My Mission

As Phil Clayton from NZ asked my goals and ideas for Aida (if I will be selected) I will publish my answer for You all too:


"Hello Phil,

Sorry my bad English but here is some of my ideas. 1st: What I think is that this is not my mission but this is our mission. And we all solve this together (I´m just an enabler and I may run this project but the ideas and input comes from the Aida members where all the credits goes as well). This way we may be capable to find more useful ideas as well as options which may work.

Intial plan what I have been thinking of is:
1. We have to solve our communication problem (about 80% of management is about the communications). I will not do it myself but I will try to help us to find a tiny team of specialists (IT guys, 2-3 specialists) who will suggest us a IT-plan. This team will be the one of the most important teams in Aida in the future, if I will be selected."

Explanation: currently there has not been an easy and straight communication route from a regular freediver to the top of the Aida power. This creates a "Ivory tower" situation pretty often and pretty easily a situation where people in power does not know what happens in the field and the people in the field does not know what happens at the top of the power. There is although people who enjoys to play their games with the given power but I´m unfortunatelly not among them. I also do not like that kind of games.

"2. We fix the board at the same time. The first mission for Aida board would be to find a goals for 2010 (plan, do, check, act). And this is again a task which we do together. At the same time EC and TC (which I see as a pillars of Aida) does that same. And these plans will be documented. These plans will be also combined and accepted in board and then published for Aida members when they are ready. We also need to prioritize these tasks."

Explanation: In messy situations there are always most urgent and vital tasks which has to be handled first. And these are the tasks which should be found and handled that the basic work can be done.
Why the Education and Technical committees may be the pillars of Aida? Simply because education creates the freedivers and then there may be also competitors. While the Competitors creates visibilty for our dicipline the education builds more freedivers. That simple.

"3. After we have been created some kind of more stable base to work on then we start to solve next problems like: outsourcing our book keeping (selected external party can make a review for our accounts at the same time) and we solve our voting system problems (we also listen our tech team and their thoughs before this decisions). These are the most urgent tasks what I see in the future. But like I mentioned: we have to decide the tasks together and solve these together by sharing a responsibility and by creating a new culture in the becoming years inside Aida."

Explanation: there has been some doubts about Aida money from some parties as well as there was recently speculations about our elections. Money is pretty often the basis of the great fights in a small scale as well as in big scale. By creating some visibility for this area this tension pretty often looses a bit. Voting is the basis of democracy. If there is no in common accepted and proper way to vote then there is no democracy, I´m afraid. Simple as that.

Even these are quite simple goals for any kind of organization to execute it is although in the multi lingual, multi culture, mutli etc etc is often pretty challenging. It always needs some amount of committed people to execute these kind of ambitious plans. And I will repeat myself: I´m not a person who is capable to make it, I´m just a person who is ready to make this happen with a help of You.

br,

- kimmo"


So feel free to ask me anything. As I say as a judge in the competitions where I´m in charge: "pls help me to help you". So I need your input that these things will be solved together. Past is gone so now it may be finally time to focus on the future and make it more sunny for us that we would have more time for the things why we originally started everything: to Freedive!

Ready for Aida president?

It seems that situation changes has been changed so I will publish this information again (it seems not to be even outdated :). I´m still not capable to see any Assembly emails as I do not belong in the Aida Finland board anymore (since 2007). My goals was fulfilled when I had a honor to see that our freediving organization runs smoothly along with Finnish Diver´s Federation and when I found excellent replacements for me 2006: Simo Kurra (current president of Aida Finland) and Kalle Rajala (Chairman of the Freediving Team of Finland). Since then I have been focusing more on freediving training and finalizing our Finnish freediving book. I have also had an opportunity to visit as a judge in some Aida competitions where I have spent my free time for taking some freediving pictures.

At the beginning I add here my tiny application what I sent for Aida Assembly some time ago:

“Hello Assembly members,

As some freedivers has been requested this from me for a while. I´m also available for the president of Aida task now.

Name: Kimmo Lahtinen
Nationality: Finnish
Born: 030866

Profession:
- Physioterapist 1989-1998
- At IT sector since 1998
- Now Application Service Manager in Tieto Corporation (www.tieto.com)

Diving background:
- CMAS * diver 1987
- Finnish navy diver 1990 (clearance and combat diver)
- CMAS M2 scuba instructor 1992 -
- Finnish Diver´s Federation (http://www.sukeltaja.fi/content.php?t1=eng&t2=eng_index) Freediving Committee Chairman 2003-2006 (Finnish Diver´s Federation has 12 000 members and about 250 clubs and it is the biggest of the Nordic diving federations)
- Finnish Diver´s Federation Freediving Committee member 2007
- Finnish Diver´s Federation Technical Committee member 2008-
- President of Aida Finland 2002-2006
- Aida International, freediving judge (level BC) 2004-
- Aida International, master instructor 2004-
- Aida International, Education Commission 2005-2009
- Aida International, Disciplinary Commission secretary 2005-2006, member 2009-

Other experience:
- As an AIDA judge, in several world championships, WR-attempts and national level events, and has a good reputation as a judge
- In the AIDA EC has been ramping up and developing the whole education system as it is today and has had a big role in it
- I was an integral part of bringing freediving to Finland in the first place, worked as president of AIDA Finland for several years. I also originally created and executed the idea to unify Finnish Aida to the Finnish Diver’s federation - a unique model in the world which also other Nordic countries are starting to adopt.

