Don't be a fish!

"Girl stuff", he said as he accompanied his sister to the mermaid swimming. Until he saw the colored fins. And delivered a great pike as a neptune.

MJSS made it into the swiss family magazine "Schweizer Familie" in 2015. This is what the article looked like back then (see pictures in the blog). What a great starter lesson with Fay and her friends! We were finally able to convince her brother to go "mermaiding" as well. He was the neptune among 7 mermaids!

Oh, if only it were as easy as in Fay's favorite TV series "h2o - just add water". There, all it takes is a drop of water and the three girls transform into mermaids. For Fay, 9, and her friends, the metamorphosis is far more complicated. They're lying on the edge of the indoor pool and are pulling the tight mermaid costume inch by inch over calves, thighs and bum. Despite all the effort, this seems more pleasurable than it looks. The girls giggle to themselves continuously. Obviously, the excitement of playing mermaid in the water gets the best of them.

"Mermaiding" - that's the name of the new american trend, in which young women transform themselves into little mermaids. In the meantime, many swimming schools in Switzerland also offer mermaid swimming. "I booked a taster course for my daughter Fay and her friends this weekend. My son Jared, 11, is coming along to the indoor pool". But he announces on the way there that he wants nothing to do with this "girl stuff." "I'd rather go to the diving platform." He doesn't stay there long. As son as swimming instructor Christina Würgler, 32, present the brought mermaid tails made of colorful swimwear fabrics, Jared stands again. "It just hit me that there are men in the underwater world, too," he says. "Y'all need a neptune, and that's me."

Unusual technique: He squeezes his feet into the monofin inside the fabric bag. It is made of rubber and a plexiglas plate. This gives the greatest resistance and ensures that the mermaids make good progress with just a few flaps of the fin. For swimming, it requires a special technique. "You have to try to keep your legs straight at all times," Christina Würgler explains. "With their upper body, mermaids make wave movements - back and forth, and with their head they give direction." Carefully, the girls and their neptune let themselves slide into the water. Automatically, they want to spread their legs, as they are used to doing in normal swimming. But that doesn't work in the monofin. "Uiuiui, the fin is pulling me down," Ronja exclaims and waves her arms. The others feel the same way. Only Leanne gets the hang of it right away and elegantly shoots through the water. No surprise, she knows the dolphin technique from the swim club. Jared watches her. "Oh, dolphin swimming," he says. "I can do that." The other girls watch, try out, and quickly learn. After just fifteen minutes, they all have it down pat. The water is teeming with blue, green, orange and pink mermaid fins. Now exercises are added: The kids dive for shells, swim through rings at the bottom of the pool, high-five each other with their hands underwater and send a kiss through the water for the photographer.

Courses: Under the keyword "mermaiding" or "mermaid swimming", interested parties can find swimming schools for little mermaids. They offer starter, vacation or badge courses, but also special occasions - for example, a child's birthday party with crown and make-up.
Requirements: The kids must be able to swim very well.

Price (e. g.): The "Schweizer Familie" magazine has booked their starter lesson at the mermaids swimming school in Opfikon ZH. The cost is 49 francs for one course hour including fin rental. A minimum of 6 participants, from 10 there is a discount.

What looks easy is actually quite exhausting. The abdominal muscles in particular have to work hard. The girls don't notice any of this at first, they are too busy with their underwater pirouettes. It's only when their stomachs start rumbling on the way home that we realize how much energy little mermaids and neptunes burn while swimming. We fill up the storage at home with berry pie. And while the mermaids are munching on the last crumbs, they're already making new plans: they want their own fin for their birthday, earn a mermaid badge in class - and just swim around as mermaids again