Roger Yazbeck; Freediving, diving to be free
By Hania Jurdak

Cedar Wings
February / March 2000
Page 5 of 8

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(Click here to go back) catering. For a while, he worked as a magician. For another, he worked as a clown and became the highest paid in Canada. Yet at one point during the early 1990’s, the Canadian economy underwent a recession, and his empire collapsed one piece after another as in a domino sequence. 
“I went through a dark five-year period,” he explains, “God slapped me in the face for a reason. He opened my eyes. The burnout made me stronger, strong enough to realize that the person I had become wasn’t me. So I started writing then. I returned to the things that made sense. I came back to me—amplified”. 
Swearing never to wear a tie again, Yazbeck abandoned the corporate lifestyle, lost weight, quit smoking, and even became a personal fitness trainer for others. With his last pennies, he bought diving equipment and received professional diving training. 
Fishing for Danger—the Free Diving Way 
As Yazbeck progressed as a diver, he sought better equipment, specially a wetsuit that provided warmth and comfort while being thin enough to retain the feel of being one with the water. He finally discovered the 3mm-thick Picasso wetsuit. It was a revelation. He repeatedly tried but was unable to reach the Picasso dealer in the US. 
After a year of trying Picasso products, Yazbeck contacted the Picasso company owner, Alessandro Picasso, and met him in Spain. Picasso liked Yazbeck, was impressed by his diving and spear fishing ability, and gave him exclusive agency for Picasso products in the US and Middle East. Yazbeck today is also a designer for Picasso. He designs spear fishing gear and equipment with specifications for particular fish and marine habitats (www.picassoamerica.com) But to understand spear fishing the Yazbeck way,  (Click here to continue)