Take a Molchanovs Instructor Course

And Teach Technical Freediving and Training!

Running Molchanovs Instructor Courses Made So Much Sense!

Adding the Molchanovs freediving programs to our center has been very exciting for everyone involved.

Besides traditional freediving agencies like AIDA and SSI, many dive centers are adding Molchanovs to their offerings. The Molchanovs system is about technical freediving. It’s an in-depth training and education system developed by some of the best, if not THE best, freedivers in the world.

If you want to train all-around high-level freedivers, Molchanovs is definitely the option to go with. No other agency in the world offers such a complete and comprehensive training and education system as Molchanovs. The Molchanovs Training System was developed to make you the best freediver you can be.

Develop yourself and Experience the Real Flip Flop Lifestyle!

Who knew that changing your life could be so much fun!

When we came to Panglao in 2015, we knew we landed in paradise. Not just because the island is green and covered by palm, coconut, papaya, and banana trees. Panglao is an incredible island with the most spectacular ocean and year-round near-perfect conditions. And, of course, Filipinos are the most friendly people you’ll ever meet.

Now, it was up to us to complete it all and provide our guests with a fantastic dive center ideally suited for teaching freediving courses, freedive training, and hosting professional development programs. The freediving center is only a few years old – it was built along the access road to our first dive center here in Panglao, so we saw the building being constructed. The academy has three large classrooms, each fully equipped with all the possible tools and gadgets to teach freediving. On the ground floor, we have the reception area, kitchen, retail store, and living room area where our students hang out, watch movies, and play board games.

Via the backdoor in the academy, you access the outside terras with a beautiful bamboo canopy, a large lounge area, gym equipment, and a stretching and yoga area. You’ll find a super nice private to the academy two-lane 25-meter pool in the middle of the back area with dedicated static for your daily static training. All poolside, we have five beautiful native bamboo bungalows and one more luxury apartment – we plan on building more bungalows in 2025. Just down the road from the academy in our brand new adventure center, we are working on building a brand-new super-healthy restaurant with tons of fantastic dishes for freedivers, athletes, and deep blue enthusiasts – we expect to open the restaurant in late 2024. The dive area, the sports resort, the terraces, and the academy are all designed and made to create this fantastic home for freedivers.

But it’s not only the freediving center which is ‘as good as it gets’, but freediving in the Philippines, Napaling Reef, and the ocean here, and of course, Panglao and its province Bohol are incredible too. When you travel to Panglao, you immediately notice that Panglao is a beautiful green island with long and wide roads, enclosed by lots of greens, making cruising around fantastic. When you drive around here on your scooter, in the cool mornings, in your shorts and flips flops, you immediately experience the flip-flop freediver lifestyle. The island has excellent high-end facilities and restaurants and offers cheap but good quality, long-term stay housing.

Freediving and Training don’t get better than this!

We change and gear up at the center, jumping on our scooters for about 300 meters until we reach the ocean entry. We dive at Napaling Reef with the Bohol sardine school. Just 8 meters from shore, we have a 25-meter coral wall that instantly drops to hundreds of meters depth. It’s so nice and convenient to go diving without a boat, without needing to keep track of what others want. We dive in extraordinary conditions from shore at any time of the day. We have fixed dive lines ready for you at -50, -80, and -130 meters for the truly brave. With year-round near-perfect diving conditions, freediving doesn’t get better than this. The water temperature ranges from 26 – 31C, and the visibility is usually around 30 meters and goes up to an easy 40 meters – we even had a few 50-meter days! With excellent year-round diving conditions, diving without a boat at any moment, we can be very flexible and plan our freedive training wisely.

Although rare, Napaling Reef also gets the occasional big visitors like blue whales, grey whales, and pilot whales. Of course, we regularly have whale sharks and mantas. No worries if we don’t see any of the big ones; we always have fish around the lines. We have the sardines, but often, we’ll see schools of barracudas, Napoleon fish, jackfish, and the occasional turtles around the lines.

The convenience and location of the center in Panglao, the experienced instructor team, of course, Panglao, and the ocean here at 300 meters from the shop where we dive without a boat – combine this all with a personalized package for your instructor course and training, and you can’t go wrong with the Freedive Academy.

This is how it is to be freedive in Panglao!

Please note that this video was shot at our first location. We still dive at the same incredible Napaling Reef with the sardines but moved about 300 meters down the road to a brand-new and fully equipped dive center with bungalows and a two-lane 25-meter pool.

