How To Get Started With Spearfishing and Why It's So Good For Fitness & Food: The Kimi Werner Podcast

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness show, the woman that walked out of the water that day was a completely different woman than the one that walked in. I just remember when I walked out of that water, I just felt so proud of myself physically. I think the first things you're gonna have to address is just how to be comfortable with this. You know, how to retrain your brain to know that we really are designed to do this, because we are. It's just that. Not living it anymore.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And I actually don't follow that many people on Instagram, but there's one gal who I've been following really for the past several months, based on my huge interest and passion for water and for free diving and for spearfishing. And her name is Kimmy Werner. And I forget who told me about Kimmy. It may have been my former podcast guest, Daniel Vitalis, but she's like a huntress. She's like a spearfisher woman. And considering that I interviewed the author of the book Deep James Nestor, about free diving and all of the cool physiological and. And also mental things that happen to your body when you're under the water and you're. You're immersed and you're, you know, even if it's not just for fishing, you're diving around not with scuba gear, but on your own breath. And then I followed that up and I interviewed the guy I took my own freediving course from down in Fort Lauderdale, Ted Hardy, who taught me, you know, I couldn't even equalize at 15ft. And he brought me down to 80ft and taught me how to, you know, increased my breath hold time from under two minutes to almost five minutes, and then hooked me up with the editor of Spearing magazine, and we went fishing. And, you know, now I'm hooked. Whenever I go, pun intended, anytime I go anywhere where there's nice water and fish, I love to spearfish. And I really wanted to open you guys up to one of the. One of kind of like the. The Inspirational leaders of the spearfishing movement, Kimmy Werner. And as you listen in, anything Kimmy and I talk about, along with her Instagram account and her Webp page and the previous episodes that I've done on freediving and spearfishing, I'll link to all of that over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kimmy like K I M I is how you spell her name. BenGreenfieldFitness.com K I M I. She's a United States national spearfishing champion. She's a certified culinary chef, she's an award winning artist, she's a sought after speaker, and she pretty much spends her life in Hawaii free diving and making amazing food out of it and taking really great photos of it. So, Kimmy, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Ben. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I'm stoked to talk. And from what I gather by reading about you and I guess kind of like stalking you leading up to this interview, you grew up with a dad who, like, is it true that he was like, free diving and spearfishing to provide food for the family?

That's exactly right. My parents, they both worked really hard, but they still had a very, very tough time making ends meet. And so my dad took up spear fishing and free diving just to literally put food on the table.

So when you say he was spear diving to put food on the table, like, he would just kind of head out before dinner and bring back fish or how did that actually work out?

I mean, well, my earliest memories, I mean, he would come home with dinner and I always just loved seeing what he caught, you know, learning the names of them and just touching them, eventually helping my mom clean them. And then when I was about five years old, he started taking me with him, and so I got to go out with him firsthand. And it was always just like pretty crazy, gnarly adventures where my mom would drive us to the top of a cliff and my dad would put me on his back, climb down the cliff. We would jump off the lava rocks into the crazy deep blue and just drift the coastline down while my dad would take these dives and come up with octopus or lobster or fish. And we would go all the way to a bay down the coast where eventually we get out and my mom would be there waiting for us.

So were you in a boat or were you two just like floating in your gear in your fins and your guns?

Yeah, we were just swimming. I think the first couple of times we did this, he brought a boogie board for Me and would try and tow me along, but I kept flopping off the board and just wanted to see what he was doing at all times. And so he just stopped bringing it all together. And when he did, it really became apparent to me that it was my job to keep up with him because he was hunting, he always had his eye on what he was doing. And so if I was going to be a tag along, I really had to strive to be a good tag along. Because if you take your eye off of someone for just a few seconds when they're swimming, you're going to lose sight of them. And so I remember just thinking that as long as I could see the bubbles left by his fins, I was going in the right direction. Oh, wow.

That's pretty cool. My kids will wait on the shore with little plastic buckets that they use to make sandcastles, and this might grow some people out. And then little knives to. To kind of help brain the fish when I bring them up. If I'm doing some shallow water spearfishing and we're in some tropical locale and, like, kids just absolutely dig the whole concept of, like, fishing and catching fish. And I think taking a kid spearfishing is just a whole new level. So. So you were five, when did you actually start, like, seriously diving and getting into. Getting into freediving or spearfishing a little bit more intensively.

So that's the weird part that a lot of people don't know. When I say he started taking me at five, it sounds like I did it my whole life, but I actually didn't really get into it until I was 24. And the reason why there's such a crazy huge gap is because my dad took me for a couple of years. So, I mean, maybe really it was just five and six, those two ages where I got to go with him. But by the time I was seven, all of his hard work did pay off, as did my mom's. And both of their careers just started to really pick up momentum. And so we ended up moving away from this little shack that we lived in in the boonies and away from that coast that we used to always go diving on. And we started to live a much more civilized life. We moved into a subdivision with paved roads, and both of my parents were working full time and had good jobs, but we didn't have to depend on nature anymore to get our food. You know, we got our food from the grocery store, from restaurants, and we started to live just a very much more typical life. And I grew up And I adapted. And, you know, I definitely felt the loss, even though I knew that. I knew that my parents were so proud to be able to give us so much more. But for me, I felt a loss. I really missed all the simple joys that we had as a family when we had less. And more than anything, I missed diving. And so it really wasn't until I was 24 years old. I had graduated from college. I was working in the restaurant industry with my culinary degree. And I just realized that these same memories are still haunting me. And there's just no doubt in my mind that those couple of years were the best years of my life. And I was so grateful for them, because that's what made my childhood so magical. And I know that's what gave me so much of the values that I have. But it also made me sad to think that I was in this, like, in this place of nostalgia constantly. And I remember even looking up the word nostalgia, and it said, longing for something that no longer exists. And when I would read that definition, it would kind of break my heart, you know, because that's not really how I want to feel for the rest of my life. And finally, at 24, I just started seeing, you know, who says it doesn't have to exist anymore? Like, who says that? That I can't live in a world no matter how modern it is and how much things have changed from those memories? Like, I still have an ocean at my feet. You know, there's still fish in it. I know how to cook. Like, who says I can't go out and get my own food the old school way and do it like that? And so at 24, that was when I decided I want to learn how to spearfish.

