into the freediving community 6 years ago. Then once you are more interested you can head on over to The Freedive Cafe Podcast and come to Freedive Taiwan to take a course!
Curito:
Which books or podcasts would you recommend to someone you meet for the first time?
Donny:
No Such Thing as a Fish is a funny podcast about facts.
Rich Roll podcast was what inspired me to start The Freedive Cafe Podcast. I do long-form interviews with people.
My other podcast, Thrivers Podcast, is the same format, I interview inspirational individuals, interesting and fascinating people, athletes, scientists, survivors and people who recover from addiction, etc.
If you are interested in meditation, I would suggest Practicing the Jhanas by Stephen Snyder and Tina Rasmussen whom I’ve also interviewed on the Thrivers Podcast.
The most influential spiritual speaker for me would be Francis Lucille, he has a book called Eternity Now if you want some spiritual inspiration.
Yoga is one of the most horribly misunderstood subjects in the world. If you want to know more about yoga beyond glorified stretching, I would highly recommend the book, The Deeper Dimension of Yoga by Georg Feuerstein. Every book he has written about yoga is very good. He focuses on the traditional side of yoga and not the modern forms of yoga.
My own teacher, Gregor Maehle has a lot of great books on yoga worth checking out as well.
Curito:
Thanks for sharing your story and insights on freediving with us, Donny! We look forward to perhaps doing a freediving workshop with you when lockdown is lifted and I am excited to see what other inspiring guest speakers you host on your podcast going forward. Watch a short clip introducing you to Freedive Taiwan below, and stay connected with Donny on his social media accounts to be informed of his course dates and latest podcast episodes!
Freedive Taiwan IG & FB // Freedive Cafe & Thrivers Podcast IG // Freedive Taiwan Youtube
First published on June 4, 2021
