It takes about 10 years to learn. Given this required number of years for training, most of the youngest expert ama free divers are around 40 years old. With this in mind, most ama are elderly women with some of them surpassing even 80 years of age! Currently, there is a lack of younger women who want to succeed their elders and seek a safer and better-paying profession. Add the modernization of the Japanese fishing industry, then this old tradition has been slowly dying out. Back in the 50s, there were more than 17,000 freedivers around the beaches of Japan — but today, only around 2,000 or less are found in 18 prefectures that still practice the custom. Nearly 1,000 of those work in Mie prefecture.