You're 24 years old. Were you working near the water at that time? Like, did you have a job that put you close to the water? Or were you doing something completely outside the realm of diving and fishing?

I mean, I was just cooking in a Mexican restaurant, working the hotline. It was somewhat by the water, for sure, but nothing that I ever got to see. Basically, I was just working with food every single day that I didn't have much of a connection to. It was always flown in from overseas and frozen, and I just didn't have that connection to it. And then one day I went to a barbecue, and I just saw these guys put these fish on the grill, and they weren't the type of fish you buy from the store that's been imported and frozen. They aren't the type of Fish you buy from restaurants. It was fish that I recognized. It was the same small little reef fish and fry fish that I had grown up, you know, as a kid, poking their eyeballs or cleaning them or eating them. And when I saw them hit the grill, that sense of nostalgia, I mean, that's what did it. It broke free and it said, it does exist, you know. And so I asked them where they got these fish and they told me they went spearfishing for them. And so immediately, I mean, that's really what did it. I just said, well, that's what I want to do. And I started calling as many people, you know, as I could find who spearfished and asked if I could come along. And I never really got invited. I never really, you know, got any phone calls to go with anyone, which I totally understand. I'm sure I sounded like such a liability, just saying, yeah, a lot of.

Times it's like, it's. It's like hunting or even like frickin, you know, like morel mushroom gathering. People want to keep their spots private sometimes and not let, you know, somebody just like tag along and perhaps either steal their location or scare away the fish or the game.

Right? Or you just want to hunt. You don't want to babysit someone, you know, and here's this girl saying, oh, no, I promise I can dive. Oh yeah. When was the last time you went diving? When I was five. You know, so I'm sure, you know, I sounded like I'd be a handful to take out in the ocean, but so I didn't get any calls. And so I did actually just go and I got a three pronged spear, a simple spear with no spear, gun or trigger mechanism, just a spear. And one day I just decided I was going to enter the ocean and I went by myself. And I just remember how embarrassed I felt. I just remember getting to this beach and just seeing people on the beach and I had my mask and my whole rash guard and the spear. I just remember walking across the beach to the ocean and everybody kind of looked at me as I was holding their spear. And I just felt really embarrassed. I just felt like, oh my gosh, who do I think I am and what do I think I'm doing? I don't even know what I'm doing. And I got in the water and that sensation did not go away. I felt even more freaked out because I didn't know where I was going. I had no clue where I was going, but I just swam and I just kept swimming out deeper and deeper. And I was getting freaked out. I was realizing how you can never really keep an eye on your back when you're in the water. You can't really have the 360 view that you'd like to have. And my little secret was, anytime I got scared, I actually would just imagine my dad's silhouette, or I would imagine those bubbles left by my dad's fins, and that would make me feel better, like, a minute. I would just see any little bubble that's, you know, that's what that is. And I'd actually trick myself into saying those are the bubbles left by his fins. Because I think as such a young kid, even though we were doing such gnarly things because I was with my dad, I had this sense of safety. I really, truly believe that nothing could harm me if I was with my dad. And so even as a grown woman at 24 years old, it was so funny that that was the trick I used to calm myself. But. But interestingly enough, I did end up finding this nice reef out there. And as soon as I got there, I looked down, and I was able to identify the fish. I was able to recognize them as the fish that I would point out to my dad and say, that's what I want for dinner and watch go down and get it. And now it was my turn. And so I just really tried to cry, remembered watching him do. And I'd go down and try and try and try. And that day, I came out of the water with, I think, just four or five fish. And little fish, little fried fish. I don't get very big. They're like the size of my hand, but I caught five of them. And the woman that walked out of the water that day was a completely different woman than the one that walked in. I just remember when I walked out of that water, I just felt so proud of myself. You know, I just felt like the lioness that had just gone and secured her catch and now was gonna take it and eat it and share it with the people that I love. And knowing that I did that with my own two hands, that meal that I prepared that night, to me, I just felt like it tasted better than anything I ever made in my whole culinary career.

I agree. It's like when you go hunting and you have your first meal as, like, the back str. Which is super tender and flavorful and. And, you know, for me, a lot of times, that's also, you know, some of the organ meats, right? Like the. The heart or the kidney or the Things that, that, well, they don't freeze well or preserve that well in my own experience. And same thing with fishing, like when it's been caught just several hours prior and it's that fresh and you know, the exact rock under which you speared that group or, you know, or. Or whatever it is, it's. It a completely different experience and a much more intimate relationship with your food. Now, a quick kind of like a how to for people. I'm curious, you know, when you roll into a new place to spearfish, because I notice you're going all over the globe. I think you even have like a photograph on Instagram somewhere of you with a penguin. How are you actually identifying or teaching yourself about which fish would be safe to eat? Because that's something that's always like for. For example, when I plant forage, I have an app called Flower Checker, and it's a really cool app. It allows you to take a photograph of a plant and then within 24 hours, a team of live botanists on the other end will identify it and give you all of its edible and medicinal properties. And there's a. There's a newer app called Plant Snap that's kind of similar, but does the same thing, but uses artificial intelligence. So it lit it like a Google reverse image search. It'll automatically identify that plant. But for you, when you're fishing. And I'm asking this out of pure selfishness too, because I'll go somewhere and I'll be like, well, I want to go spear fishing, but I don't know what I can actually eat and what I can shoot. How do you find stuff like that up?

