We would like to introduce our today’s guest Amber Bourke, ex-World Champion, and multi-time Australian National record holder!
Amber, thank you for finding time to reply some of our questions.
1. Amber, I know that you were a professional synchronized swimmer and even represent Australia at FINA World Championship in 2007. How you ended up in Freediving?
I actually injured my hip which kind or ended my synchro days. I tried out for the 2008 Olympics but missed out on a spot on the team and after that decided that it was time to move on.
2. You achieved a lot both in swimming and now in Freediving. Can you compare training approach in both sports?
Training is actually very similar. I definitely trained much longer hours as a 
synchronized swimmer but with freediving I believe it’s more about quality over quantity.
3. Our huge congratulations on your great performance this year in CNF. Are you concentrating mainly on this discipline in your depth training?
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for CNF. I’m not sure why because breaststroke has always been my worst stroke. I think at the moment though I’m mostly focusing on it because my equalization is terrible and I haven’t been able to equalize deep enough to do decent CWT or FIM dives.
4. In 2015 you did 48 meters, 2016 – 58, 2017 – 68 (which is the new National Record!!!). Looks like you like number “8”. So, what to expect from you in 2018? 78 meters?
I actually didn’t realize that until you pointed it out. I really have to work on being less predictable! I think a lot of us freedivers subconsciously steer towards certain numbers. I don’t think of myself as a superstitious person but maybe I am! The number 8 just sounds so much better than 7 or 9…
5. What is a typical daily training routine for you? What kind of short/long term goals do you have now?
Up until this year, I’ve been working full time around training so I usually train in the pool 3-4 times after work during the week and then try to squeeze maybe some gym or yoga in during the week too. Then it is a matter of arriving at a destination with enough time before the competition to let your body adapt to the pressure and work on equalization. This year I took a gap year from work to travel and focus on freediving so that makes things a lot easier.
6. You also doing very well in a pool disciplines, actually you are 2017 Pool National Female Champion! So, what do you like to train more, pool or depth?
If it’s a choice between being in the ocean or being in a swimming pool every day I will
always choose the ocean. However, I do enjoy training in the pool and sometimes it’s just more practical. In Brisbane where I live we don’t have easy access to depth like a lot of freedivers.
7. I saw a video on the YouTube (I think it is 2014), where you do DNF with no packing. Are you changed your approach since then or you still don’t pack?
I still don’t pack. Maybe one day I will but I always wanted to see how far I could get without packing and show new freedivers that there is a lot more you can learn to improve your freediving before you start packing.
8. Last year we all saw your amazing photo session with Ben Von Wong. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
The Von Wong shoot was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I’ve had in freediving. We were in these underwater caverns with sharks and I was wearing this crazy dress that was almost impossible to swim in. On top that the water wasn’t that warm and I was relying on a scuba diver for air. It was not easy but I’ve always enjoyed a challenge. I’d really like to participate in more of these projects in the future.
9. Freediving becoming more popular nowadays. What is your opinion about freediving development in the future?
I hope it becomes as popular if not more popular than scuba diving. The more people who freedive the easier it will be to find people to freedive with! I also hope that as freediving becomes more popular people will become more aware of the risks involved with holding your breath underwater and what to do in case of a hypoxic or shallow water blackout.
10. And at the end, what advice can you give to someone who just finished their first freediving course?
Find people to train with. The main reason I’ve stayed in the sport for so long is that I 
have a great group of people back home that I train with and that keeps me looking forward to training each week.
I joined a beginner course in the lake of Konstanz. I could hold my breath 3 minutes and go to 20m and I realized fast how challenging this sport is, which I liked. I had lots of trouble with equalization though and I was not able to dive head first. As soon as I learned how to Frenzel, things got more serious. I had my first competition also in the lake and soon went for more and more competitions.
Of course, 100m is a nice number, but for me, it is also more important to be good in the other disciplines and do nice dives. If I can reach a 100m one time just by having a good run, it will not be worth it. I would like to hit a 100m and claim that I can do it again. But for this, my body and my mind need to be ready enough. At the moment it is not and that is important to know to remain on a healthy road towards success.
relaxed and easy to equalize deep. Descend is the easiest for me. On the other hand, you need good apnea and a strong mind since you are deep and you only have the rope to get up. CWT is fast, you enjoy the speed and the power behind the monofin. On the other side, you need a good technique to not become lactic and to be able to keep the relaxation which is needed for deep equalization. CNF is physically hard and the detail is most important. On the other hand, it is not so deep and the numbers seem to be more double for the mind.
That is easy: Because it is very expensive to go there this year, especially when you are coming from Europe and also if you already attended Vertical Blue in that year. I do not have the money to go or if I would need to work and have no time for training. The announcement that the World Championship will take place in Roatan came quite late this time. So I decided to register for Vertical Blue and see if I can finance Roatan somehow. I saw that other athlete already successfully funded themselves with crowd funding. On one hand I know it might not be so nice to ask for money, but on the other hand, I believe that those who support me really like to do that. I always feel happy to give support if I can and I want.
PBs there and I am also looking forward to this competition in general. Freediving becomes more and more popular for sure. With this, the freediving world faces a difficult task, which is making/keeping competitions safe and professional. At the last two World Championships of AIDA, there were huge and embarrassing mistakes happening, which in my personal opinion also happened due to arrogance by the judges and not listening to the athletes. I hope that those mistakes will not happen again and that the administration at AIDA will start working properly again.
I was just backpacking around Asia and I was on Koh Tao, Thailand at that time, doing my PADI Advanced Open Water course. And once I saw a freediving center – Apnea Total and thought that it was cool and took a course and kept training with them.
