Underwater Squad: The Breath-Hold Skool Community That Needs No Water

Underwater Squad sells a water sport with the water removed. Gert Leroy's Skool community teaches breathwork and CO2 tolerance training from home, no pool required, which turns a niche reachable only by people near a coast into one anyone with a floor can join. It is a top-36 earner in the Sports category on the Skool Games leaderboard with 163 members paying $37/month, and the market expansion is the whole lesson.

The founder is the credential

Gert Leroy

A freediving instructor and coach, and a former national record holder, whose Skool bio reads "Helping You Get Freedive Ready & Train Your Breath-Hold" with 1.5M+ on YouTube. His stated coaching philosophy is calm first, numbers second.

Two credentials are doing different jobs here. The national record proves he can perform, and the instructor qualification proves he can teach without hurting anyone, which matters more than usual in a discipline where pushing too hard is genuinely dangerous. The 1.5M YouTube following is the third piece: it explains where 163 paying members come from without any paid acquisition.

What Underwater Squad sells

The about page widens the audience in the second line and then reframes what training even means. Below is the copy word for word, with the key moves numbered. Hover a number to see what each line is doing.

Read as a builder, this is the "remove the prerequisite" playbook. Freediving normally requires water, a buddy and travel. By selling the dry-land half of the skill, Gert keeps the appeal of an extreme sport while deleting every logistical reason not to buy, and he picks up a second audience, people who want calm and better sleep, at no extra content cost.

How they sell

The offer sells discipline in a market that wants numbers. "Most people chase results before building control" tells the buyer their instinct is wrong, and the founder line repeats the correction as a personal standard rather than a rule. That framing converts because it flatters the careful buyer and filters the reckless one, which in this niche is a safety feature as much as a marketing one.

The dual outcome is the quiet growth engine. Perform better and sleep better are two different purchase reasons served by one product, so the same 15 minutes a day appeals to a spearfisher and to someone with a stressful job.

The funnel, step by step

Retention runs on measurement. Breath-hold tables produce a personal best that moves every week, so members can see the subscription working, and the weekly live session gives the calendar a reason to keep them. A numeric progress metric is the strongest retention tool a skills community can have.

The formula you can copy

Name the widest possible buyer in line two. "Anyone who wants to hold their breath longer" is a far bigger market than freedivers, and it costs nothing to include.

Give beginners one obvious entry point. A named 6-Week Challenge at 15 minutes a day beats a content library, because the first week is where members decide whether to stay. This is the same onboarding logic behind converting free members to paid.

Make progress countable. If your niche has a number that improves, put the tracking inside the membership, because a rising number is the receipt that justifies the next payment. For more offer patterns, see community ideas by niche.

Frequently asked questions

What is Underwater Squad?

A paid Skool community by freediving instructor Gert Leroy, priced at $37/month with a 7-day free trial and 163 members. It teaches breathwork and CO2 tolerance training from home with no water needed, and includes a 6-Week Breather Challenge, a step-by-step Breath-Hold Builder with tables, a training library, an advanced breathwork toolkit, and weekly live training with replays.

Who is Gert Leroy?

A freediving instructor and coach and a former national record holder with more than 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, who describes his approach as training calm first and numbers second.

Can you train breath-hold without water?

Yes, the dry-land parts of the skill, CO2 tolerance, breathing mechanics, relaxation and nervous-system control, are trainable at home, which is exactly what this community sells. Any breath hold in or near water needs qualified supervision and a buddy, never solo practice.

Do you need to be a freediver to join?

No. The about page explicitly says you do not need to be a freediver, and names spearos, mermaids and anyone wanting more control, including people after better recovery and sleep.

What is the lesson for other community builders?

Find the part of your skill that needs no equipment, location or partner, and build the membership around that. Then give members a countable metric so their progress, not your content, keeps them subscribed.