So for me, what I just, I research whatever I can ahead of time. Way before I even go to the place, I just start researching, you know, because the thing about spearfishing that might be different from or maybe anything else is that there is no catch and release, right? Like, if you're going to pull trigger on something, in my opinion, you better know that you're going to eat it. And so way ahead of time, I think it's your responsibility to first of all, look up the fishing regulations and understand, do I need a license? What are the fish that people target? What's the minimum size? And really start to practice that. If that's that fish that you're gonna target and it says it should be 12 inches, get out a ruler and really try and take a look at what a good 12 inches looks like. Because when you're underwater and you're excited and you're about to pull trigger. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to make any mistakes. Where then you end up wounding or killing a fish that is either illegal or not a good one to eat are protected. That would be terrible. So basically, first I would say look up any fishing regulations and get familiar with that. Secondly, whether you get a book of fish identification or you just go online and you start researching it, look at photos, and look at a lot of photos, because most of the photos you see are probably going to be fish out of the water, dead. And they can look a lot different underwater. So try and find as many photos this species that you're trying to learn about. And then, of course, when you get there, try and talk to the locals. Just try and find out. Because there's a lot of places where fish that I eat here, if I travel to Tahiti or somewhere else, that same fish might be known to have a certain toxin that could make me sick. And so it's the locals that are going to know, oh, over here, we don't eat that.

Have you ever gotten sick off of a fish? Like. Like, what's the name of the worm that you'll find, like in a parrot fish, for example? I think there's. There's one. If I remember correctly, I know that.

That a lot of reef fish are known for having a toxin called cigatera.

Yeah, cigatera. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.

Yeah. So it's not a worm that's. That's a toxin that. That we really need to learn a lot more about. They. They don't know too much about it. It's, you know, said that it's a toxin that comes from algae that come from water runoff. And so there's theories that in places where there's development and the watershed is lost and all the chemicals that are coming to the water, the fresh water hitting the ocean today, it's causing these algae blooms. And then the fish are eating that algae that has a cicoterotoxin, and it bioaccumulates. And that's what happens. But to tell you the truth, they're finding it in places that aren't that developed these days. And so there's just so much more that people have to learn about that.

Well, parrot fish taste pretty good, too. They're like lobster. I. Another guy who's been on my podcast before, Aubrey Marcus, he and I and his girlfriend at the time, we went spearfishing down in Kona. We kind of did some bow hunting and Some spear fishing down there. And we got the parrot fish and stuffed it with mango and avocado and baked it, and it was amazing.

So good.

It's like. It's like a lot for me. Yeah. And I know you've got some pretty killer fish recipes, too, that I want to get into. But we also have an audience who's very interested in fitness. And I've talked before on the show about the fact that when you dive to a certain depth, for example, your spleen compresses and you tend to produce more erythropoietin. It's like blood doping, really, when you train and you train your body to be able to dive underwater, which is why a lot of Olympic athletes who don't compete in swimming or diving or spearfishing per se, but may instead be like a cross country skier, they're doing things like free diving to get that cardiovascular advantage that being in deep water provides. And this is something I talked quite a bit with, for example, a James Nestor and Ted Hardy about when I interviewed those guys. But for you personally, what does your. What does your fitness routine look like? Like, are you actually training for some of these deeper dives that you do? Are you training to get to a certain depth to where you're, you know, a lot of people in spearfishing know, you know, the deep you go, a lot of times the cooler or the bigger fish you can catch out in the deep blue. But for you, what does your actual training look like?

Okay, so I'm not a typical athlete at all in that sense, and I just like being in the ocean. And so when it comes to my training, it's just, if the ocean is rough and I can't go free diving, then I'll go surfing. And if. If it's calm, but I already have fish in my fridge, then I'll just go freestyle swimming or I'll maybe practice some drops. But for the most part, my activity, it comes from the ocean. And it's a lot more based on the weather windows and the fun than it truly is your classic cross training. But I will say that yoga and meditation, I think, would actually be some of the best forms of cross training when it comes to freediving, because definitely you have to be able to swim and you need some physical conditioning. But more than anything, it's mental.

When you say it's mental, do you mean the fact that you are needing to focus underwater on holding your breath and keep your parasympathetic nervous system activated so you don't get too scared? Or scare the fish who can sense that? Or are you talking more about just like, you know, preparing the body for, I guess, you know, a lot of meditation is breathwork based. And, you know, is it about preparing the body to breathe for a longer period of time or hold its breath?

I think. I think it's definitely both. But I do, I would say it's. It's the fear factor that kicks in first. And so for most people, that's going to be the first thing that you have to come to terms with. Because if you really think about it, you know, most of us, we don't spend time holding our breath. That's not what we've been doing. You know, we all have the ability to. We all come from a place where we are surrounded by liquid, but we don't spend our lives practicing holding our breath. And so for our brains, I think when you first do that, where you make that initial breath hold and you dive down, your brain is just used to this pattern that you've been doing your whole life, this breathing pattern that you have been doing. And all of a sudden that pattern changes and you're holding your breath, and that is going to alert the brain that is going to be like, what's going on? If you think of your brain as this person that has this whole switchboard in front of it, it's going to be like, this pattern's different, what's going on? And so it's going to push that button and say, fear kick in. Make her realize she's not breathing. Anxiety start to get through her. Basically all these alarms start going off and triggering fear and triggering panic so that it gets you to go back up and take a breath. But if you're able to. To recognize these alerts and these alarms and just know that your brain's checking in on you. But if you can just say to your brain, brain, I'm choosing to do this. I'm actually underwater right now, holding my breath on purpose. You know, fear. Beat it. I don't need you here right now. I got this anxiety. You have to leave me alone. Diaphragm. Can you please knock it off? Because you're disrupting me. And if you can actually, you know, feel all of those alerts, recognize them for what they are and find that inner calm and push past it, you're already going to be way ahead of the game. And so I think before even, like, thinking about how to get, you know, how to control your breathing or how to use your diaphragm properly or how to hold more oxygen or save more oxygen physically, I think the first things you're going to have to address is just how to be comfortable with this, how to retrain your brain to know that we really are designed to do this, because we are. It's just that we're not living it anymore.

