Questions!

[InfinityTale]

[I hope that I'm posting in the right forum, if I need to write this message somewhere else, please tell me! This is my very first post around this site.]


Starting off with holding your breath. I love to swim, and of course, I love mermaids. I've seen this mermaiding on youtube, and I actually like it, but before you can even think about getting a tale, first you have to know the basics, and that's hard when you can barely manage to stay underwater for 10 seconds.
It starts off okay. I hold my breath, I 'let out' air, until I find myself choking. My stomach hurts, and I feel like I'm drowning. What am I doing wrong?

Second of all, when I go diving, and I reach a certain depth in the pool, I feel like my brain is exploding and I immediatly go up. I heard that to stop that, you have to close your nose and let out air, but it's not really helping. Anyone can help?

[AniaR]

both of those are better answered by professionals and not the forum honestly. You can seriously harm yourself by taking the advice of a non- professional. Breath holding comes with a lot of risks. It's better to find a class to take through a pool or dive shop.

[Mermaid Alea]

Raina's reply was a good one. While we could just speculate what you are doing wrong and what might work for you, it is best to have someone with you in person to show you what to do.

Always have a swim partner so that if something does happen, they can rescue you. Don't always trust lifeguards bring a buddy to swim with you always.

I wouldn't stay underwater until you feel like choking and drowning. That is very dangerous. When I am swimming in my tail or not in my tail when I feel that I need more air, I don't push myself to stay down. I go right up for air. There are exercises and tricks you can do on land to help improve your breath holding abilities as well as wonderful classes you can take.

The brain exploding part might be that you just need to pop your ears. When swimming down deep, even pro divers need to equalize the pressure so that they will not feel uncomfortable when they go deeper.

Anyways as Raina said it is best to take a class so that someone can be there with you to see what you are doing wrong and show you.

Good luck and be safe!

[Saren]

Raina is right. I would highly recommend either freediver training or scuba training to learn proper equalizing technique (to make your brain not feel like it's going to explode).

Also breath holding takes time and relaxation. This is better learned through a freediving school. If you go to PADI.com you can find freediving or Scuba diving schools and shops near you to help you with these problems.
SSI also does freediving last I heard.

[Mermaid Jaffa]

It just takes practice. Lots and lots of it!

When I first started mermaid swimming, my breath hold was less than 5 secs, and because I was so floaty, it was very difficult for me to break the water's surface to dive underneath!

2 years later... Has it been 2yrs?? It feels like less! Anyhoo, much time has passed, I now have a breath hold of 30 secs and can monofin swim underwater on one breath, for 25 metres in my Finis Foil.

My personal goal is, to tail swim the whole 50 m length of the pool on one breath. I don't expect immediate results, I'll just take my time and get there when I get there.

[Münchhausen]

You should always think at safety First!!! Fun comes later. You have just one health and one live.

[Merman Storm]

Two things:
I always do my underwater swimming with a full load of air in my lungs. I do not exhale until I break the surface at the end. You can try that, but please only with a buddy to keep you safe.
The "brain explode" thing sounds like you are having trouble clearing your ears (or "popping your ears"). Search of ways to clear your ears while diving, and practice that. Failure to properly clear your ears can result in hearing damage.

[Ocean]

Hi there Beautiful Merfolk - ok so I am a professional freediver, I compete at international levels and have trained for years to get to where I am now, my personal best breath-hold is 6mins and my dynamic fin swim distance is 125m on one breath. I am also a mermaid at heart and have just started making professional tails too - They will be launched at the Merfolk Convention UK in March 2017 - ANYWAY - back to swimming under water! I have seen SO many mermaid/men, swimming underwater and performing some extremely dangerous habits. It actually makes me sick with worry - it is a very serious matter that needs to be addressed. I did a little research and I was rather horrified to find that there are people out there who offer "mermaid Instructor" courses, people who are swim teaches an lifeguards... I know they have their own knowledge and experience but none of that matters when it comes to under water swimming. I own a freediving school in London and we have developed professional mermaid courses that are fully integrated into Internationally recognised freediving courses. We have students arriving saying that they can only hold their breath for 30secs and swim a few meters under water - with the right training and technique, we can get people holding their breathe for over 2min and swim 25m plus. I urge you to get professionally trained - it matters - it is your life and you need to take care of it - you are also on show as a mermaid and children are watching you and potentially copying you - lets get the word out and there and get properly trained!! See my profile for the link to my mermaid courses - as I am not sure if I can post that here xx