Meet Salma Shaker, Saudi Arabia’s record-breaking freediver

Growing up successful the coastal metropolis of Jeddah, Salma Shaker developed an aboriginal and enduring transportation with the ocean. “I grew up successful a household of water lovers and divers. I indispensable person been a period oregon 2 erstwhile my parents introduced maine to the Red Sea,” she says. What started arsenic a hobby and immoderate relaxing clip with the food soon blossomed into a passionate matter with freediving. “When I recovered freediving, everything changed. I had ne'er known passion. But erstwhile I dived for the archetypal time, I felt thing and realised ‘is that what radical consciousness erstwhile they accidental they are passionate?’ It was a truly bully feeling.”

In 2019 Salma broke Nada Alrasheed’s grounds to go the deepest Saudi Woman Freediver. During that historical moment, she spent 2 minutes and 20 seconds 70 metres nether the Red Sea connected a azygous breath. So, however does it consciousness to beryllium that heavy successful the ocean? “At that depth, the satellite becomes precise quiet. Sound fades, question slows and everything feels intimate and internal. There’s pressure, of course, but it’s the bully benignant of pressure. It’s arsenic if the water is giving you a large hug. It reminds you however tiny you are and genuinely humbles you,” she replies

Breaking stereotypes

Salma’s beingness connected the satellite signifier adds much than conscionable metres to a scoreboard; it dismantles the stereotypes astir the information of women from the Middle East successful high-stakes sport. But Salma belongs to a caller procreation of athletes who are rewriting past with sheer grit. She has go a surviving illustration of however the taste scenery successful her state is opening up.

“So overmuch has changed successful Saudi successful the past five-seven years. I privation radical understood that Saudi Arabia is afloat of layered, curious, driven radical who are profoundly connected to Nature and sport. Women are being empowered to excel successful sports. It’s astonishing to spot this change, particularly erstwhile you are a portion of it,” she says.

Deeper meaning

Freediving is simply a athletics of brutal physiological demands. At 70 metres into the ocean, the lungs are compressed to a fraction of their size, and the bosom complaint slows to a crawl. In that authorities freedivers indispensable conflict their body’s impulse to breathe. But Salma rejects this theory. “You can’t combat the body; you person to perceive to it and bid alongside it,” she explains. “I’ve learned that panic comes from resisting sensations. When you judge them, they soften.”

While Salma speaks of the water with a consciousness of wonder, she is nether nary illusion astir the dangers it could pose. “Freediving is an utmost sport, and portion you tin get injured doing thing incorrectly, the stakes present are higher due to the fact that we are successful an situation we don’t afloat control. The archetypal regularisation is to enactment humble; you tin ne'er beryllium arrogant with the ocean. If determination is adjacent a 1 percent risk, you don’t bash it. I ever archer myself: determination volition ever beryllium different dive, different time.”

Last year, Salma competed astatine Vertical Blue successful the Bahamas, often referred to arsenic the Wimbledon of freediving. But for now, she is looking for a antithetic benignant of depth. “It’s not lone astir metres anymore. I privation to beryllium a mentor for young endowment and physique a sustainable freediving civilization successful the region. Maybe adjacent commencement holding competitions present for escaped divers from crossed the world.”

For Salma, the extremity has shifted from idiosyncratic records to a broader legacy. She is present making abstraction for others to travel her into the blue.