Do you use any of these apps, like the dynamic apnea apps or static apnea apps that walk you through specific breathwork patterns that you could do during meditation or box breathing or anything like that?

I don't use any of those, no. For me, I think it's my time spent in the water where I have my own routine and my own meditation that I just kind of walk myself through to get my heart rate low, to get my body calm and relaxed. But no, I'm not using any apps like that.

Okay. So pretty much most of your training to actually teach yourself how to hold your breath for long periods of time in the water is just freaking getting in the water.

It is, it is. I mean, I started free diving, you know, just like my dad, to go spearfishing and to get food. And so that was always the thing, was just to go get food. And so in the beginning, it was diving in very shallow places where a lot of this doesn't even come into play. You know, it's a very active diving up and down with a three prong.

Right. Like 10 to 15ft of water, where you're just kind of like, super duper quick.

Yeah. And then as I got more and more comfortable, then I started to go into deeper water and deeper water, and then I just became amazed at what the body can do. And I didn't know that you could dive 60ft or 70ft, so I started doing that. And then this world champion of apnea freediving came to town, Martin Stephaniek at the time, and he offered to train me. And so he was actually the one that really started to make me think about the physiology of everything, because I hadn't thought about that before. Everything I was doing was based purely on trial and error and on intuition. I really enjoyed that. And it was just neat because it turned out that the way I was diving and what I was doing fell exactly in line with what he was teaching. But the reason why it benefited me is because now I got to understand why. All I knew is like, oh, intuitively it feels better to dive this way, or I can just feel a difference. So I'm going to follow that. But then it was Martin that was able to describe, like, oh, well, that's the hemoglobin doing this, or that's your diaphragm.

Who is this guy, and what exactly were you doing with him? You hired him to coach you?

His name is Martin Stepanek. He started the program called fii. He also started PFI with Kirk Krack before going and doing his own thing. He's just been a guinea pig of the sport for a long time. And he came through Hawaii and just said, hey, I'd love to train you. And these trainings usually cost about $700. And so I said yes, even though I had never really wanted to take one of knew that they were out there. But I never was interested. I was like, I'm doing this for food. I'm not doing this to say, oh, look at how deep I can go. And I think I was also scared. I think I just. Knowing how tenacious I get once I like something, I think there was a part that was on me to open this door because I don't want to start making it all about numbers. When he offered that to me, I just said, sure. And it ended up being one of the best things I've ever done because I learned so much about safety. I learned so much about what to do if somebody does blackout on you. All of those drills that I learned with him, they came in so handy when it did end up happening in real life down the road. And I had people to save. When you have your partner lying unconscious in your arms, all of a sudden that stuff really kicks in. I learned a lot from that. It was during that training where he just said, I'm going to drop these weights down and see if you can touch them. I took a drop and went all the way to the weight, ended up being 159ft. And so I was already at that level where I could. I was already trained in my own way where I was able to do that. And he just said. He was very impressed and just said, I've never met anyone that I just trained who could already do this. But the interesting thing is that today that's still my deepest dive because I haven't pursued that rope.

So you're not. You're not one of those people who does like the diving competitions where you're. Where you're going up and down the rope, trying to go as deep as you can up and down the rope?

No, And I can definitely see the appeal to that, because when I did train with Martinet one day, oh, man. There was a side of me that's just like, man, imagine if you were to try this, like, how far could you take it? But. But one thing that I just kind of learned over the years is that spearfishing and freediving, it's my sacred place. It's this one place in the world where I just feel so present and so happy. And I never really want to make that anything that takes that away from me. And back in the days when I was doing the national championships and international championships, it was really great, and I did really well. And I know that that's what jump started my career, and I understand that that's really what put me on the map in a lot of ways. But at the same time, I also could feel that that was changing things for me. And I found myself going out into the water just to get dinner again. And my brain couldn't help but start adding up. How many points would that fish be worth? How many points would this fish be worth? And I didn't like that because I was no longer truly purely present, not in the same way that it was before. And the noisier that my mind got underwater, the more that I realized that I have to do whatever it takes to protect this for me, you know, I just. I. I missed out so much of my life of not diving, I think, is what it was, and being all nostalgic and wanting to dive. And so when I got it back, the quality that it added to my life, it just. I wanted to make up for that lost time. And so as much as I did and as successful as that was in the realm of competition, once it started to take away that. That joy, I just realized it's not worth it. Like, I already spent too long missing this, and I feel myself missing it again, even though I'm still doing it. But I'm missing it because I'm not doing it for the reasons that I crave. I'm not necessarily just doing it just for food or just for this. You know, it's all kind of about trophies and sponsors and that kind of stuff, and it just. It wasn't worth it for me. And so I kind of. I walked away from competition, went back to just spearfishing for food. And, you know, I started traveling to learn about sustainability and to learn about these ocean resources and get to know them more. And I even started, you know, going on and being a free diver and spearfisher for scientific trips, because sometimes they needed somebody to go get samples to learn about these fish, and that's kind of cool. Yeah. And so using it for things that really meant something. To me and really were in line with my values. That's what I chose to do. And that made me a lot happier. I did think I have to go back to working in a restaurant or whatnot in order to support myself. But then, to my surprise, it ended up that I ended up just getting sponsors that were more in line with that. People like Patagonia that care more about the environment than they do about trophies. And I think the way that the world is kind of shifting today, more and more people are now starting to realize the importance of just these simple things, these primitive skills. And I think people want to be more connected to the source. And so it really has just developed into its own career for me, and I've really been enjoying it.

