What Does It Take To Become A Molchanovs Instructor?

The best freediving education starts long before you enter the water: with a certified instructor you can trust.  

By Zowie Palliaer

Your first freediving course can shape the way you approach the sport for years. Choose an instructor who is qualified to teach. Photo credit © @foreveryhong.

When you’re choosing a freediving instructor, it’s easy to look at someone’s depth, distance, or even social media and assume they’re qualified to teach.

But being a decorated athlete and being a competent and certified freediving instructor are two very different things.

A Molchanovs Instructor has gone through a rigorous education pathway that includes personal freediving ability, rescue skills, risk management, teaching practice, education standards, and ongoing accountability. They’re assessed not only on how they dive, but more importantly, whether they can create a safe teaching environment for their students.

So, before you trust someone with your first breath-hold, it's worth understanding what becoming a Molchanovs Instructor actually involves.

Being a Strong Freediver Is Only the Beginning

Personal freediving ability is important. An instructor should be comfortable, competent, and experienced in the water. But depth, distance or performance alone doesn’t qualify someone to teach.

Above all else, being a Molchanovs instructor means being responsible for other people’s safety, learning, and progression. It requires much more than simply demonstrating a skill or giving advice from personal experience.

A qualified instructor needs to understand how to teach skills progressively, adapt to different students, manage risk, recognize signs of stress or discomfort, supervise students in the water, respond to unsafe behavior, perform rescues, and follow Molchanovs standards.

That responsibility also extends beyond the water. During the instructor course, candidates are introduced to the professional and business responsibilities that come with teaching, including liability, insurance, local legal requirements, equipment standards, and safe operating practices.

This is important because student safety isn’t only shaped by what happens during a dive. It also depends on the systems around the course — from gear maintenance and logistics to insurance, planning, and responsible business decisions.

In other words, an instructor isn’t just asking, “Can I dive?” They’re asking, “Can I create a safe learning environment for someone else?”

A good instructor does more than demonstrate skills. They manage risk, adapt to students, and keep safety at the center of every session. Photo © @akivis.

The First Professional Step: Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor

The Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor level is the first step to becoming a Molchanovs Instructor.

At this level, candidates are expected to have a strong foundation as freedivers already. They must have completed Molchanovs Lap/Wave 3, or come through an approved crossover route if they are already an instructor with another recognized agency.

This matters because an instructor course is not the place to learn how to dive. It’s the place to learn how to teach. In the Molchanovs system, instructor candidates are trained to use the FEDOF framework — Framing, Explaining, Demonstrating, Organizing, and Feedback – which is a positive psychology learning theory. FEDOF gives instructors a clear way to introduce skills, explain them simply, demonstrate them correctly, organize students safely, and give constructive feedback.

It’s one of the reasons Molchanovs education is so structured and systematic: instructors are not only expected to perform skills well, but to teach them clearly, safely, and progressively.

Before becoming a Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor, candidates are expected to meet clear personal performance, rescue, and safety requirements across pool and/or depth disciplines.

Molchanovs uniquely offers pool-only instructor pathways, making it possible to build a successful teaching career through Lap education without depth being the only professional route.

Lap 2 Instructor pool requirements:

• Static Breath-Hold: 4 minutes

• Dynamic No Fins: 60m / 197ft

• Dynamic Bifins: 100m / 328ft

• Rescue scenarios in all disciplines

• Demonstration-level technique in all disciplines, including no-fins and monofin

Wave 2 Instructor depth requirements:

• Constant Weight Bifins & Free Immersion: 40m / 131ft, or 35m / 115ft in cold water conditions

• Constant Weight No Fins: 30m / 98ft, or 25m / 82ft in cold water conditions

• Rescue: 25m / 82ft rescue + 50m / 164ft surface tow

• Stand-by Rescue: 15m / 49ft, following a minimum 60-second hang

• CO₂ Dive: While weighted for neutral buoyancy at 10m / 33ft, perform vertical finning for 60 seconds with elbows above the surface, then immediately complete a 20m / 66ft CWTB dive

Cold water requirements apply when the water temperature is below 15°C / 59°F at a depth of 1m / 3ft below the surface.

The dive requirements need to be comfortable and repeatable, not just a one-off. But whilst these numbers are important, they’re only one part of the picture. The ability to create a safe environment for students remains the most important assessment. 

Teaching Children: Molchanovs Junior Freediving Instructor

Molchanovs also has a dedicated education pathway for teaching children. Junior freediving isn’t just a beginner course made smaller. Children learn, respond and communicate differently from adults, which means they need a teaching approach designed specifically for their age, safety, and skill level. That’s why being a Molchanovs Instructor doesn’t automatically qualify someone to teach children.

To become a Molchanovs Junior Freediving Instructor, candidates must already be certified as Lap or Wave 2 Instructors. From there, they can upgrade their certification by completing the additional Lap or Wave Junior Instructor course, which prepares them to teach children safely and appropriately. In addition to passing a Junior Instructor Course, candidates must also hold all necessary qualifications defined by local law where they teach, such as university degrees and criminal record background checks.

This separate certification exists for an important reason: teaching children carries an additional level of responsibility. A Junior Instructor doesn’t just need freediving knowledge and instructor experience, but also the ability to create a safe, supportive, age-appropriate learning environment for younger students.

Junior freediving is about building skills, confidence, and water awareness in a way that supports each child’s age and development. Photo credit © Novak family.

