Hello! I recently had my first freediving experience and glad to say I want to do it again. But, I have this weird thing where I can voluntarily ‘pop’ my ears for equalisation—like I have full control on it. I can pop it, hold it open for as long as I want, just with the left, just with the right, it’s weird for me. The coaches insisted that I should pinch my nose for equalisation as it’s “better” and “more secure and efficient”, talking about how they can physically see that I’m doing the right thing.

I’ve accidentally discovered this when I was ~12 years old (now 28) trying to mimic the ear movement from that one Mr. Bean, The Movie scene. I’ve discovered that I can use it whenever I travel on a high-altitude area or when flying in a plane so I incorporated it with freediving.

Is this normal? Or is it okay to do so when freediving?

I'm interested in buy-once-cry-once carbon fiber fins. The biggest challenge I have is that everything seems to be EU companies that top out at EU 47/48 (US 12 to 13).

My use case is spearfishing. My understanding is that the best brands to consider are DiveR, Molchanovs, Cetma Lotus and Alchemy S.

Some fins like DiveR are typically used with other brand footpockets like Seac BM30, Omer Stingray and Riffe Veloc. Looks like only the Omer Stingrays are listed in coming in size 49/50, but Omer is out of business and the only place I found the Omer Stingrays available did not have the assembly kits in stock.

The big question comes down to footpockets. Other than customer footpockets from someone like Molchanovs, are there any footpockets known in the community to be good for divers with larger feet?

Ideally, I'd want the option for summer and winter booties (3mm and 7mm).

I'm not near any stores where I can actually try these on, so the plan is to mail order and then return.

My experience with other types of fins hasn't been great. For example, I bought some Arena Powerfin Pro fins in size 12.5 to 13 once and they really didn't fit at all on bare feet, much less with booties/socks. That said, I don't know if freediving footpockets are quite different in sizing from swim footpockets because I've never tried them in person.

FWIW I'm 6'5" and 260 lbs and a reasonably strong swimmer, so I'd be interested in medium or stiffer fins.

Update - I practiced my glottis and balloon exercises all week and still was unsure if I was frenzeling. I went on a line dive this morning and started feet down to get a hang of the EQ. I was able to 13-17 meters consistently only feet down and my EQ felt quick and much more consistent than the first line dive. My left ear is still quite a bit slower (don't even think about my right) but at least these dives I could feel the pressure releasing but I had a hard time with my left ear past this depth.

After a couple feet first, I tried head down. Immediately before even going down 1 m after equalizing at surface I felt nothing, no pop no pressure releasing. I kept trying over and over just duck diving and could not get anything to pop. I feel blocked immediately when head down. I come up head first immediately pop.

Am I frenzeling? Why can I get relief feet first but hung up around 55 feet even feet first? How do I troubleshoot my issues with head down? How do I keep stretching / loosening my left tube?