Kimi, Into The Deep
She took up freediving just three years ago, but at the recent nationals in Rhode Island Kimi Werner won two titles, caught the second largest fish and was named rookie of the year
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surfaces before two minutes pass. “My body feels great, and usually I feel like I could stay down much longer. But I always try to head up around that time, knowing that I can always take another drop and realizing that I don’t ever want to push myself too far.”
Werner explains that forcing herself to relax to the point of lethargy is one of the more challenging and interesting aspects of freediving.
“I think of the ocean as one big mass of moving energy, and I believe that our inner vibrations can transmit through the water quite freely. I find that when I’m too anxious to shoot a fish, it seems to sense my intentions and won’t even come near me. But if I shut out all of my excitement to the point of practically convincing myself that I really don’t care about the fish, then it approaches me right away.”
Ironically, this calm, Zen-like self-awareness is also what triggered the relentless hunter in Werner, who trained for the competition for eight months.
Her training, which mainly consisted of kayak diving, began at 5 a.m. with breakfast, followed by loading up of the gear to meet her friend and trainer, Travis Kashiwa, the world record holder for ulua. Kashiwa knows what it takes to win at Nationals: His team was national champion in 2004. The two divers usually hit the water by 7 a.m. and dove for eight hours.
Werner says that during training, Travis purposely parked the truck far away from their dive grounds to extend the paddling distance.
“He knows how important it is for me to be a strong paddler at Nationals,” she says,“so he did little irritating tricks like this for my benefit.”
She remembered seeing the tricks pay off at the start of Nationals. “It was really nice, because once they blew the air horn, within two seconds it was all Hawaii people in the front of the pack,” she says. “It just shows what strong paddlers we have here in Hawaii compared to everywhere else.”
Besides Kashiwa, Werner also trained with Shawn Fujimoto, “another experienced diver who has lots of competition experience and knowledge to pass on.” At practice, when she missed her fish, Werner says Fujimoto would stop the dive and make her do target practices.
“He would set up a target foam and anchor it to the ocean floor and challenge me to hit the targets using different techniques and positions.”
Werner has a strong appreciation for the divers whom she idolized when she began spearfishing three years ago. These days, Werner considers these elite divers, who include Kalei Fernandez, Wayde Hayashi and Gavin Sato, to name a few, some of her best friends.
“They were just an elite group of divers. Once I met them and became friends with them, it was only natural to want to be like them, you know, because they were at such a high level.”
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Within the first two years, Werner’s quick improvements and natural talent became apparent to the diving community as she broke and set records. In May of last year, Werner broke a women’s record by shooting a 10.8-pound (blue) whiptail uhu in the morning.
Later that very same day she broke her own record when she shot an 11.6-pound whiptail. That summer she broke the women’s state records for mu and munu during the North Shore Spearfisherman’s Classic Tournament.
In October 2007, Werner shot a 34-pound mahimahi off Kona.
Hayashi, 1999 Men’s Individual National champion, says that beyond her aim and skills, what separates Werner from other divers is her ability to be selective about the fish she shoots.
“This is usually something divers learn later on in their lives,” he says.
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Werner may quickly be on her way to following her idols’ paths, but once in a while she finds herself in rookie situations where her idols become the friends who bail her out of her mistakes and push her to learn from them.
“Training with Travis has landed me some of my most-prized fish, and has also put me in very humbling situations,” Werner admits. “He’s gotten me out of messes, like the time I sunk my kayak! He and Kalei Fernandez had to swim it back to shore underwater. They looked like two seals towing a yellow submarine and it took us all a couple hours before we were back on land!”
It’s possible that luck played a part in Werner’s successes, but her drive and commitment to her sport and a little help from her friends have undoubtedly made her dreams come true.
Besides the trophies, Werner brought home with her the warm friendliness Rhode Island offered. “Everybody was just so nice,” she says.“It felt like everybody wanted to be my friend.” She says her experiences in Rhode Island will have a big effect her other passion - oil painting. “My overall state of well-being is so elevated now that I’m pretty much the happiest I’ve ever been,” she says. “There is just inspiration in everything. With my next art project, well, there is just no limit to what I can do. I want to make the most of my life, whether it’s with painting or diving.“To see Werner’s latest artwork, visit kimiwernerart.com.
“Don’t be afraid to dream big,” says the woman with the perpetual sunny smile.
“And if you’re going to try for something, just try with all your heart. I don’t think that there will be any regrets, even if you can’t control the absolute outcome. For me, realizing that day that I have given my absolute best was the ultimate goal.”
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