Yeah, you remind me a little bit of these. These. I don't know if you pronounce them. Ama or Amos or the Japanese free diving women. Have you heard of these folks before?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James talks about them in his book, how they used to just, like, dive wearing loincloths and no scuba gear and no air tanks, of course, making them kind of a traditional sort of free diver. But these are women who are famous for pearl diving, but they dive for, like, seaweed and shellfish and lobsters and octopus and sea urchins. And these, like, little Japanese ladies apparently go under and stand her for a long period of time and just kind of dive real naturally. They're not doing, like, you know, hyperbaric oxygen chambers and training masks and static apnea tables are just freaking, like, hunting for. For sustenance underwater.

Exactly. Yes.

Yeah, it sounds very similar to you. Now, you know, one thing that, of course, we'd be remiss not to talk about would be kind of like how you go from underwater to the T. Because you. You seem to do a pretty good job based on your Instagram feed, of making some delicious food out of what you're hunting. So can you fill me in on some of. Some of, like, your. Your favorite fish and how you get that fish from. From underwater to. To table? I think this would be very interesting for a lot of people who maybe aren't familiar with. With kind of what that process looks like. Like, once you've actually gone under, identified as as far fish and speared it, how does it go from that to a beautiful, tasty Instagram photo?

Okay, so once you're able to spear a fish, and so if I have I just shot a fish, the first thing I want to do is pull that fish into me as quickly as I can and get it in my hands, and immediately what I'm going to do is take out my knife and put my knife into its brain. Because when you shoot a fish, you know, you might have caught it, but it's not. It's not dead yet. Most of the time, unless you shoot it right through the brain, which is a great shot, that fish is still struggling. And so, I mean, for me, this is my time as I end the final suffering. You know, this is my time to look that fish in the eyes and genuinely just say, thank you. It sounds weird, but it is a very intimate moment when you're holding a creature in your hand, looking it into its eyes, and you put that knife into their brain and you feel that quiver of that life leaving that fish's body, it sticks with you. And I think it's important that it sticks with you, because that's what's going to make you respect the food that you eat so much more. That's what's going to make you make sure that you don't waste a single morsel of it or take it for granted. And so that's my moment where I say thank you and end that suffering. Another reason why I do that is because those vibrations that that fish is sending off, you know, that fish in distress is sending off crazy vibrations throughout the ocean, and that is the fastest way to bring in sharks. A lot of people think that blood will bring in sharks, which it will, but nowhere near as quickly as a fish in distress. You know, everything in the ocean works off of vibrations. These fish and sharks have these lateral lines designed to pick up vibrations. And so if you have a fish going crazy and flopping around, you better, you know, you want to put that out for your own safety as well.

Yeah. Have you ever used any of these devices that I suspect not based on your replies to other things, but there's like these devices that track sharks, right, that you would wear on your ankle, for example, that generate some kind of a signal that I believe it, like, irritates the shark's snout or something like that. That's actually detecting some of those vibratory signals keeps a shark at bay. Have you experimented with any of that kind of stuff?

No, I never experimented with any device that will keep sharks away, but I have experimented a lot with body language. And I will say that when I would first see sharks and they would come in aggressively, I would get so scared that I would swim backwards and try and get away from them, and that would just bring them in closer. And same with when I would shoot a fish if a shark were to come and eat that fish. And if I were to be submissive, that shark wouldn't really back down. But so what I realized is that when a shark comes, the last thing you should do is try and swim away from it. The last thing you should do is try and turn away or protect your vitals or any of those natural responses. You want to make eye contact with that shark, face it off and more than anything make body language like apparent with that shark. And you just want to hold your ground. And if that shark is swimming right at you, I feel that it is your responsibility for your safety to swim right at that shark. And those are just some things that I've learned over time where when I have held my ground, it has made the situation, it has just made everything so much better. And it makes a lot of sense because, you know, when I hunt fish, I don't just swim directly at a fish to shoot it because if I do that, that fish is going to swim away and I can't out swim a fish. And so I'll do things like I'll turn away or I'll hide from the fish. And when you're hiding, it's not like they can't see you. A lot of people think that we hide because the fish really don't see us. They see us. It's the body language, it's the fact that we're hiding that makes them curious about what we are because they don't think we're a predator, you know, and so, and so the same with a shark though. It's like I'm not going to try and hide from my shark or I'm not going to try and swim away from it because I can't out to my shark. So I'm going to act like I'm not prey. If I see a shark and I really want it to back off, I'll swim at it. If I want it to come closer, which sometimes I do these days, then I'll turn away from it. It's amazing what you can do with body language. And I experimented very much with it. I've been like in, I've been surrounded by Galapagos sharks before and I tried like curling up in a ball and watching them all just creep in and come closer, closer, closer to me and then I'll like blow up like a firework with my arms out and my legs out and they'll just scram. And same with big tigers. It's like I'll turn away and Bring them in and then if they get too close, I'll swim more at them and hold my ground. And. And so I've done things like that after a while to really learn and understand the conversations that you can have underwater with body language alone.

Yeah, it's just like I tell my kids this. It's the same thing with bees, with. I'm trying to think of another example. I mean, even like some larger animals, like bears for example, it's all body language. And I think that one of the things that helps tremendously with that, and I think Ted Hardy and I talked about this when I interviewed him, is the fact that when you're not decked out in a bunch of scuba gear and trinkets and toys hanging off your body, you actually do appear to the underwater predators or to the fish themselves, which honestly makes it far easier to spear the fish to be like a little bit more natural, a little bit more like one of them down there diving versus some strange underwater robot with tubes coming off of your body. So yeah, I like that approach. And actually when I took my free diving course, we got surrounded by sharks on one day outside of Fort Lauderdale and my instructor just started kind of like pointing his spear gun towards them, just like showing them that, that he, I guess he was, he was armed, right. Almost like a swordfish. And then they just kind of kept, kept their distance. That seemed to work. But, but anyways, we rabbit holed a little bit. But you were talking about kind of like how you actually create meals out of these fish that you get.

