Master Freediving Training at the Best Location in Asia
Arguably the Best Freediving Location in the World!
Our master’s program is something we couldn’t be more proud of! The academy masters – all are master and instructor-level freedivers – train in a unique, family-like atmosphere unlike any other. The social group makes diving with the academy laidback and fun while training hard! We have very easy access to the ocean, only minutes from the academy. The dive lines where we train – without the use of a boat are literally a 30-second swim from where we enter the ocean. Fixed training lines, fantastic diving conditions year-round, and we have our own 25-meter pool and a fully equipped academy – training doesn’t get better than this.
Finding the right place to train isn’t easy. It all starts with the price. As freedivers, we know that the cost for two weeks, a month or even longer can be out of control. Why would you pay $25, $30 or more for a single session? This is ridiculous!
And then, when you find an affordable place, you pay for the taxi. You have to share a cab and wait for others to be ready, and you have to travel each day to reach the dive spot, whether via taxi or boat – the boat! Most freediving centers do drift diving, and although drift diving with a boat can be nice, you have to wait for others, your training time is limited, and you are dependent on the currents. With most freediving centers, it just doesn’t work…
In a perfect world, we would all be diving in a beautiful green tropical paradise with fantastic restaurants and local markets, near-perfect diving conditions almost immediately from shore, cheap yet high-standard accommodation and lots of activities to do for your days off.
But yeah… In reality, training is usually not as convenient as you would like, it’s pricey, and the diving and living conditions are far from ideal.
Master Freediving Training in the Philippines
The owner of the Freedive Academy, Panglao, travelled the world to find the best freediving locations, and of course, this is subjective. Still, he found no other place better than the location where we are based here in Panglao.
Panglao is a luscious green tropical island in the heart of the Philippines. The island is relatively big (about 20 km wide), so it’s easy to escape the busy tourist areas. The island has green everywhere, is covered with banana, mango, coconut and palm trees, and has big roads for easy cruising around with your scooter. Around the island, you’ll find beautiful white sandy beaches, except for the north side of the island where we are based.
On the island’s north side – on just a tiny part, you will find no white beaches – we have a cliff and massive drop-off!! And this cliff and our location towards the big island Bohol East of us make our dive location nearly perfect all year round. With pride and without hesitation, we can say that we dive at the best freediving location in Asia, arguably in the world!
We are Asia’s only known dive site with unlimited depth directly from the shore. With just an easy swim, we can reach our fixed lines easily. We have lines set up for you at -50, -80, and -130 meters. Our beautiful coral wall has about an 8 (!) meter shallow water swim, and this cliff immediately goes down 25 meters. Twenty meters further in, we already have access to 50 meters depth. And from there, with a short swim, we have an 80 and 130-meter line – we love our drop-off!
The coral wall makes freediving in the Philippines spectacular. You swim or walk over a short sandbank to the drop-off when you enter the water. The drop-off has caves and canyons and is covered by beautiful coral. Immediately you’ll be surrounded by lots and lots of fish. We literally swim through the famous Panglao Sardines cloud to our fixed dive lines. And although it is rare, we’ve had whale sharks on the lines, dolphins and manta’s passing by, massive sea turtles and four minke whales checking us out, and not so long ago, we had an enormous pod of about 20 to 30 pilot whales passing by. We even had a 20-meter blue whale checking us out for about 5 minutes – with only 10 meters away from us, an incredible experience we’ll never forget! And this, with an average water temperature of 28C, up to 40 meters visibility, and rarely any current, makes freediving in Panglao fantastic! We are freediving in paradise!
In September 2019, we moved to our New Freediving Center!
We’ve built an incredible home-away-from-home for freedivers!
We are so proud! We moved to the new academy in 2019, and it’s impressive, fully equipped, looks great, and super convenient! Of course, as a Master freediver, you don’t need to use the classrooms – unless you start your Master Training with the SSI Level 3 freediving course, the Molchanovs Wave 3 or AIDA 4 course or when you take a master training package and combine the training with an SSI Freediving Instructor Course, Molchanovs Instructor Course or AIDA Instructor Course.
In the middle of the resort and center ground, we have a two-lane 25-meter pool with an attached shallow water area for your static training. We have a beautiful outdoor yoga area and a stretching area which we also use as a small open-air apnea gym with rowing machines, cycles, dumbles, battle ropes and a TRX setup. And next to the pool, we just finished our first five luxury bamboo sports bungalows, perfect for relaxing from diving and travelling in Bohol. Life in Panglao is fantastic!
Get in Touch, and let us tell You about the Possibilities!
Like what you hear?! We’re not surprised; we love it here too!
