SUZY Malseed is what you would call an enthusiast.

Enthusiastic about many things, whether it be setting national (and nearly world) records in the sport of freediving, mental health and what it really means, or maybe even art.

For Ms Malseed it’s all about using those passions to live a better life – and the Bridgewater Lakes farmer certainly comes at it from many angles.

Take art for example – a pursuit that she admits that as a  “super logical” person who has a background in business banking, she has no natural talent for, but knows it’s a way to help her in other pursuits.

“I’m using art to unlock the creative part of my brain,” she said.

“There are no other freedivers here, and I’ve found the arts community the closest to the way they think.”

Ms Malseed is one of the newest members of the Portland Artists’ Society and is grateful for the Julia Street Creative Space setup.

“They are doing a lot of great things in Portland and it's awesome to be involved in some small way,” she said.

“I just try and use art to get into what I’m doing, trying to get access to that part of myself that I need to.”

You might be wondering what this has to do with freediving.

“I want to go to the world champs,” Ms Malseed said.

“What was stopping me most of all was courage.

“The hardest thing I could do was something I’m crap at, which is art. I’m unlike other artists but then again artists are creative so I’m trying new things.

“I have no rules, I’m free, I don’t have a style and I just do whatever I enjoy doing.”

Going deep

To rewind a bit, Ms Malseed, 46, is originally from New Zealand and still a citizen of that country.

She came to freediving from scuba diving and represented New Zealand in the World Championships in 2004.

Back then she was close to the world records that were being set in the sport – but life changed for her when she moved to Australia in 2008.

That was to Central Queensland where she worked in the finance industry and met Robbie Malseed, originally from Heywood but working in the mining industry.

They were married and then moved around with Mr Malseed’s job, to the likes of Singapore and South Africa before shifting to Portland with their twin children about 2016.

Then the whole family was off again, to Indonesia in 2018, returning back home during the pandemic.

That was a journey in itself but as Ms Malseed said “COVID made everyone reassess everything”.

And that included recommitting herself to her sport.

“I knew in my mind and my body I had to go back to freediving,” she said.

“In the back of my mind deep diving was no longer a thing, not because I was afraid but everyone around me was afraid.”

“I did some pool training, then a pool competition and edged into it slowly.

“I went to Melbourne this year and came second but most of all really enjoyed being part of the scene again.

“Most of all stuff I’d been telling myself wasn’t true, that I’m too old to do this or Mums shouldn’t do this’.”

Freediving is effectively divided into two different types of competition – pool and open water, as well as being with or without fins.

The pool competition involves contestants swimming under water while the open water (usually ocean) competition sees them descending down a rope to a nominated distance.

Ms Malseed then set her sights overseas – to the world pool championships in South Korea.

She set a New Zealand record of 177m in the pool but mostly enjoyed being around other inspiring people.

“I met a lady who could hold her breath for eight minutes,” Ms Malseed said.

“It makes my six minutes not look so good.”

The next step was ocean competition, but first she had to convince her family it was safe – and there’s the irony.

“The only way to do it safely is to go to a competition,” Ms Malseed said.

“So I went there and I hadn’t even dived in training.

“There was no logical sense, it was totally insane but I gave myself permission to do it.”

 In the Philippines recently Ms Malseed set another New Zealand record of 46m in the constant weight bi-fins class, but again it’s not about the competition any more.

“When I’m freediving the part that makes me happy is I’m free,” she said.

“That’s also what art gives me, and cold water swimming and going to the beach.”

Making sense of mental health

Ms Malseed is also keen to explore more about mental health – having lived in the developing world she sees the different approaches to health there, and much of it has rubbed off.

“In New Zealand I worked for the biggest drug wholesaler in my early 20s and that did shock me a little bit,” she said.

“I recognised in the Western world, unless you fight against it, the model is get sick, go to the doctor and take drugs.

“I’ve since been exposed to the Eastern ways and am very, very attracted to their way of life, and their way is preventative.

“When I went to Indonesia we went and lived on a remote island and the only things we had were what we could take on the plane with us.

“When we got there we were literally in the jungle with monkeys – there was only a mini-mart as a shop and anything we wanted we had to make or get local people to make it.

“That experience meant we looked after our health with a degree of agency that is not normal here.

“I think people have been spoilt, but we see what we want to see.

“From a health perspective when we were in the jungle, you didn’t see mental health, it’s not a thing – everyone’s fulltime job is to look after themselves, find enough food and find enough work.

“A lot of people didn’t have jobs but had very busy and productive lives, yet here we’ve confused the word ‘work’ with the word ‘job’.  

“You’ve got to come back to keeping mental fitness in check so when stresses of every day life hit us we can get on with it, with the mind and body connected.”

And she uses an example from freediving – instead of iust being about divers not breathing “it’s the opposite”.

“Not once when I’m down there am I thinking about not breathing,” she said.

“You actually breathe properly. I don’t walk up to the water and think about how I’m not going to breathe.”

Ms Malseed is about to begin work with a rural organisation in the mental health field, and sees her experience as a new perspective on the subject.

“A lot of people who won’t talk about mental health will talk about it with me because I’m coming at it from a different angle,” she said.

That might be just from starting conversations differently, putting them in the context of the person she is speaking to – for a farmer maybe talking about how the farm’s going.

More lessons from life

“I’ve learned through freediving there’s just no excuses,” Ms Malseed said.

“If you go down there it is on you to get yourself back.

“There’s no point going down there and blaming other people.

“With freediving you’ve got one chance.

“If I’m diving tomorrow, by 3pm today I have to decide on the depth I’m going to dive and then you live that pressure – what it means is all the excuses go away.

“Because at the end of the day, you’ve got one shot, and I like that.”

Conversely, her return to the sport – and taking up art – has taught here about expectations.

“I used to be a perfectionist,” Ms Malseed said.

“I battle it every day, and art is helping me knowing there are hundreds of people better than me doing it but I’m better this week than I was last week.

“That perfectionism is a trap that a lot of us deal with and it does stop us doing what we want out of life.

“As I came back into the sport I knew what I did 20 years ago was up with the best in the world but the sport has come a long way since and I knew I had to give myself permission to be the best version of me, not the best freediver.

“I don’t think the 25-year-old Suzy could’ve done that.

“There’s a thousand excuses and as we get older the excuses change.

“I could see that happening to me unless I sorted it out fast.

“Being a parent you can see what’s happening and your kids are clever and they can see it happening too, it’s like a mirror.

“I had to address that part of myself that was holding me back by saying ‘you’re not as good as you used to be’ because if you don’t even try you’re guaranteed to fail.”

And Ms Malseed has enjoyed being around creative people for inspiration at the Julia Street Creative Space.

“In my previous life in banking people didn’t talk on this level,” she said.

“People are getting more open to the idea if you want to challenge yourself you have to challenge your thinking.

“Freediving has a way of accessing a really, really deep part of yourself.

“You do face your demons and you can’t take yourself deep unless you’re comfortable with who you are.”