We Run Molchanovs Instructor Courses almost Every Month!

We are a big freediving center with a great facility, premium freediving gear, and a fantastic team at one of the best diving locations in the world. This recipe for success made us a fully developed and very complete freedive development center. Not only are we certifying new Molchanovs instructors almost every month, but we are capable of offering great packages at a low price and personalized with the things you need. We package the ‘standard’ zero to hero freediving program, freediving internship, or freedive instructor course with, for example, extra freedive training, accommodation, pickups, a swim teacher course, or additional land and water tours in Panglao. We’ll make sure that you get the package that you need. These are the freediving packages we can offer you.

Molchanovs Wave/Lap 2 Instructor Course
Molchanovs Wave/Lap 3 Instructor Course
Freedive Instructor Cross Overs
Zero to Hero Freediving Program

Freedive Instructor Internship
Swim Teacher and Freediving Instructor Combo
Mermaid Instructor and Freediving Instructor Combo

Why Should You Choose to Become a Molchanovs Instructor?

When we started in Panglao in 2015, we first focused on SSI. We mostly ran SSI freedive instructor courses, SSI freediving courses, and, occasionally, some AIDA freediving courses. Choosing SSI was a great decision – still one of the best business decisions so far. However, with the growing popularity of the Molchanovs systems and the development of their training and education system, the system has been a great addition to the courses we currently offer.

SSI has a massive dive center network and is an excellent option if you want to work for a freediving center or start your own dive center. With AIDA International, you can work anywhere in the world as an independent freediving instructor without the need to be affiliated with a dive center – these are similar conditions as Molchanovs has for their instructors. Molchanovs, however, is developing a fantastic community of global freedivers with a fun and challenging reward system via digital badges, and Molchanovs keeps their freedivers engaged by offering, for the greater part, free training.

Molchanovs’s student certification fees are slightly higher than those of other agencies, while the annual membership fees are similar to SSI – higher than AIDA’s. Molchanovs’s growth in the last few years has been nothing short of spectacular. Their training systems are by far the most developed and offer more value than the other different freediving agencies. You really can not go wrong by becoming a Molchanovs Freediving Instructor.

Change your Lifestyle! Move to a Tropical Island!

At the Freedive Academy Panglao, we offer different instructor courses from various agencies and levels. You can take an instructor course via Zero to Hero, via a freediving internship, or we can make you an excellent package with accommodation, training, airport pickups, scooter rental, etc. Whatever package you choose, you can’t go wrong with what Panglao offers!

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The Molchanovs Wave Instructor Courses!

Do you want to become a Molchanovs Open Water Instructor? You start here!

The Molchanovs Freediving System is known for offering technical, high-level skills and performance freediving. This applies to the recreational Molchanovs freediving courses and the instructor levels. The Molchanovs Advanced and Master level courses have arguably the most challenging requirements in the industry because Molchanovs is the only organization that made no fins mandatory in their courses.

Even though they are the most challenging in the industry, we believe that anyone with the right guidance, structure, and training plans can become a Molchanovs instructor. We believe the performance requirements should not be a selection criterion for choosing the right freediving instructor agency.

When you have completed the SSI Performance Freediver course, the AIDA 4 or Molchanovs Wave 3 course, and are not yet a freediving instructor but want to join the Molchanovs movement, this Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor Course is the right choice.

To start, the student must have a valid CPR, First Aid, and Oxygen Provider certificate and a medical statement not older than one year. The First Aid course and the medical must be completed in Panglao but must be completed before the course. Finally, the candidate must be at least 18 years old.

Open Water Teaching Starts with the Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor Level

You can take the official Freedive Instructor Training Course (FITC), the combo package, or a cross-over! The Molchanovs Wave 2 FITC is the first open-water freediving course available as a full course or a cross-over package. If you want to cross over to Molchanovs, ensure you have the proper certification. For example, the SSI (Level 1) Freediving Instructor can’t cross over since you need to be an SSI Level 2 Advanced Freediving Instructor.

Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor Certificate

Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor Training Course

The Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor can teach Molchanovs Wave 1 and 2, the Lap 1 and 2 courses, Theory 1 and 2, and the Discover Freediving program and guide the Base Training Level 1 to 4 programs.

Prerequisites: The candidate must have a Wave 3 Certification or pass the Wave 3 Crossover Evaluation and have a First Aid Certificate (no older than two years).