Because we’ve limited the number of Master freedivers to dive here, it’s wisest to confirm your spot asap.
We work on a first-come, first-serve basis. Contact us today to see if we have any availability. We will answer all possible questions you might have about accommodation, your long-term stay, out-of-the-water activities, food, and anything!
Contact us via this form to see the possibilities – no strings attached! Our support team will come back to you usually within a couple of hours – and btw, they’re freedivers too, so they know what you need!
Just fill in the form, and if they’re not diving, you’ll hear from us soon.
Master Freedive Training in Asia doesn’t get any Better!
A Complete Training Program for Freedivers who want to go Deeper!
We are extremely proud of our Master Training Program! Our Master’s program is based on the Molchanovs Base Training systems combined with our own many years of experience. We developed it around freedivers who go on vacation to go deeper and become better all-around freedivers. We don’t want to be a dive center where people ‘just’ meet up for training like most centers without any guidance – we are a true Professional Freediving Development and Freedive Instructor Training center with a great group of people around who all enjoy the social and laidback family atmosphere around the shop while training hard.
Our Master Training Program is a group of freedivers with a minimum education level of Molchanovs Wave 3, SSI Level 3 or AIDA 4*. The Freedive Academy Panglao Masters train by themselves but under the guidance of a competitive freediver and very experienced master instructor.or Instructor Trainer
*starting the Master Training Program while signing up for an SSI Level 3, Molchanovs Wave 3, or AIDA 4 course is also possible!
The Master Freedivers Follow a Training Schedule With;
Deep Training
Dry- and Gym Training
Static
Open-Water Conditioning Training
Stretching and Yoga Classes
Pool Training
But most of the time… We’ll be diving deep!!!
And when possible, some Masters will give specialist guest workshops on any topics they like.
Every week the Masters sit down with an Instructor (at least Master Instructor level) and discuss their training week and challenges. Look at the following week’s program and how to fit in personalised exercises to become the best freediver you can be.
The program is very well balanced with single session days, two session days, rest days, then days we do evening dry training sessions and days where we do evening static sessions in the pool. Imagine; doing static in the evening in a pool lit by warm light, a lovely cool breeze, and the calming background sound of the ocean! It’s all pretty incredible! We love freediving in Panglao!
Get in Touch, and let us tell You about the Possibilities!
Like what you hear?! We’re not surprised; we love it here too!
Because we’ve limited the number of Master freedivers to dive here, it’s wisest to confirm your spot asap.
We work on a first-come, first-serve basis. Contact us today to see if we have any availability. We will answer all possible questions you might have about accommodation, your long-term stay, out-of-the-water activities, food, and anything!
Contact us via this form to see the possibilities – no strings attached! Our support team will come back to you usually within a couple of hours – and by the way, they’re freedivers too, so they know what you need!
Just fill in the form, and if they’re not diving, you’ll hear from us soon.
The Best Deep Diver you can Be!!
We’ve seen some Amazing Results!
In the relatively short time the Masters have been with us, we’ve seen them;
Making big jumps in depth;
doing much longer hangs;
becoming stronger;
becoming smarter freedivers;
improve their technique significantly;
master the mouthfill;
increasing their breath-hold time by minutes;
becoming more all-round;
developing higher CO2 tolerance levels.
And they are doing all of this in this Stunning Environment!
Please note; this video was shot at our first location. We still dive at the same reef, but we moved about 300 meters down the road to a brand-new and fully equipped dive center with bungalows and our very own two-lane 25-meter pool.
But don’t Believe Us! Believe the
Many, Many Freediving Champions Who already Visited Us!
Of course, we can tell you how good we are, how awesome we are, how spectacular the island Panglao is, and of course, how fantastic our training location and freediving center are. We can talk for hours about the friendliness of the locals and the beauty of the Philippines, but why would you believe us?!
Here are some of the champions – who are used to the best – who demand the best! And read what they had to say about training with us!
Alexey Molchanov – World Champion CWT & CNF and 16x WR holder
I like it here a lot! Super nice conditions for deep diving, very friendly people and super professional instructors – after I taught them :p I will definitely come back for more adventures!
Şahika Ercümen – World Record Holder
The Freedive Academy was much more than an amazing freediving center. It was like a family. It was my first time in the Philippines and after my first training with Freedive Academy, I already started to plan my second visit and after 1 month I am now coming back to this beautiful centre. We only swim 20-30 meters from the shore to train, water is warm and calm most of the time and everybody is full of positive energy. What can I ask more? It is definitely one of my favourite destinations. I am so grateful to the Freedive Academy Panglao family. See you soon.
