The Mermaid Course: Diving Academy's Most Playful Program

Every June, as World Oceans Day rolls around and the school summer holidays start creeping into view, our phones start ringing with a question we love answering: can you really learn to dive as a mermaid? The answer is yes, and it is one of the most joyful things we teach at our Reading academy. The Mermaid course sits at the friendly, accessible end of everything we offer, built for anyone who has ever watched a mermaid film and wondered what it would actually feel like to swim like that, safely, properly, and under real instruction rather than improvised in a hotel pool on holiday.

What the Mermaid Course Actually Is

Mermaid diving, sometimes called mermaiding, takes the discipline of freediving and underwater movement and channels it through a monofin and often a fabric mermaid tail, teaching proper undulation technique, breath control and water confidence along the way. Our Mermaid course is not a costume party in the shallow end. It is a structured, instructor led program that teaches genuine in water skills, from correct dolphin kick technique to safe breath holding practice to basic buoyancy control while wearing a monofin, all delivered in a controlled, supervised pool environment before any confident swimmer moves toward open water.

It sits under our wider Mermaid Academy, one of the six academies here at Diving Academy alongside Scuba, Professional, Tec, Freediving and Conservation, and it genuinely is treated with the same instructional rigour as any of the others, even though the tails and the smiles make it look like pure fun on the surface. That combination is exactly the point. Good instruction, disguised as one of the best days a swimmer can have.

Who The Course Actually Suits

The honest answer is almost anyone who is a confident, comfortable swimmer. We regularly run sessions for children from around eight years old, for teenagers who have outgrown swimming lessons but are not quite ready for full scuba certification, and for adults who simply never stopped loving the idea of swimming like a mermaid. Families often book it as a shared activity, with a parent and child working through the same session together, which makes it a genuinely popular booking around World Oceans Day and through the peak summer months when everyone is looking for something different to do as a family.

There is no scuba experience required and no minimum certification level to start. What we do ask is that participants are comfortable swimming unaided in deep water and reasonably relaxed holding their breath for short periods, since a lot of the early skills work happens with the face in the water rather than upright.

What A Typical Session Looks Like

Sessions begin on dry land, or poolside at least, with a briefing covering the monofin, the tail if one is being used, basic safety signals and the buddy system that underpins everything we teach, mermaid diving included. From there it moves into the water for fin fit checks and a warm up focused purely on the dolphin kick movement without the tail attached, since getting the undulation right from the hips rather than the knees is the single biggest technical hurdle most newcomers face.

Once the basic kick feels natural, the tail goes on and the session builds through short, supervised lengths, breath awareness exercises, and simple underwater posing and photography style skills that most participants, especially younger ones, find genuinely thrilling. Every session is run by a qualified instructor watching closely for fatigue, technique and comfort, and nobody is ever pushed further or deeper than they are visibly ready for.

What You Actually Learn

Beyond the obvious, swimming beautifully in a tail, the course quietly builds real water skills. Proper dolphin kick technique transfers directly into freediving and even scuba fin technique later on. Breath control work builds genuine lung awareness and calm in the water. And because a monofin restricts independent leg movement, the course also builds strong core engagement and body awareness that many participants say improves their swimming generally, well beyond the mermaid tail itself.

Common Questions Before Booking

We hear the same handful of questions from almost every family or individual booking the Mermaid course, so it is worth answering them plainly here rather than leaving anyone guessing.

Do you need to be able to hold your breath for a long time? No. Early sessions barely require breath holding at all, and any breath work is built up gradually and always within comfortable limits, never pushed or timed competitively.

Is it dangerous? Like any in water activity it carries some risk, which is exactly why it is instructor led in a controlled pool environment with proper buddy supervision at every stage, rather than something to attempt unsupervised.

Can beginners who cannot swim well still join? Reasonable swimming confidence in deep water is a genuine prerequisite, since the tail restricts independent leg movement and participants need to already be comfortable without one.

Does this lead anywhere, or is it a one off session? It absolutely leads somewhere. Our Mermaid Academy has progressive levels for those who want to keep developing technique, and plenty of graduates go on to try freediving or scuba diving having built water confidence through mermaid training first.

Why It Is Genuinely Worth Doing

It would be easy to dismiss mermaid diving as a novelty, but that undersells what actually happens in the water. Watching a nervous swimmer, child or adult, relax into a smooth, confident dolphin kick over the course of a single session is one of the most rewarding things our instructors see, and the sheer joy participants show afterwards is not something we see quite as often even in scuba training. For families looking for a genuinely different summer activity around World Oceans Day, or simply something memorable to do together, it is very hard to beat.

There is also a quieter benefit worth mentioning. For children who are cautious around open water or unconfident swimmers generally, the structured, playful nature of mermaid training often does more for their water confidence than a standard swimming lesson, simply because the motivation to succeed is so much stronger when the goal is swimming like a mermaid rather than completing a length for a certificate.

How It Fits Into A Bigger Pathway

For many of our younger participants especially, the Mermaid course is the very first step into the wider world of underwater sport, well before scuba certification age even applies. The breath awareness and fin technique built here transfers naturally into our Freediving Academy for those who want to go further, and the general water confidence it builds makes the eventual jump into Scuba Academy training feel far less daunting when the time comes. We regularly see mermaid graduates return a year or two later, ready for their first proper Open Water course, moving with a comfort in the water that clearly started here.

It does not have to lead anywhere at all, of course. Plenty of participants simply want to do it once, for the memory and the photographs, and that is entirely fine too. But for a Reading academy built around a genuine pathway through diving, from a child's first splash to professional instructor level, the Mermaid course is a proper, valued part of that story rather than a sideline.

Ready to make a splash this summer? Book onto our Mermaid course or browse the full course listing to see what else is running - we're at Bellman Court, Great Knollys Street, Reading, or call +44 (0) 118 9761 729.