Duration: 9 days

Performance & Course Completion Requirements:

Constant Weight Bi Fins (CWTB): 40mtr. (dive time 80-90s)
Free Immersion (FIM): 40mtr.
Constant No Fins (CNF): 30mtr.
Dynamic Bi Fins (DYNB): 100mtr.
Dynamic No Fins (DNF): 60mtr.

Static Breath-Hold: 4:00min.
Standby Rescue (1min. Rescue Hang): 15mtr.
BO Rescue (50mtr. tow incl. Rescue Breaths): 25mtr.
CO2 Dive: 60sec. Surface Kicking followed by 20m CWT dive

* All skills need to be demonstrated at an instructor-level quality.

Price without package discount per person: $1350

Please note that before starting the Molchanovs FITC, you will have to pay an additional $100 for the Molchanovs professional registration - we will put this on your invoice since we need to pay this to Molchanovs before the course starts. Then, once we certify you as a Molchanovs Wave 2 or Lap 2 Instructor, to become an active instructor, you must pay Molchanovs the first-year annual fee directly, which will also be $100 annually.

Molchanovs, SSI or AIDA Instructor Combo

The Molchanovs, SSI, or AIDA Freediving Instructor Combo

It doesn't matter if you do a Zero to Hero, a freediving internship, or a single instructor course with training; with the Freedive Academy Freediving Instructor Combo, you get the best of two worlds!

First, please note that this is not a 2-in-1 course - you won't get two certifications with one course! The Freedive Instructor Combo is an entire Instructor course followed by an Instructor crossover course.

Some guests want to take the SSI Instructor course because it, like no other, prepares them to become proper dive professionals. Some want to become AIDA or Molchanovs instructors because of the agencies' flexibility.

The Freedive Academy runs SSI & Molchanovs, SSI & AIDA, and Molchanovs & AIDA combo courses.

We are saving time with performance requirements that are often the same between the different agencies. We're saving time discussing and demonstrating the skills. An excellent example is also, with the SSI and AIDA Instructor Course, we add instructor candidate skills video review, which is usually only done with the Molchanovs FITC. We are adding more value to the different courses, running both courses more efficiently, and thus can do the crossover in a shorter time frame and, therefore, cheaper. The combo package is one fantastic and compact package for both certificates! It's truly the best of both worlds.

Price without package discount per person: $1850

Please note that the above price does not include the mandatory ~$350 SSI fee for the registration and annual membership fee, the SSI Freediving Instructor kit, and the Advanced Freediving Instructor kit.

Also, the first-year annual membership and professional registration of Molchanovs are not included, which is $200.

The additional fee to become an active AIDA Instructor is the least expensive of all agencies and is set at €50 a year.

The Freedive Academy Instructor Course Schedule

We run SSI, AIDA, and Molchanovs instructor courses every month now!

We can start the recreational Molchanovs Wave 1 and 2 courses any day of the week and run them multiple times a week. The Wave 3 (or SSI Master course or AIDA 4) is already more difficult to schedule since we only have a few instructors capable of teaching these levels. We run the Wave 3 courses usually two times a month. The same goes for the instructor courses – there are even fewer instructors capable of teaching these, and add to this that there are fewer students in each course, and thus we need to schedule the courses carefully. This makes it necessary that you join an already scheduled course or book your trip very early so we can set the course according to your dates.

You must schedule your trip wisely. The same applies to the internships and Zero to Hero freediving programs. Although you can come earlier or leave later, your freediving internship and Zero to Hero are also scheduled around your instructor course. If you do ‘only’ an instructor course with us, arriving in Panglao the day before your course starts is not uncommon but makes it very challenging. We highly recommend coming at least one week before your course so you have time to adjust from traveling and get into the rhythm of training every day.

Please feel free to contact us anytime with any scheduling questions you may have.

Our guests are finding us for professional development programs and instructor courses! The beginner-to-freeding instructor programs with the new bonuses are especially popular. Every month, we run at least one, mostly two FITCs, mostly Molchanovs and AIDA, and every couple of months, an SSI Instructor Course. We are also continuing to run Wave 3 Instructor upgrades online.

The courses below are confirmed and happening, but some might still have somewhat flexible dates. If the below dates don't work with your particular schedule, please don't hesitate to contact us! We have the team in place, and since most of our guests are here long-term, we can often move courses around. Message us!

~Dec 14 - 18, 2024

Molchanovs W2 ITC Cross Over