Live Free Diving — Attraction in Riviera Beach

I can’t say enough good things about my experience with Live Free Diving. I’ve taken both the PADI Mermaid and PADI Freediver courses with them, as well as additional training opportunities to develop my skills between courses.

Keke and Farrell do an amazing job of laying the foundation for freediving and mermaiding in a fun, safe, and totally attainable way. Keke made the Mermaid course fun and playful, while also helping me to develop my skills in a way that made me confident enough to pursue the freediving course. Any lingering nervousness I had about beginning to freedive totally went away after the first few minutes of class. Keke and Farrell spend the first part of the course reviewing the elearning so that the information is fresh and ready to incorporate during the pool session later that day. They also supplement the elearning with with information from books and videos that helps to expand your understanding of the sport. From the classroom to the pool, the environment was extremely encouraging. All the pool skills we covered helped to build foundation for diving in open water the following day. In open water, the focus was on listening to our bodies and slowly building up our progress as we dived on the line. Farrell and Keke have a fun, gentle, and encouraging approach, and are great at offering digestible feedback that helps you grow and improve throughout each session.

I really appreciate how skilled they both are as focusing on safety while still keeping the entire course fun. They are super encouraging and really love helping their students get to the next level. They also take photos and videos of the class which is cool for 2 reasons: 1) Who doesn’t love memories of cool experiences and achievements?! 2) You can watch the development of your form and use it to make improvements as you continue to train. This is next level awesome.

One more thing I want to add - your training doesn’t stop just because you complete the certification, and Keke and Farrell make sure of that. Right away, they connect you to the local free diving community via a WhatsApp group. You are instantly welcomed, meet other freedivers, and learn about opportunities to train as they pop up. Live Free Diving also offers training opportunities throughout each month. You should 100% take advantage of these. You will have opportunities to practice apnea and dives while also learning cool techniques for improving your fitness, flexibility and equalization. This is a must if you want to continue growing in the sport! And as with the PADI Courses, it’s fun, safe, and another amazing opportunity to meet other freedivers.

So to sum up - the courses and training opportunities that Live Free Diving provides are awesome across the board. I can promise you you’ll be happy you take a course with them or attend their trainings —...

I suppose that there's a lot of different ways to approach a review like this, but rather than point out all the specific nuances of the experience, instead I'm going to establish a frame of reference for what those experiences were. That way you can form an opinion about the team at Live Free Diving on your own.

I'm a single father and my daughter presented me with a request when she was a fair bit younger to swim freely with the whale sharks one day.

She didn't really have any idea what she was asking, and honestly most parents would have said yeah sure and then just let it fall by the wayside like everything else in childhood.

But I'm not that guy.

So I planned since she was eight to get us both certified in freediving so we could “do the thing”… I have a background in the water, pretty much spending my entire life around it near it and in it in one capacity or another. That said, I didn't have any formal training or enough intelligence to guide her into freediving in a real way.

I guess I also have to mention that I crossed a threshold of freediving on my own that kind of scared me. I found a lot more comfort and enjoyment at depth than I expected when I started diving from a boat and felt like it was time to get some professional feedback on what I was dealing with.

I was recommended to contact Farrell and Keke by Eric at exhale spearfishing, and it was definitely the right move.

In the intervening years since my daughter expressed a desire to swim with whale sharks, her interest in diving has waned and she hasn't really gone with me very much. To be completely honest, I kind of dragged her along into this.

But it was awesome.

Keke, Farrell, and Nick take great care of their students and wouldn't do anything or suggest something that might put their students at risk. Freediving is an inherently dangerous sport and their approach definitely follows all the established safety protocols… but in general they are all about the well-being of their students.

It's baked into the core of their business and their approach to pretty much everything. They handled me (this guy that has kind of been breaking all the rules of freediving) with ease and in the same class managed to help a young woman get comfortable enough with free diving to want to go out with her dad again.

They are setting out to deliver a safe, well grounded, and thorough experience for freediving that is readily accessible to anyone who is interested.

And they are definitely delivering on that.

In every way they honored everyone's experience and were extremely accommodating to the multivariate needs of their students.

Im really looking forward to getting back out with them and continuing on the journey...

This was my first event with you and my first exposure to the broader freediving community.

I was impressed with your organization and execution given the variables of weather and managing multiple people across different events.

I liked the fact that there was diving in the AM followed by education and social activities in the evening. It met all my needs: become a better, more confidant diver; learn the fundamentals and theory of breath holds, form, etc.; meet likeminded individuals and tap into the power of the community to get out on the water. I want to dive deeper and linger in order to spear, so it was nice to have a class on that provided by Farrell.

The food was an unexpected surprise and very welcome. The visit and discount at Florida Freedivers was also a bonus. I loved the hoodie and swag. I found all of the instructors very friendly and helpful. It was a positive, family-like experience.

LOVED the option to have Jeff take photos. The video KeKe took was also nice. Maybe next year we could opt to have a series of our dives filmed across different disciplines with a written critique on things to work on - I think that would be really helpful.

Could we do a meal on the boat, for fun after diving one day? Trying to think outside the box a little bit.

For next year, I’d love to have a “Monday Fun Day” option to go spearing, if that makes sense from a liability perspective. I opted not to have the session with Alexi this year as I am a beginner, but would like to have a similar option next year. The session with Anastasia was great!

A thought regarding the raffle, perhaps a ticket could be given to people for each PR they set in a discipline (using the honor system of course - we could fill out a pre-event survey to record our current achievements).

It might be fun to have a class on gear next year - plastic vs. carbon vs. fiberglass fins; different types of snorkels and their advantages; weighting appropriately; competition suits; etc.

Maybe a giving back event like a beach cleanup (not to detract from the diving of course).

Happy to jump on a planning call to provide more thoughts. You guys rock!...