So by the time I get home with this fish, I basically, I mean, it really depends on what fish. If it's a smaller reef fish, I don't even bother filleting it or skinning it. I'll just scale it. I'll take off the scales, I'll take out the guts and the gills and I'll always cook that fish whole. You know, I just think that, that that's just the best way to eat any medium sized fish and most flavorful and the less, you know, no waste. And so a lot of times what I'll do is I'll just gather whatever growing in my yard. If there's lemongrass and ginger, I'll grab stuff like that and just stuff it in the cavity of the fish. I'll make slits along the side of it and I'll put more flavor in there, whether it's ginger or, you know, onions and put things in there and, and then I'll usually grill it and then I'll top it with a whole bunch of herbs like cilantro or green onions, and put a little soy sauce. And then I'll take, like, peanut oil and I'll heat it up until it's smoking, smoking hot, like actual smoke coming out of it. And I'll just pour a little of it right over the fish because it will just sizzle all those herbs and just infuse them right into the fish. And then all the natural juice from the fish, the infused flavors from what you stuffed it with, the soy sauce and the oil will all kind of mix together on the bottom of that plate and you can just spoon it over and over your fish and it just becomes this really silky, textured, salty, herbal deliciousness over this just white, moist, flaky fish. You know, serve it whole and have people dig right in until there's only bones left.

Yeah, I love that. What about, like, the gills and the head and the eyes? Do you go after that for any of the DHA or the healthy fats and some of those fattier cuts near the head?

I love the fattier cuts. I. The gills and the guts will usually end up in my garden because I just noticed that the plants really love them. And so I'll always, you know, dig a hole, put them in there. Even just like the water that I use to rinse off the fish, you know, anything that just has fish blood or anything, I'll just. I'll throw it in the garden. That's something I've always seen my grandma do, and she was just such a green thumb. And then as far as. Yeah, the head and the collars. The head and the collars and the bellies, I just think are the most delicious because they have, you know, all these great fats in them that just make it melt in your mouth. And my body personally just craves those Omegas. So a lot of times the collars, I'll just, you know, grill them or broil them and the heads, oftentimes I'll boil it and just make a really, really delicious broth with the, with the fish head and the bones. I'll simmer it in water and just whatever, you know, however way you want. Because once it's a fish broth, you can kind of do anything with it. You know, you can make a nice clear soup, you can make a ramen, a wonton min. You could make, you know, Thai green curry. You could really make anything. And so it's just whatever mood you're in. But that's what I use. The head and the Bones for is just making a really good, flavorful broth.

Yeah. For those people that don't know. And I had this for the first time last year, like a. I believe what I had was the hamachi collar, which is the collar of a yellowtail fish at a restaurant. It's like the fattiest, juiciest part of the fish. It's. It's cute from the clavicle right behind the gills. And it's like the richest, most tender meat on the fish. Again, it's kind of like the back strap of. Of like a. Like a land animal. Just amazingly tender, fatty part of the fish. So, yeah, I'm. I'm on board with you.

But it's so funny because it really. It's considered a throwaway part for most, you know, most industrial fishes or just most people, because the thing that makes it a little different from a backstrap is, is that you'll never be able to get just like a solid filet out of it. You know, it's like that collar, it's got these pockets of meat that you have to work for. You have to, like, use your chopsticks and dig in there, scoop out that one pocket or scoop out this one. And I think, you know, as a society, we've just gotten so spoiled where it almost seems like the definition of civilization is to not know the truth. And so I think the way that we've been trained to eat is let's just eat this boneless, skinless filet of fish. Let's just go to the store, get this rectangular cut of meat on Styrofoam wrapped up in plastic, bring it home, cook it up and eat it. And we don't see scales, we don't see eyeballs, we don't deal with bones. And so we don't really think about the fact that it's an animal as much. And I think that kind of confuses a lot of us. And I think that's why these collars, you know, aren't something that most people know about, because when you're eating that collar, there's no doubt in your mind that you know that you're eating a fish. And like I said, you have to work for it. There's dark meat, there's light meat, there's really fatty pieces, and it's so delicious. But oftentimes these days, if it can't be cut into a boneless, skinless rectangle, it's not going to make it to the plate. The only place you'll really find a hamachi Kamari is probably like a Japanese influenced restaurant.

Yeah, exactly. And it's kind of like, you know, like a bone in ribeye steak is another one of my favorite cuts. And it just irks me when I have people over for dinner and I serve these. My apologies to. Anyways, come over for dinner at my house and now knows that you annoyed me. But when people will like get these steaks and they'll eat kind of like that main little section of the beef and like all of the meat on the bone is untouched because they were scared to like kind of pick up the bone with their fingers and get their teeth in there. And I've had. This is gross, but I'm gonna admit to it. I've had folks like leave my house after dinner parties and I've tackled those bones and just like got into them because I just can't stand it. It's like the best, best part of the meat.