Evren Orhon – Coach of the Turkish National Freediving Team
I came to train to with the Freedive Academy Panglao in December 2015 and stayed there for four months. The strongest part of the Freedive Academy is its location. You don’t need a boat to go diving. The depth is just right next to you!! The club’s location is so good that in four months I only had two non-diveable days. The pool next to the club building offers great static opportunity, even at night time. The staff is so helpful not only in the water but on anything you need about your stay or moving around. The Freedive Academy Panglao is a must-visit point for all freedivers. The only concern is you can get hooked and may not like your next freediving destination as much.
Elliot Hyomin Kim – Korean National Team Coach and National Record Holder
I have been training for a long time all over the world from Asia to Europe, including four world championships as an athlete and coach. The freediving location is very important from beginner to deep diver. Here at the Freedive Academy, you can approach all the buoy’s from beginner to 150m deep within 200m from shore. Weather is also fantastic as I am staying here for two months from June to July. I have not had a single day on which I could not dive due to the weather conditions. The person here in charge of the center, Vincent, is a super nice person who loves the ocean and will welcome everybody with the best hospitality. If you have not yet tried the Freedive Academy Panglao. I strongly recommend you to TRY.
Davide Carrera – World Champion and World Record Holder
I spent the first two weeks and a half of this January at Freedive Academy Panglao for training. From the first mail, I understood that Vincent was a very kind and generous person, at that time he wasn’t there cause he was in India to improve his yoga. Still, his Team welcomed me, and I felt at home from the beginning.
The depth is just in front of the dock, 300 meters walking from the school and 45 seconds from my room 🙂 warm water and normally not much current, perfect conditions and the team is smiling all the time, very kind, responsible, professional and always ready to go in the water and make you feel safe and part of the team.
In few minutes by scooter, it’s easy to find fresh and local fruits and vegetables and other good food, Philippines people are very lovely people, I always felt nice vibes everywhere I went, also in town, everybody smiling and ready to help you….I loved this place very much, and I’m missing it, I hope to come back soon…Thanks again, everybody!
Vincent Mathieu – World Champion Static
You cannot say anything less about the Freedive Academy Panglao than that it’s a simply magical environment. With the perfect training conditions – visibility of 30m and a similar 30 degrees Celsius at the moment – in a calm sea, you have all you need to progress from 5 to 95m of depth.
I certified 9 minutes + static in the swimming pool at the Academy. I recommend training by the colours of the sunset or during the evening with the mood lights on and the stars shining down.
And what to say about the drop-off… You would believe it was made especially for freedivers. Lying down on the 25-meter curbed edge you can admire the corals from underneath, spectacular colour changes and incredible species that will delight both biology amateurs and underwater photographers. Did I already mention the family of sardines who form an essential element of the ecosystem at this part of the drop-off? Not to be missed are the hunting fish and the hungry needlefish around.
If you want a great freedive centre, this is the place to go ;-)!
Thanks to Vincent, and Sebastian for their kindness and hospitality. I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Sendoh Wang – Chinese NR Holder & Asia Continental Record Holder in all Depth Disciplines
Freedive Academy Panglao is a really nice and fantastic place to learn freediving and train. It’s not only about the setup, high-quality gears using for teaching, the great 25m pool, but also the professional and friendly instructor and owner here.
With their support, I can keep my training routine every day, even in quarantine time. They provide safe conditions for study and training freediving. Highly recommended if you want to come to Panglao.
Apply Now for our Master’s Programs!
Are you ready to challenge yourself to become the best freediver you can be?!
This is what you get with the Freedive Academy Panglao Master Program!
You follow a training program developed by competitive freedivers who are all Master Freediving Instructors and Instructor Trainers. This training program includes deep training with our other Masters, conditioning, pool, dry- and gym training, stretching and yoga classes, static – and with a 15-minute scooter trip, we regularly visit the 50-meter Olympic-size pool in Tagbilaran too.
We’ll do brief daily evaluations and weekly group sit-downs with one of the Master instructors to keep you on the right track.
To celebrate free travelling and the re-opening of the Philippines, we are offering a 50% temporary discount on our training packages for those coming to the Philippines or booking their trip now.
Guided and Organised Training is $700, $350 a month or $250 for two weeks.
Please note to protect the group dynamics and atmosphere amongst the divers. We decided only to open the master’s program for people joining the program for a minimum period of two weeks- daily, or weekly packages are not available.
And if you plan on coming to the Philippines for multiple months, please contact us since we can discount the following months even more.
*The prices mentioned above include taxes, environmental and snorkelling fees, and the use of the facility like showers, toilets and safe storage for your gear.
We guarantee that you become a better freediver!
You’ll be the BEST you can be!
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