The Red Bulletin November 2019 (UK)

Anna von Boetticher can
hold her breath for six
minutes and 12 seconds
– longer than anyone else
in her native Germany.
But when the 49-year-old
isn’t underwater, she can
barely catch her breath
as the words gush out in unbridled
enthusiasm for freediving, a passion she
only discovered 12 years ago. Since then,
she has set an impressive 33 diving
records in her homeland, as well as one
world record, and earned three world
championship bronze medals. But for
Von Boetticher the appeal doesn’t come
from titles or trophies as much as it
does from diving in unusual locations.
That’s what she was doing in Greenland
this year, plunging into a frozen fjord
with diving partner and photographer
Tobias Friedrich.
the red bulletin: You could dive
anywhere and yet you chose an icecold
location. Why?
anna von boetticher: I’d just been
through a turbulent time and needed
peace of mind, and the best place
for me to find that is in the extremes
of nature. It was in the minimal world
of Greenland that I was forced to
expose myself mentally and physically;
everything else stood still.
Your base camp was in Tasiilaq –
a place engulfed in ice for half the
year. What challenges did you face?
The main one was keeping warm when
the outside temperature is -27°C. It’s
better to freedive on an empty stomach,
but I knew that wouldn’t work if I was
standing in the cold for seven hours and
didn’t want to freeze. I had to eat an
extraordinary amount of high-energy food:
peanut butter, porridge, sugar. I wore
layer upon layer of clothing and made
precise estimates of how long I could stay
in the water. It was at the very limit of
the demands you can make on yourself.
condition are you in? What are the
external factors and how do you react
to them? Only then can you make an
objective decision not born from
feelings or ego. Having that sort of
control is one of the secrets to safe and
successful freediving.
How do you push yourself further
from there?
It takes great self-awareness of what’s
happening inside your body. Freediving
requires you to resist the natural urge
to breathe – do I really have to breathe
now or is it a false alarm? You realise
you can override an instinct and do a lot
more than you’d have thought. So the
next time you’ll face a new situation
with greater self-belief.
Do you ever panic when you’re
deep underwater?
I get scared, but I’ve never panicked.
I always react calmly to any problem
and set the fear aside for later. Anyone
can learn this: you just need to expose
yourself to new things. This way, you
learn to deal with the feeling of unease
we all experience, then proceed in spite
of it. Anyone who deliberately exposes
themselves to stressful situations will
eventually acquire greater peace.
Is there any part of your sport that
still surprises you?
Experiencing the underwater world is
intense, beautiful and different every
time. It’s hard to compare it to anything
else. As humans we don’t belong in it,
and yet we can adapt to a sufficient
enough extent to be able to spend time
there. That never ceases to fascinate me.
Instagram: @freediveanna
How do you know when you’ve hit
those limits?
You’ve got to be honest with yourself.
Of course I want to go a metre deeper,
and I do get annoyed when I don’t do
better than last time, but what physical
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