DiversTravel.com met with Glennon in May 2002, in Kona, Hawaii, where he is Executive Director of the YMCA. We had heard him speak twice at the annual Sea Rovers conferences in Boston, and were particularly interested in his role in promoting freediving. It was immediately obvious that he is a complex person who wears many hats. How he evolved in aquatics and the subject of freediving are the subjects of this interview and its companion (at Divers Edge).

DT: What is your capacity with the U.S. Freediving Team and with the YMCA?

I'm Executive Director of the YMCA here in Kona, and I sit on the national board for the scuba program. I also act for the YMCA internationally, training and acting as a liaison and training officer for the international Pacific Rim, at this point, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. We have a relationship with them specifically for scuba. So I have national, local, and international responsibilities with the "Y".

In freediving, I managed the team. The first 2 years I competed and managed, then in 2000 we started the I.A.D.A. [International Association for the Development of Apnea] arm within the USA and I became President of that. The US Freediving Team in managed under I.A.D.A. USA for consistency. We developed a solid board of directors, and a solid foundation with a mission.

DT: Can you tell us about you and your work?

I look on everything I do as a passion. The main thing in my life is working with the "Y". We're so diverse in what we offer in aquatics - working with young people and with older folks - but also we offer day care, camping. All of those things provide many avenues for people to get involved in and do better in, and this carries into their own personal lives. And this is a big part of what the "Y" does.

One of my other passions has been a long commitment to aquatics - swimming, safety training, and diving. I started diving at age 12. My passion has taken me into the specialty areas in scuba diving, working with basic level courses all the way up to advanced courses. In the solid foundation of the "Y" program we've always had a strong component of aquatic competence, so that's really the interest that drove me into freediving, because there are very solid skin diving skills involved. I look at scuba and freediving as two different sports, two separate and distinct activities that can be enjoyed. The end all and be all is not always scuba. For me, freediving offers that sense of freedom that comes from being unencumbered. Also, from a physical standpoint, there is the feeling of being in the water, being weightless - the same attributes you get with scuba diving, but there is a sense of simplicity. What I do and what I teach is an avocation; all are part of the passion. When I get up in the morning I can look in the mirror and say, "I'm doing the right thing." Not only that, but the right thing at the right time; it seems like it was just meant to be. 

We don't want to promote freediving as something intimidating or X-gamish, or beyond the limits of good sense, because in everything we teach -- and we even did this when we trained with the SEAL team operation - we still need to understand that we're human, we have our limitations. We have to understand what the limitations are to train safely, and understand what will happen if problems arise. It's all tied in with coaching, and teaching, and getting people excited about the sport.

As far as personal challenges - I think it's interesting to witness first hand some of the physiological changes that come with diving and going deeper, and how we adapt to it. A lot of folks, in the U.S. especially, look at freediving as a cool, new thing. Well, it really isn't anything new, we've just taken it to a different level and we've organized it through a group of people who have seen the need to teach it and make it safe. Another opportunity I've had is a chance to participate in the research side of it. One great thing our organization (A.I.D.A. USA, International Association for the Development of Apnea) does is to discover and support the physiological and physical aspects: what is it that allows us to go deeper and hold our breath longer; what is that relationship we have with other mammals that are sea creatures; what is that ability, that 30 or 40 years ago they were telling us that we'd never be able to go that deep? My motivation is to understand it more, participate more, to get people to train safely, and to support the events and organizations. And while you do this yourself you have the responsibility for other people behind you, to teach and mentor. Unless an organization has an intention on people coming up behind it won't grow or improve. I can relate to this since I started diving so young: it was very important to have a mentor to encourage and educate, and now I should be doing that for the next generation. So our organizations' [A.I.D.A. and the "Y"] mission is education, safety, and participation. For me, collecting and fishing was part of it, and then experiencing and testing the limits through competitions. And then starting the U.S. Freediving Team in 1998, and an invitation to go to Europe as a first-time representative. Now I find myself more in the management side of it, and that's important, too, for the sport to grow.

The YMCA's activities, my passion for that, and personal passions - all rolled together with aquatics. Our long term goal is to grow the organization, expand the understanding, get more people involved, support the research, make it [aquatics] safer, and make possible more events that people can come out and enjoy. And it spans everything, (working backwards) from somebody doing extreme competitions and breaking records, like some of our [U.S. Freediving Team] members - like Tanya [Streeter], Scott [Campbell], and Brett [LeMaster] - to the average snorkeler going in the water on vacation.