Embracing Freediving and Becoming Better All-Round Freedivers with Charles Muller
Charles is the academy’s lead Master Instructor and is responsible for the master training program. With his wealth of experience, he takes our masters from advanced freedivers to instructors and far beyond.
“I have been freediving for over ten years. My primary goal is to empower people to use their bodies and minds so they can achieve what they think is impossible.
I achieve this by using my build-up knowledge of the sport and making the mind shifts necessary to exceed your perceived limitations. I love all freediving has to offer: diving with marine life, freedive competitions, teaching freediving, and my favorite, Static Apnea.
Join our master’s program and allow me to be your humble guide to an extraordinary journey of self-discovery! We’ll embody what it means to be a Master Freediver through education, advanced training methods, and mentorship while having the adventure of a lifetime.”
Master Freediving Group Training at the Best Location in Asia
Arguably the Best Freediving Location in the World!
If you are looking for a place to train in a social and family-like atmosphere with safe and well-maintained equipment and exceptional diving conditions – look no further!
The academy masters are all master and instructor-level freedivers who 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 effortless access to the ocean, only minutes from the academy. The dive lines where we train – without using a boat – are literally a 30-second swim from where we enter the ocean. Fixed training lines, fantastic diving conditions year-round, and our 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 of 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 depend 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 many 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.
Independent Master Freediving Training in the Philippines
The owner of the Freedive Academy, Panglao, traveled the world to find the best freediving locations; of course, this is subjective. Still, he found no other place better than where we are based 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. We have dive lines for you at -50, -75, and -130 meters. To reach our drop-off, we need to swim out for about 8 (!) meters, and this beautiful coral wall 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. When you enter the water, you swim or walk over a short sandbank to the drop-off. 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 many, many 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 is 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 our own 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 have our first five bamboo sports bungalows, perfect for relaxing from diving and traveling 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 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 – by the way; they’re freedivers too, so they know what you need!
Just fill in the form; if they’re not diving, you’ll hear from us soon.
Master Training in Asia doesn’t get any Better!
A Fully Equipped Facility and Incredible Dive Spot for Freedivers who Want to Go Deeper!
A great group of master freedivers, all training together, enjoying the island life together, and all sharing one love – the ocean! Every week we share a general training plan to get you started or inspired. We offer self-training without any instructors with you in the water – you train with like-minded divers and do each other safety. It’s up to the master divers to follow the general training plan or develop and follow their own plans. The Freedive Academy training plan is based on the Molchanovs Base Training systems combined with our many years of experience. We designed it around freedivers who go on vacation to go deeper and become better all-around freedivers. It’s for all-around getting better, for those focussing on becoming instructors and diving from -30 to around -70 or -80 meters.
We don’t want to be a dive center where guests ‘just’ meet up for training like most centers – we are a true Freedive Instructor Training center with a great group of people who enjoy the social and laidback family atmosphere around the shop while training hard.
The Master divers diving with the Academy all have a minimum education level of Molchanovs Wave 3, SSI Level 3 or AIDA 4 or equivalent from another agency. The masters organise their training in a Facebook messenger group, train by themselves, and do each other safety.
*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!!!
You want to develop your own training plan! Great, go for it!
Some divers only use the general training plan as inspiration. Usually, master divers are working on something specific and know how to develop their own training plan. We have plenty of instructors around, and for questions, Edwin, the dive shop coordinator, is always around too.
Important to know; we are open seven days a week. You can dive and train seven days a week at any time you wish. You can use the pool seven days a week – on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon; our interns are doing safety for you – so there is no need to team up with others during these sessions. And you can use the equipment all week, and the yoga classes on Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning are also free to join.
All of this is included in your independent training package!
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 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 – by the way; they’re freedivers too, so they know what you need!
Just fill in the form; 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 moved about 300 meters down the road to a brand-new and fully equipped dive center with bungalows and our 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 conditions – 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 Independent or Self 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 Training Program!
You develop your own training program or follow a general training program developed by competitive freedivers who are all Master Freediving Instructors and Instructor Trainers.
Access to a messenger group with masters training with us in Panglao who use this group for buddying, scheduling their training sessions, dinner plans and organizing tours and events.
This training includes the possibility of doing line training every day in one of the world’s most comfortable and stunning freediving locations.
Seven days a week, access to the pool, dry- and gym training at the academy with on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon guaranteed pool safeties ready to guide your sessions.
Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning yoga classes at the academy for all masters are also free to join.
To celebrate free traveling after COVID, we are offering a temporary discount on the training packages for those coming to the Philippines or booking their trip now.
Master Group Training is $650, $350 monthly, or $250 for two weeks.
Please note to protect the group dynamics and atmosphere amongst the divers. We decided only to open the master 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 get in touch with 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, equipment rental and safe storage for your gear.
