Meet Archana Sankaranarayanan, India’s deepest female freediver

Archana Sankara Narayanan
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

In the most recent Mission: Impossible movie, Tom Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt dives almost 500 ft into the ocean to retrieve one thing key to his mission — surviving a torn diving go well with, freezing temperatures, and a dangerously lengthy breath-hold. While it makes for thrilling cinema, actuality is starkly completely different. For most individuals, descending even 60 ft underwater with out respiration gear is a dangerous proposition. 

But for Archana Sankaranarayanan, it’s a aggressive pursuit and one by which she now holds a number of nationwide data. Based in Chennai, Archana is the deepest female freediver in India, holding nationwide data throughout all 4 depth disciplines of the game: Constant Weight, Constant Weight Bi-Fins, Constant Weight No Fins, and Free Immersion. She started her record-breaking streak on the AIDA Mabini Depth Quest, held from May 1 to six this yr in Mabini, the Philippines, the place she set 4 nationwide data, together with surpassing certainly one of her personal. Just two weeks later, on the Hug Cup in Panglao, additionally within the Philippines, she broke two extra data, each of which had been additionally her personal.

Archana Sankara Narayanan
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Freediving is the game of diving into the depths of the ocean, with minimal or no gear and no oxygen assist, and Archana has dived as deep as 35m (115 ft approx). 

Just just a few years in the past, Archana was residing a really completely different life — as a company lawyer. “It was my dream job. I saw all the glamour and felt like I was in the TV show Suits,” she says. But a scuba diving course within the Andamans modified all the pieces. Soon after, she give up her job, moved to the islands, and commenced working as a scuba diving skilled. “There’s pressure in law, but underwater, there’s even more pressure. Literal water pressure. But I loved every bit of it,” she says. 

It was throughout her time instructing scuba that she stumbled upon a video of freediver Shubham Pandey. “I couldn’t understand how he was staying underwater so long. I was just… fascinated.” Within months, she had messaged him, signed up for a course in Bali, and booked a one-way ticket.

Archana Sankara Narayanan
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

“I had no goal of being the deepest woman freediver or anything,” she says. “I just wanted to break one record in the Free Immersion category because I was very comfortable with that.” With this, she has change into a uncommon athlete, and one of many few Indian girls, to make a mark in a sport that’s nonetheless discovering its footing within the nation. 

According to the 32-year-old, freediving is extra a psychological sport than a bodily one. “Scuba diving was amazing, but in freediving it’s more like looking within yourself. You’re holding your breath and going as deep as possible. Freediving made me look within. It forced me to work on my mental and physical self,” she says.  

Archana Sankara Narayanan
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Archana’s progress got here with self-discipline, discomfort, and a steep studying curve. After her preliminary course in Bali, she continued coaching in Murudeshwar, Karnataka, the place she dived at Netrani Island. Then she skilled with freediving college Apnea in Bali, with an all-women’s group and later with famend freediving coach Sergei Busargin in Thailand, who helped her grasp one of many sport’s most difficult classes: Constant Weight No Fins (CNF). “I’m not a born athlete,” she says. “I struggled with food, protein intake, and losing bone density. But I trained every day in the ocean, pool, and dry sessions, and slowly started believing I could do it. I am privileged to be able to get access to this kind of coaching. I’m sure there are better freedivers. I’ve seen fisher women in Tamil Nadu who go deeper in a sari to pluck seaweed,” she says. 

Even as she racks up nationwide data, Archana is already fascinated with who may break them subsequent. “I don’t want to be the only one doing this,” she says. “I hope someone else comes and beats all my records so I can come back and beat them again.” What excites her most is the sluggish however regular rise of Indian girls getting into the game. For Archana, the deeper aim is not only about depth, however entry and inspiring extra girls to cross boundaries, each in water and past it.