Goals for Aida:

General:
- Aida makes it´s visibility thru the competitions and record attempts and creates freedivers thru the Aida freediving education. So these are the basic pillars of the Aida
- Aida is lacking now on efficiency and transparency and these areas needs to be fixed together. Efficiency needs some new ways to work (make a documented plan - execute it - and make a follow up). This work should be possible to share with the people together with the responsibility. And execution part needs a good plan which is based on some agreed budget. All these vital parts are missing at the moment.

1st priority tasks:
- Solve the current problems inside Aida by creating proper communications at every levels from a freediver to the board (needs a tiny skilled volunteer technical team to execute this plan in co-operation with media officer)
- Create transparency for Aida thru the communications 
- Help to ramp up the new Technical committee. Their 1st priority it is to fix the current rules
- Help to create open, honest and fair atmosphere inside the committees
- Help to build up new working models inside the committees

My personal goal is try to help Aida back on its feet again and help to find good persons and co-operation for Aida international to run it for the future. I do not need this responsibility but I can promise to do my best to work for this challenging goal.

Best regards,

Kimmo Lahtinen, Aida Finland”



So pls feel free to ask me anything you want: about me, about freediving, about almost anything. I will try to do my best to answer your questions. I do not care who will be selected for Aida president as I believe that Bill and Panos are excellent and experienced qqchoices. Only thing I hope is that we will have a better and more effective Aida in the future, with more transparency. Least me I´m missing these important things.
So the chat has been opened. ☺

- kimmo

Blood donation and Hb - measurements (with video)

I used these equipment for the samples and analysis:

- Hemocue B-Hemoglobin (http://www.hemocue.com/index.php?page=5999), user manual (unfortunately only in Finnish) http://www.hemocue.com/files/900149_FI.pdf
- Omon M1 blood pressure measurement equipment: http://www.omron-healthcare.com/sitepreview.php?SiteID=229 (older model than this one).

Blood donation and Hb summary

As it looks like that a tiny hyper compensation has been happened already and values looks like more or less to be stabilized it may time to sum up this test. It looks like that just after the blood donation the whole blood volume drops. Not only Hb level. It also looks like that there may be some compensation mechanisms in the body which tries to keep Hb levels pretty constant just after the donation. Subjectively there is a tiny drop in the endurance but not much. My original hypothesis did not happen as I expected bigger drop in the Hb values as well as in the physical endurance. It was also interesting to see that it looked likthat blood pressure reacted pretty nicely for blood donation. Also sample tests were really difficult to take in the end of the test as it was difficult to get blood form the fingers. I guess this was due a reproduction of the blood trombocytes. The latest values:


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Some testrides with noninvasive O2 meter

I had a nice opportunity to test a noninvasive O2 meter (http://www.artinis.com/index_oxi.htm). This company makes nice invasive O2 metering systems which can be used for metering O2 values at muscle levels thru the skin. For a test ride I was willing to see would there be any difference between postural and non postural muscles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle) in isometric work.
I checked values from wrist extensors and back extensors. All the measurements was done in 1 minute. No hyperventilation in breath hold.

Here are the results:

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1. Normal breathing (wrist extensors)
2. Empty lungs breath hold (wrist extensors)
3. Full lungs breath hold (wrist extensors)
4. Hyperventilation (wrist extensors)
5. Normal breathing (lower back extensors)
6. Empty lungs breath hold (lower back extensors)
7. Full lungs breath hold (lower back extensors)

For me there are least 2 observations: wrist extensors looks like to be little bit more sensitive for hypoxia (non postural muscle) compared to back muscle and the back muscle (postural muscle) O2 levels looks to be little lower compared to wrist extensors.

This gives me pretty nice ideas for further tests as well as some practical use. Would it be quite good idea to use more postural muscles for dynamic apnea and constant weight for example?

Blood donation and Hb (day +20, +23 and +25)

Some new values again. Subjective feelings in a training is that hyper compensation is happening. At my case this means that trainings can be done pretty hard but body is getting tired anymore. And it also feels like that most of the previous levels and lenghts at the distances for example feels pretty easy.

Blood donation and Hb (day +18)

Curve seems to be going back to normal. As there may be some tiny facts with erythropoiesis this result may be due some adaptation mechanisms in the body as well as some minor variations at the measurements.
Newest results:

Blood donation and Hb (day +10)

Training goes quite normally and endurance seems to be pretty normal. Yesterday I was diving and taking some photos in a rough sea for 4 hours without any problems. So it looks a little bit that Hb values may not be so important factor than I have been thinking earlier. Or 500 ml blood does not matter that much as our bodies may have also alternative ways to compensate that loss of blood and adapt.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Blood donation and Hb (day +4)

Finally the Hb level curve looks like I was expecting it to be. Although my Hb level has been pretty high last few days. I train circuit training (CT) every day except on weekends. My CT training contains also some apnea. I also made light running Yesterday. So maybe this Hb level is something to do with these factors. I guess I will see it on Tuesday while I start my circuit training again (as I may not run during the week). Interesting to see.
Today is also pool traing ahead so it is also interesting to see what it feels like to train with this kind of Hb level. My regular pool training contains normally few kilometers of swimming with and without monofin.

Blood donation and Hb (day +1)

It looks like my body stabilizes blood volume now. Just after donation Hb level was constant as the sample contains plasma, and all the blood cells. Only volume shrinks. At the second phase body tries to return blood volume at the same level as it was. So plasma volume raises and Hb level goes down.