How do you know when you’ve gone far enough?

I recently interviewed a superhero woman named Jana Strain for a new url that I’m involved with called iWomenSports – a site set to be the premier destination for everything women’s sports (a feat that won’t be hard to accomplish since no one else has ever bothered to do this).

Jana is a Freediver. At its most basic, she swims extraordinary distances (like 174 feet) underwater holding her breath. Sometimes just under the surface in a pool, sometimes straight down in open water. Hers is a natural born talent – discovered, launched and skyrocketed out of this world in the last year. Jana’s latest dive in the Red Sea set a new Pan American Women’s Freediving Record.

I’m in awe of what she does. I mean, beyond my fear of deep water (which, I think, is basically my fear of flying in the reverse), she takes herself as close to death as she can every time she dives. In the pool, it’s ‘easier’; she can hold her breath until the last second and then pop up a foot or so to the surface. But when she dives down deep into the ocean, she is faced with other things. She has to take herself to a different edge, an edge that comes with darkness and with the intense pressure changes that come with depth diving. Most significant, though, is the fact that diving down requires her to precisely calculate her air stores – because she still has to swim all the way back to the surface.

Think about that. Think about the self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-preservation and insight that has to accompany that expedition. Do you know how much to give and how far to go – so that you can break records, change your life or transform the world while taking into account that you need to know and save exactly the amount of juice that will get you back home?

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. What more could I possibly say…this concept is just awe-filled.

If you want to read my interview with Jana (she says some very cool things) and check out the new site, follow me right over here…