It is the best part. And I also just think that, that denying yourself that we're, you know, being afraid of that kind of thing, you know, it's, it's natural because like I said, I do think like, that's how our society has gravitated or been trained after a while. But I think it's actually very dangerous for us as a society because I do think like, and I know this from spearfishing, you know, when I post pictures on social media, it's so funny because I'll get these comments like, how could you kill an innocent animal? And then I'll click on that person's page and they're eating a filet o fish sandwich or they're, you know, they're eating fish sticks and it's like they don't make the connection that they're killing animals too. They're just hiring a middleman to do the dirty work for them so they don't have to see it, you know, and, and so I do think that when it comes to those people who get squeamish over, oh, I don't want to touch the bone or whatever, it's like, what it really is, it's a resistance to knowing that this is a living, breathing animal that you're, you know, that was once, that you're now devouring. And, and that can turn people off or become unappetizing because we've been having that truth hidden for us for so long that we're not used to it. But I. That we're able to accept that that is where food comes from. If you do eat meat or animals at all the more accountable and honest you are to yourself and to this world and the more appreciation you're going to have for the food because of it.

Yeah. Do you actually, speaking of food, do you, for diving comfort, do you follow this special diet that's like no dairy and no coffee and these kind of things that can either step up the heart rate or thicken the mucus or detract from your ability to be able to breathe underwater or not to breathe underwater. I'd be quite impressed if you could breathe underwater but hold your breath underwater.

I really, I don't. And I know that those are rules that a lot of people follow and that's why I always just say I'm not really a typical athlete in that way. But. But no, I asked Martin, that's who trained me that one day when I did that deep dive. And I had asked him that morning, should I really cut out coffee this morning? Because I know that everyone says you should and it's going to increase your heart rate and dairy and all of that. He just said, well, have you been drinking coffee every morning? I said, oh yeah, for years and years and years. And he's like, at this point, point, I wouldn't do anything different. And so that morning I had a couple cups of coffee, you know, went and fell down to 159ft and felt fine. And, and so for me, with what I'm doing with, with my spearfishing and freediving, knowing that I'm not trying to tackle world records or crazy depths, I'm not looking to, to change it up, I, I feel, I feel just fine. And I think that the way that my body reacts to those things, it hasn't, it hasn't been a problem for me. So.

No. Tell me about the penguin. How is there a picture of a pet? Did you actually free dive or spearfish in a, in a cold locale?

I, I have gone free dive. That penguin shot was from not spearfishing but freediving Antarctica. And yeah, it was crazy. We actually ended up sailing in a 15 meter boat from the tip of Argentina to Antarctica, where we then put on thick 9 mil wetsuits. I mean, just such fat suits and got in the water. Even then the face on my skin was completely exposed and it was really cold. I mean, basically you jump in and it's just like a thousand needles poking your face.

This sounds like the, like the silfra dive I did in Iceland, which is the fissure between the, the North American and the Eurasian continents. And it's like a moon Landscape, it's the most crystal clear water in the world. But yeah, you're in a dry suit and the only thing exposed is your face and you can free dive. But by the time you get out, you know, I last maybe 20, 25 minutes and you just can't talk for like an hour because your lips are so blue and.

And frozen, right? Yeah, yeah. And that's exactly how, I mean, that's how it felt, you know, And I felt like I had the biggest brain freeze. But then once that pain just kind of goes numb, I feel like that's my window. And I've stayed in the water in Antarctica for hours and enjoyed it very much. And same with the Arctic, I think. You know, in the Arctic I probably stayed for like an hour and a half, but. But in Antarctica we had some really sunny days and I stayed in for probably like three hours one day. But I do love it. I just love. Kind of got drawn to ice diving. Not so much for spearfishing, but just because it felt so nice to see something so different. I think I got to the point where I felt like as much as the ocean always intrigues me, you know, I started to feel like I've seen a lot of it. And then the first time, just seeing ice illuminated underwater and seeing narwhals swim by, I mean, that just blew my mind.

Wow. What's the most dangerous thing that's ever happened to you while spearfishing? Because I think you have a photo somewhere of you with a. With a great white shark, right?

Yeah, I definitely had an encounter with a very large great white shark. It was a fat 17 foot great white shark that just blindsided me. When I was on the surface, I actually had my head out of the water and I was fixing my mask because it was leaking. And my buddy just started grabbing my arm and shaking it and he was screaming through his snorkel, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. But it didn't matter because I already pretty much knew. And I put my face back in the water and there was the head of a great white shark on the surface, beelining straight towards me. And as soon as I saw that, I'm so happy that I have been around sharks and tried, you know, and figured out that type of body language because it allowed me in that moment to just immediately, as soon as I saw that, I just swam straight at that shark. And within a second, split second, she just redirected and passed me by. And then she went down below me. She started kind of swimming in these big circles below me, which is quite nerve wracking. But even then I just knew if I were trying to flop my way, to panic my way back to the boat, right now, that's not a good idea. Keep an eye on her. I did. And then after doing a few circles, she started swimming up at me. And yes, when you see a great white shark swimming vertically up at you, that's not a calming feeling. But she wasn't, you know, but she was swimming at a pace where I know that I feel like because of my initial reaction to her, she was definitely being a little more weary, you know, and so she was swimming directly up at me, but at a slow pace. And so I just told myself, well, Kimmy, it's your responsibility to swim directly down to her, because if she's curious in you, you have to pretend to be just as curious at her. So I just took a breath and I just took a vertical drop and I just, in a way, was kind of playing chicken with this shark and swam vertically down towards her. And as soon as we met in the middle, she veered off and she, you know, and she turned away. And so then I went back up to the surface and she did the same thing over and over again. A few circles would get curious, would start to come up, I would dive down, and then we just started passing each other by. And every time we did, I had my little GoPro and so I was just like filming her, passing her by. And then this one time when we were doing the exact same thing. And so I'm dropping down because she's swimming up, but this time she was a little deeper. And I got to a point where I hit my negative buoyancy, meaning that now even if I stop kicking, I'm still gonna sink, right?

Like about that happens at like around 30ft, right?