Progressing to Molchanovs Wave 3 Instructor

A Molchanovs Wave 3 Instructor is an experienced instructor who is qualified to teach Wave 3 students, in addition to Waves 1 and 2.

This level requires more than simply completing another course. To apply to become a Molchanovs Wave 3 Instructor, candidates need to have an active Molchanovs Wave 2 Instructor certification – or equivalent from another recognized agency – as well as at least one year of teaching experience. They also need a minimum of 50 student certifications distributed across Wave 1 and 2 course levels.

Molchanovs Wave 3 Instructor candidates must also meet higher personal performance and rescue requirements. At this level, instructors also need a deeper understanding of higher-level freediving skills such as mouthfill and reverse packing equalization.

Ultimately, higher-level students require more advanced supervision and more nuanced feedback. As students progress, the responsibility of the instructor also increases.

A Molchanovs Wave 3 Instructor is not only helping students go further. They’re helping them progress safely, with stronger technique, better awareness, and a deeper understanding of their own limits.

The Competitive Pathway: Molchanovs Lap/Wave 4 Instructor

After Molchanovs Wave 3 Instructor, instructors may continue developing in different directions. Some move toward training future instructors as Instructor Trainers, while others specialize in preparing students for competitive freediving through the Molchanovs Lap/Wave 4 Instructor pathway.

To apply, candidates need an active Molchanovs Lap/Wave 3 Instructor certification or equivalent from another recognized agency, as well as at least one year of teaching experience at that level. They also need a minimum of 100 student certifications distributed across all course levels.

Molchanovs Lap/Wave 4 Instructor candidates must also meet significantly higher physical requirements across pool and/or depth disciplines. In addition to these standard requirements, candidates must meet at least one “power requirement” in either Lap 4 Instructor or Wave 4 Instructor disciplines, demonstrating a higher level of personal capacity in competitive-style freediving.

As with all instructor levels, these are minimum standards. The expectation is not simply that candidates can meet the numbers once, but that they can perform them with control, comfort, and good technique.

This level exists because preparing students for competitive freediving requires more than personal achievement. It requires the ability to guide advanced freedivers safely, understand performance demands, and support athletes as they train toward higher goals.

Whether in the pool, open water or on land, students deserve instruction that follows clear standards and safe progression. Photo credit © @andac.kazar.

Molchanovs Instructor Trainers

Molchanovs Instructor Trainers are the people who train future instructors.

This is not just another performance level. Becoming an Instructor Trainer means taking on responsibility for the next generation of Molchanovs Instructors, which requires a high level of teaching experience, standards knowledge, mentorship ability, and trust within the education system.

To become a Molchanovs Instructor Trainer, candidates must:

• Have assisted in a minimum of one complete Molchanovs Instructor Course or Molchanovs Instructor Crossover Course

• Have passed the performance requirements at Molchanovs Lap/Wave 3 Instructor level

• Have at least one year of teaching experience as a Wave 3 Instructor, or equivalent from another recognized agency

• Have a minimum of 150 student certifications distributed across all levels.

This level is about much more than personal freediving ability. An Instructor Trainer needs to understand Molchanovs standards at a deeper level and be able to mentor instructor candidates through the transition from strong freediver to safe, responsible teacher.

Instructor Trainers are not only teaching freediving. They are helping shape the instructors who will go on to teach future students, which means the standard has to be even higher.

Crossover Pathways

Some instructors come to Molchanovs after already teaching with another recognized freediving agency. In these cases, crossover pathways are available.

But a crossover is not a shortcut around the standards.

It’s a process of verifying that the instructor’s skills, knowledge, teaching ability, safety practices, and understanding of the curriculum meet Molchanovs requirements.

This is important because every education system has its own structure, standards, and teaching philosophy. A crossover pathway recognizes previous experience, but it still requires the instructor to meet the expectations of the Molchanovs system before teaching Molchanovs courses.

Before booking a course, take a few seconds to check that your instructor is currently certified to teach. Photo credit © @andac.kazar.

Alternative and Mentorship-Style Pathways

We understand that not every aspiring instructor can pay for an instructor course upfront. In some schools, Instructor Trainers may offer alternative pathways for committed candidates, such as assisting, internships, work-study-style arrangements, or payment plans.

These opportunities can create a pathway for freedivers who have the right attitude, work ethic, and long-term commitment but may not have immediate access to the full financial investment.

However, alternative pathways never mean lower standards.

Whether someone pays upfront, crosses over from another agency, or develops through a mentorship-style route, the certification requirements, safety expectations, teaching ability, and assessment standards still need to be met.

There may be different ways into the instructor pathway, but there should not be different levels of responsibility once someone is teaching students.

Why Does This Matter To Students?

For students, especially beginners, this is the most important takeaway: being a good freediver does not automatically make someone qualified to teach freediving.

A certified instructor has gone through a process. They’ve been assessed on their own ability, as well as on their capacity to teach safely, manage risk, supervise students, perform rescues, and follow a recognized curriculum.

That’s why checking your instructor matters.

Verified above. Safe Below.

Before booking a Molchanovs course,  take a few seconds to search for your instructor on the Molchanovs dashboard. If they appear in the search, then they’re currently listed as a Molchanovs Instructor. If they don’t appear, they’re not currently authorized to teach the Molchanovs curriculum. The check takes five seconds, but it can make a real difference to your safety.