What private coaching is about
Pressure changes the way people breathe, think and make decisions. Heart rate rises. Attention narrows. Tension appears. The urge to rush, escape or regain control can become difficult to ignore.
Apnea Survival™ private coaching creates opportunities to recognise those changes and practise responding more deliberately. It combines breathing, movement, breath holding and carefully progressed challenges, often in the water, to develop awareness and composure under pressure. A longer breath hold may be useful, but it is only one part of the work. The broader aim is to remain aware enough to make an appropriate decision as conditions change. Calm is often treated as a personality trait, but Jason treats it as a skill that can be trained and practised. Through repeated, intelligent exposure, people can become more familiar with discomfort, notice their responses earlier and develop more choice in what they do next.
“Water based training and breath holds are perhaps one of the most underutilised, yet possibly most versatile and effective conditioning tools in the high-performance toolbox.”
Private Coaching with Jason Rice
Train calm. Build awareness. Make better decisions under pressure.
Jason Rice is the founder of Apnea Survival™ and the creator of Surf Apnea™. For more than four decades, he has worked, trained and performed in environments where pressure, uncertainty and consequence are real. His experience began in lifeguarding and grew to include maritime rescue, aviation rescue and a long career as a first responder. Across operational, investigative and specialist roles, maintaining awareness and making sound decisions under pressure were part of the job.
The water and endurance sport have been equally important parts of Jason’s life. He is a PADI Freediving Instructor and Master Scuba Diver Trainer, with a background spanning surfing, diving, freediving, spearfishing, canoeing, paddling, triathlon, trail running, strength and conditioning and ultra-endurance racing. Decades of coaching have allowed him to turn those experiences into practical training that others can use.
Jason also lives with the effects of a spinal injury and persistent pain. Managing an unpredictable body has required patience, adaptation and a close understanding of how physical sensation affects breathing, attention, emotion and behaviour. It has reinforced a principle at the heart of Apnea Survival™. People cannot always choose the pressure they face, but they can develop how they respond to it.
His work draws these worlds together. Rescue informed preparation and risk. Endurance sport taught him about sustained effort and discomfort. Freediving deepened his understanding of breath and stress regulation. Surfing brought uncertainty and decision-making into sharp focus. Strength and conditioning taught him how to assess, program and periodise. Living with chronic pain made adaptation a daily practice.
That experience is the foundation of Apnea Survival™ private coaching.
Who the training is for?
Private coaching is shaped around the person or group in front of Jason. A surfer preparing for heavy water has different needs from an endurance athlete, an emergency responder, a leadership team or someone rebuilding confidence in the pool.
Surfers can train for the demands of the impact zone. Breathlessness, physical effort, disorientation, restricted recovery and the uncertainty of what the next wave will bring. The aim is to recognise and intercept rising panic sooner, conserve energy where possible and make better decisions throughout a difficult situation.
Athletes can explore what happens to breathing, coordination, attention and judgement when fatigue builds or a decisive moment arrives. Strength, endurance and technical skill matter, but so does the ability to access those qualities under pressure.
Emergency-service personnel, military and people working in demanding environments can use controlled training to examine how they respond when information is incomplete, conditions change and decisions carry weight.
Corporate teams and leaders can explore team building, communication, self-regulation and decision-making in an environment outside their usual roles. When control is reduced, familiar habits become easier to see. Who rushes, who withdraws, how people communicate and what happens to leadership under pressure.
Everyday people do not need to surf, compete or already feel comfortable underwater. For some, the goal is greater water confidence. For others, it is understanding fear, self-doubt, avoidance or unnecessary tension. People living with persistent discomfort may also want to explore how sensation influences their attention and choices, without dismissing pain or pushing through warning signs.
The starting point is always the individual or group. What they want to develop, what happens when pressure rises and where their usual strategies begin to fall apart.
What the training involves
Sessions are built around a clear objective and progressed according to each person’s experience and response. Depending on the goal, training may include breathing and recovery strategies, static and dynamic breath hold work, Surf Apnea™ drills, controlled hold down simulations, and pool or ocean-based scenarios.
It may also include movement and coordination under respiratory stress, land-based pressure and decision-making tasks, cold-water immersion, heat exposure, or exercises that require attention and communication while physical demand increases.
Each component has a purpose. Jason is looking for the point where a response becomes visible. A change in breathing, a rush of tension, narrowing attention, hesitation, frustration or the urge to force an outcome. That moment gives the person something useful to work with. The training then becomes a cycle. Experience the situation, observe what happens, regulate where possible, act, review and repeat. Challenges are progressed within clearly defined parameters. The purpose is to develop a skill that can be carried into surfing, sport, work, whatever your jam is, or ordinary life.
Why water?
Water gives immediate, honest feedback. During a breath hold, tension can appear before a person realises they are creating it. A simple underwater task can feel much more complex as the urge to breathe grows. A controlled hold down scenario can reveal how quickly someone becomes reactive when comfort, orientation or breathing freedom changes.
Jason developed Surf Apnea™ around the realities of surfing. A surfer caught inside cannot decide when the next wave arrives. They may be physically loaded, separated from their board or briefly disorientated while the environment keeps changing. Preparation matters because those are difficult moments in which to learn a new skill. However, these principles extend beyond surfing. Different environments bring different demands, but the underlying questions remain useful. Can a person recognise what stress is doing to them? Can they keep observing? Can they regulate enough to make the decision the situation requires?
Water provides the training environment. Breath provides feedback. Carefully managed pressure gives people a chance to practice.
Awareness before control
A person cannot change a response they have not yet noticed. Before working with breathing, they need to recognise how it changes. Before releasing tension, they need to feel where it appears. Before improving decisions, they need to identify when their thinking begins to narrow. That awareness takes practice. Over time, reactions that once seemed automatic can become easier to recognise. A person may notice the first urge to rush, the moment they stop listening to others or the point at which discomfort begins to feel like danger. Recognising that shift creates space to choose a response.
Fear, stress and discomfort all carry information. The goal is to understand that information and respond well to it. Sometimes the right decision is to continue. Sometimes it is to slow down, recover, change the plan or stop. Good judgement under pressure includes knowing the difference.
Training that carries beyond the session
The skills developed in private coaching can be applied wherever pressure affects performance. In the surf, late in a race, during an operational decision, in a difficult conversation or through the ongoing demands of persistent pain. Jason’s coaching is available for individuals, small groups, athletes, surf teams and corporate or leadership teams. Each program is built around the people involved, with a clear starting point and a progression suited to their goals.
Be Your Own Dolphin™ speaks to the adaptability, awareness, movement and intelligence people can develop. Private coaching is an opportunity to explore those capacities when conditions are less comfortable and the next decision matters.
Train calm. Train awareness. Train better decisions. Train for pressure.
Contact us via the contact to discuss private coaching for yourself or your team.Be Your Own Dolphin™. Be Harder to Kill™.