Yes, it depends on how you're weighted, but that's exactly probably about where I was. And. And so. And so I'm now sinking. And she did veer. She did. She went from her vertical position to coming up to me to just a parallel one. So now I'm looking at the large, huge, you know, thick back of this great white shark that I'm about to just run into. And so I have two options going through my mind. I can either turn around and kick my way back up to the surface, which doesn't sound good to me, or I'm gonna land on this shark, you know, and so the next thought in my mind was, well, make it smooth. And so as she was Slowly swimming underneath me. I just reached out my hand, touched her, let her know I was there, and then I held onto her fin and we just went for the most beautiful swim together.

And you held on to the great white shark's fin?

Yeah, her dorsal fin. So there's some videos of it online. My same friend that was screaming through his snorkel had his camera and. Yeah, and there were other friends that. That were in a shark cage because it is a. You know, great white sharks are freaking in this area and they had their GoPros out. So there are so many different things. But it was not like a planned thing. Like, it honestly was. I came into the water that day, there hadn't been any signs of life or anything. And like, not even seconds after getting in there, when my head was out of the water, that was when my friend started screaming. But it's just amazing because it's like the scariest moment of my life really turned into one of them most beautiful. But yes, that was. That was terrifying for sure. But. But it ended up being the most serene thing also.

Okay, that's super interesting. Do you have a photo of that on your Instagram?

You know, I have one way back when I. And I have a whole bunch of photos that I've never, ever, ever posted of it. Because the truth is that we did that several more times. Like, after that, she really was not afraid of me and not aggressive to me. And so we did it several more times. And there's a bunch of photos that I have of it. I just get reluctant to post them because I don't know what kind of message it sends out. And I don't want to look like someone trying to dominate nature or make these animals circus animals or encourage others. Let's all go out and ride sharks. And so they're probably. There is a photo deep, deep, deep back when it happened. And there's just a ton. There's tons of it on the Internet. If you were just to look up Kimmy Warner's great white shark, maybe I'll find one.

I'll put in the show notes for people over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kimmy, that's Kimi. Kimmy. If people are listening in and they want to go spearfishing, and let's assume that they've kind of gone through some of the safety and maybe they've listened to my podcast on free diving and ensure that they've kind of taught themselves correctly and gotten the gear that we discuss in that episode. What would be your Number one place that you would go if you could go anywhere for a few days of just killer spearfishing. And if you don't want to spill your secrets about, like, your top spot that you don't want everybody listening in to go. So, like Murad, you can always just like, name another spot.

I think, oh, man, there's so many good ones. But I would have to say Panama and Palau are pretty all time. You know, Panama's got Panama and where. And Palau. Palau is just so. Palau is a wonderful place that a lot of people don't know about. And it's like the gem of my Micronesia. It's unlike anywhere else in Micronesia. It's east of the Philippines, and it's just this little strand of beautiful, beautiful islands, beautiful rock islands. And the ecosystem there is just absolutely thriving. And I really credit that to the Palauans themselves for knowing how to manage their natural resources. And they actually banned all foreign industrial fishing completely. Like, they used to have boats coming in from Taiwan and all over the place, you know, that would. They'd make money off of. But these days they banned everything and they've kept it strictly, you know, artisanal style. Fishing, hunting, spearfishing, and. And it's amazing. They've also made a whole bunch of different green zones and they have a lot of protection going on. But what I love about this place is that the people who are working in conservation are also fishermen, they're also spear fishers. They know and they're connected to these resources. It's not like some foreign Western agency came in and said, you have to do this with your resources and take this off the map or take this off the list. No, it's the Palauans themselves who have gone out, gotten educated. Now they're back, they're doing the science and they're checking in on everything. Not just that they ban industrial fishing, but they also are understanding how even just industrial agriculture is affecting their reefs and that they're going back to. There are more traditional ways of planting and growing things to protect their watersheds. And they come up with these little things like a green tax. Whenever you go to Palau, whatever you pay for your ticket, I believe like a $20 green tax or something's going to be added to it. And so that helps them take care of their environment. But it's just a shining example to me of an underwater ecosystem treated correctly. And. And for me, that will never really mean, oh, let's just make it all an aquarium where you can look but don't touch. Because that does not feel like a real ecosystem to me, as nice as that is. And I know that it is needed in order to. It's good to have some of them in some places. But I would never just want our whole ocean to be that because. Because to me, that makes it a fake ecosystem. I mean, I just am not a believer that it's man and the ecosystem or man having to save the ecosystem. You know, man is a part of the ecosystem. We're a part of it all. And so I think, like, I think it's important that we harvest from it, that we're, you know, that we're just like every other animal, that we're a part of it. I just think that we need to learn to stop overdoing it and to stop doing it in ways that just make sense for our own pace and efficiency, but don't make sense of the pace of the natural world.

Yeah. Yeah. So Micronesia is the place, though.

Well, it's Palau.

Oh, Palau. Okay. I just got back from Panama. I, I went all over the place there with the 20 bill in my pocket, trying to get a sling or like a three prong or something from somebody. I couldn't hunt one down. I went to like, this big old fishing bar and was asking around. Nobody there had one or at least didn't want to rent one to the gringo. So, yeah, I, I actually didn't get a chance to go spearfishing when I was in Panama and I was, I was kicking myself for it. But I'm headed down to Miami in about a month to speak at an anti aging conference down there in, in March. So if this episode is released prior to that and anybody's kicking it down near Fort Lauderdale or Miami and wants to go spearfishing, leave a comment in the show notes because over there I'm also going to link to Kimmy's website, her Instagram account, some of the other things we talked about, the previous podcast that I've done on free diving and spearfishing and why our relationship with the water is so important, along with some books about that. So I'll link to all that over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kimmy. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com K I, M, I and But Kimmy, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us. You have a fascinating life and I hope that perhaps one day our paths may cross in the water.

I hope so, too. Ben thank you so much for the conversation. I really appreciate it.

Awesome. All right, folks. Well, until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Kimmy Werner signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.