My future plan is always just to get deeper and deeper! 🙂 My target in freediving is always to progress, always to hit PB depths. I will do that for as long as I am enjoying training and competing in freediving. I could say things like Oh, I would like a world record! And I would love nothing more than a world record. But I find that large and far away goals are not that effective as having many small, short-term goals. So the goal for me is always simply a PB. Every single time I train or I do training cycle I want to PB.
5. And why did you decide to start teaching freediving at the first place? Why PADI? What is your favorite PADI Freediving course to teach?
Anyone can apply and join PADI freediving course! Obviously, you need a reasonable level of fitness, let’s say you should be able to swim continually 200 meters or snorkeling 300 meters. If you can, you then you’re absolutely ready for the course. I believe everyone can do it. Obviously, if you have issues with your heart etc you should get checked my a doctor before you sign on for a course but apart from medical limitations, everyone can do it.
I was traveling through Egypt along the Red Sea doing a lot of SCUBA diving and some other travelers I had met had gone up to Dahab and dived this little spot called the Blue Hole, I had seen the photos and it looked amazing so decided to make my way there to go SCUBA dive it. Around the same time, one of my best mates from Australia, who was also, my SCUBA buddy had just learned to freedive and had been sending me a lot of emails trying to persuade me to do a course as he needed a buddy. Originally I had very little interest in it, I could barely reach the bottom of a 4m pool and just from playing in the pool with friends I knew I had a terrible breath hold
As often as possible, I still consider myself a beginner in the scheme of things and I am always watching others see what works for them, picking people’s brains. Freediving is still a relatively new sport and each person has many different variations on what works for them. I think also part of being a great instructor is knowing and understanding the many different methods available and being able to adapt them to your students needs rather than just teaching what works for you. For this reason, even though I am an instructor I still seek out the guidance of others and looking to expand my own skill set
My favorite discipline is free immersion and CNF. Free Immersion, because it is slow and you can really feel changes of buoyancy when you are pulling yourself up and down. CNF because it is fun, it requires technique and high level of fitness.
I’m very blessed for equalization. I’ve never had problems with it, so lactose and other products don’t really affect me. I just eat what anybody would consider as a healthy diet. I consider that tobacco and alcohol are the most harmful. I avoid any kind of sugar and life on Bali doesn’t include a lot of dairy in diet.
Я не спортсмен. Тренировки для меня – способ, впоследствии комфортно нырять под воду, не мучиться, не бороться. Занимаюсь фактически каждый день. Когда в городе: это сухие тренировки, тренировки в бассейне, ментальные треннинги. Если я у моря, то там само собой добавляются занятия на глубине.
Сейчас у меня нет целей во фридайвинге, как это принято понимать. Мне не интересно увеличивать глубину или время задержки дыхания. Это мой образ жизни. Какова цель в жизни? Каждый решает сам. Моя цель – гуманизация. Я стараюсь реализовать данный принцип через образование и просвещение. Мне кажется, фридайвинг очень хорошо вписывается в мою жизнь с этой точки зрения. Возможно, я бы вписал фридайвинг в одну из моих очередных экстремальных задумок в высокой Арктике. Прошлые эксперименты были интересны с точки зрения осознания своих возможностей и возможностей своего организма.
From my childhood I was very curious about the ocean and non traditional sports and hobbies. I kept very close to the ocean doing bodyboarding-surf, observing, reading some books and watching TV documentaries. I think the first time I heard about freediving was when I watched Big Blue film, then my curiosity and interest increased more, a few years after a classmate in the University invited to me to join him to one pool training session in the Underwater Activities Club (UCV, Caracas 1996). I get hooked with that feeling of going deeper and longer every time I tried. Then I started train regularly freediving & spearfishing. I have been holding my breath with passion from that first pool freediving experience in 1996.
In the last 3 years me and my wife Gaby have been living in Bonaire, where we founded and lead our Freediving school & training center DEEPSEA (
I had an international watch brand 
My favorite discipline in frediving has to be CNF. It is also without a doubt the most rewarding for me as the sense of accomplishment I feel after a deep no fins dive is incomparable compared to the other disciplines. It’s down to the simple fact that we are achieving great depths by simple using our arms and legs, William Trubridge puts it best when refers to no fins “as a true measure of humans aqua potential”. I also love the feeling that if gives me when I’m moving through the water.
I think this is circumstantial to the individual. Some people can eat dairy until the cows come home and they wouldn’t see a problem with equalising, however this isn’t the case for everyone. Personally I can afford to eat a little dairy here and there but I avoid it for reasons other than equalising. I’d personally find that when I drink even a little bit of alcohol it congests me more than any kind of food. I wouldn’t say I followed a strict diet, however I would try and eat as much alkaline forming foods to counter the acidity that occurs in our body from freediving and training hard.
Do you have any support from sports community of your country or may be some trade brand?
Nobody has figured freediving all out. We only have some ideas of how human can dive. Scientists were too busy going to Mars, trying to understand DNA, making bombs and whatnot. Not many have worked over freediving issues. So we, as freedivers, are the first frontiers volunteering to tackle the mystery by experimenting with our bodies and minds. So yes, I like to question everything I hear and test it on myself before accept or cross it out. Because more often than not, what works for one does not work for others.
I wish. Freediving is not expensive by definition. I try to live cheap and dive cheap.
Training could be difficult sometimes, at times we have to adapt it to suit the life style we are currently living. If training is forced it can become unpleasant and we are unable to train in that way in the long term, to keep it positive it is crucial to find the right balance to fit your training into your daily life.
On my performance day or training sessions, I would eat specific foods at particular times before training and that could make the difference in when the contractions begin.