Advanced Mermaid: Take Your Tail Skills Further

If you finished your first mermaid course grinning from ear to ear and immediately wanted to know what comes next, Advanced Mermaid is the answer. It's the course where the novelty of wearing a monofin turns into genuine, transferable underwater skill, and where a lot of our students realise mermaiding isn't a gimmick but a proper aquatic discipline with its own techniques, its own fitness demands and its own quiet thrill. At Diving Academy we run Advanced Mermaid as the natural next step for anyone who has caught the bug and wants to swim better, dive a little deeper, and start looking genuinely graceful in the water rather than just enthusiastic.

What Is the Advanced Mermaid Course?

Advanced Mermaid builds directly on the foundation skills from the entry-level mermaid course: monofin propulsion, safe breath-hold awareness, and basic buoyancy control while wearing a tail. Where the first course is about getting comfortable and safe, Advanced Mermaid is about refinement and range. You'll spend real time on technique, not just repetition, learning how small adjustments in body position and kick timing translate into big gains in speed, control and comfort underwater.

The course also introduces students to a wider variety of underwater skills within the discipline, including more demanding finning patterns, controlled descents and ascents, underwater posing and photography-ready positioning, and an introduction to static apnea concepts borrowed from freediving, all delivered at a pace appropriate for confident mermaids rather than complete beginners.

Who Should Sign Up (and the Prerequisites)

This course is aimed at anyone who already holds a basic mermaid qualification, whether that was earned with us or with another recognised provider, and who is comfortable swimming in open water wearing a monofin. We ask that students are reasonably confident swimmers, comfortable putting their face in the water for extended periods, and at least 10 years old, though our instructors are always happy to have a conversation beforehand if you're not sure whether you meet the bar.

We see a real mix of people on this course. Some are teenagers who did the beginner course as a birthday treat and came back wanting more. Some are adults who freedive or swim competitively and fancy something different. A growing number are already PADI scuba divers who want a genuinely different way to spend time underwater, one that trains a completely different set of muscles and a completely different mindset around breath control and body awareness.

What a Typical Advanced Mermaid Session Looks Like

Sessions run at our Reading training pool, usually across two or three visits depending on how the group is progressing. Each session opens with a proper warm-up on land, some stretching and breathing practice, before moving into the water for skills drills. Your instructor will work through technique corrections individually, often filming short clips so you can see exactly what your kick looks like from the side, which is usually a bit of an eye-opener the first time.

The middle of each session is where the real work happens, cycling through drills that isolate specific parts of the dolphin kick, working on streamlining, and gradually building up to longer, more controlled underwater sequences. We finish with more relaxed, playful swimming time, because part of the point of Advanced Mermaid is remembering that this is still meant to be fun, even while you're sharpening technique that would make a competitive finswimmer nod approvingly.

What You'll Actually Learn

By the end of the course you should notice a real, measurable difference in how far and how comfortably you can swim on a single breath, and how much less effort it takes to hold a straight, efficient line underwater. You'll cover advanced monofin kick technique, streamlined body positioning, safe and controlled breath-hold practice with a buddy system in place throughout, basic underwater photography posing, and an introduction to more advanced finning used by competitive mermaids and professional performers.

Just as importantly, you'll come away with a much better understanding of your own limits and how to extend them safely. Every session emphasises buddy awareness and safe breath-hold protocols, because looking graceful underwater only counts if you're doing it responsibly, and that safety-first mindset is something our instructors build in from day one rather than bolting on afterwards.

Common Questions About Advanced Mermaid

Do I need my own monofin and tail?

Not for the course itself, we have training fins available, but many students choose to invest in their own kit once they know they're hooked, and your instructor can point you towards suitable options for your size and swimming style.

Is this really just for children?

Not at all. Roughly half of the people who take Advanced Mermaid with us are adults, and some of our most dedicated mermaids are well into their thirties and forties who simply love the way it makes them feel in the water.

Can I combine it with scuba training?

Yes, and quite a few students do exactly that. The breath control and streamlining you develop here genuinely improves trim and air consumption if you go on to scuba dive, so it pairs surprisingly well with a course like Advanced Open Water Diver.

Why It's Worth Doing, and Where It Leads

Beyond the obvious appeal of feeling like you're actually flying underwater, Advanced Mermaid is genuinely useful preparation if you're thinking long-term about the Mermaid Academy pathway. It's the recommended stepping stone before more specialised mermaid courses, and for anyone with an eye on eventually teaching, it forms part of the practical skill base that Mermaid Instructor training builds on. Even if you have no interest in teaching, it's simply one of the most rewarding short courses we run, combining fitness, technique and a genuine sense of achievement in a way that's hard to replicate on land.

Our instructors love teaching this course precisely because the improvement is so visible, session to session. Students who arrive a little wobbly on their first descent are, by the final session, holding clean lines and confident turns, and that kind of visible progress is exactly what keeps people coming back to the water.

Fitness, Kit and Getting the Most Out of the Course

You don't need to arrive as a competitive swimmer, but a reasonable baseline of general fitness makes a real difference to how much you enjoy the course rather than just endure it. Dolphin kicking with a monofin uses your core and hip flexors far more than a standard front crawl or breaststroke, and most students notice muscles they didn't know they had within the first session. We'd encourage anyone booking on to spend a couple of weeks beforehand doing some light core work and, if possible, a bit of pool time practising basic dolphin kick without a fin, just so the movement pattern feels slightly less alien on day one.

On the kit side, a well-fitted tail matters more than people expect. A tail that's too loose wastes propulsion, while one that's too tight restricts the very hip movement that makes the kick efficient. Our instructors check fit carefully before anyone gets in the water, and part of the course covers how to judge a good fit yourself, which is genuinely useful knowledge if you go on to buy your own tail and monofin further down the line. We also cover basic care and storage for silicone tails, since a surprising number get damaged through poor storage rather than through use.

Ready to build on your mermaid skills? Book your Advanced Mermaid course or get in touch to ask our team a few questions first, we're at Bellman Court, Great Knollys Street, Reading, or call +44 (0) 118 9761 729.