Hello from germany :)

[Luriel]

Hello everyone!
My name is Luriel; I am a newcomer merman from germany!

Since my childhood I was a lover of mermaids and mermen, I always wished I could breathe underwater or have a tail. Since this year I finally own a tail (a FinFun fabric tail) and right now I am saving up for a Mertailor Spellbound tail for christmas or my birthday (which is in january ). I have troubles with my knees when doing the "human swimming" and with a tail I am in no pain while swimming and diving (unlike when I swim without a tail), which is something that made me realize even more that I have to be a merman

When I was little, Arielle was my favorite disney princess, that hasn't changed obviously. I am not the "fittest" merman (meaning I do not have the typical body builder body which people always seem to imagine merman to have) but I adore any shape of humans and merfolks, hence why I do not see any problem with this.

My favorite things to do are swimming (obviously), to play videogames and to make art. By that I mean that I paint, but I also like to sew costumes. Another hobby of mine is dolls (ball-jointed-dolls to be exact). I sew clothes for them, too. All in all I think of myself as a very creative person, sadly I can not live from it hence why I own a little shop for faux fur costumes (tails, ears, ...). It is not much I make for a living but I am happy like this I can do what I love and that is what counts for me.

Next year I hope to be able to move closer to the sea! I hope we all can become friends and maybe I even get to know some of the european merfolk!

[Slim]

Welcome to the Mernetwork.

[Mermaid Kane]

Welcome!

[Keiris]

Welcome to the Waters, Luriel!

[MermanJamie]

Hi Luriel and welcome to MerNetwork! My name's Jamie, and I'm pretty young, but I hope you'll love the community! I've received such a warm welcome since I joined, and I hope you will too! It's so cool that you're from Germany! I'm into theater, and I've done 1 song in German (more in other languages), but I'm pretty sure I mispronounced about half of the words! LOL. It's a beautiful language without my butchering the words! I actually love a lot of the things that you mentioned, and you really seem like an awesome guy! Hope to see you around the community!

[NomadicMermaid]

Welcome to the forum!

[TybeeMermaid]

Hello and welcome! When I first read your post, I related to it a lot! I'm an artist too. I'm in my 3rd year of college studying animation but I've done a lot of sewing and costuming. (I even made my own tail!) My sister is in school studying fashion so she's super helpful when I have a difficult time figuring out how to draft or sew a certain pattern.I also went through a long period of knee problems when I was growing up. (I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when I was 9) The best thing that helped me get through it was to actually to continue swimming. It made my legs stronger and able to support my knee. (Plus it gave me one heck of a kick in my races!)

The best advice I can give to you as to why you might have trouble "human swimming" is that your technique is most likely bad. The biggest problem I see when I'm coaching is bad hip position and overuse of the knees (which could inevitably lead to more knee problems ). When I first started swimming, I wasn't allowed to use my fins until I could consistently kick well without them. At the time, I didn't think it was fair, but as I grew older (and finally got my technique fixed), I realized the importance of my proper technique. When you put on a pair of fins (or monofin), you're extending your surface area in the water. If you don't know how to use your body to efficiently move through the water, you'll end up putting yourself at risk for injury. It may feel easier to use a fin to swim but believe me when I say it'll pay off to practice without a monofin!

The best technique with butterfly kick starts with the abs and flows all the way down to the tips of the toes. The knees shouldn't move much, only enough for the flow to continue. Usually, a good way to make sure you don't bend your knees too much is to bend them as much as you bend your abs. The hips should be high in the water. That's the most efficient way to float and kick. There's an up and a down kick in a dolphin kick. Both are equally important to properly propel yourself through the water. You have to pull your legs up for the up kick and throw your legs down for the down kick. You should never just let your legs drift back to where they were. That's just dragging your legs and won't get you anywhere in the water. Plus, it won't make you any stronger. I did actually film an animation reference video of me swimming if you'd like to view it to better understand what I mean about proper technique.



Moving away from swimming and back into art, I'm always excited to hear about another fellow artist joining mernetwork! I hope you'll share some of your work with us soon! Doll clothing sounds really hard to sew! I'm sure all those stitches are really tiny and have to be super precise! Not to mention cutting and sewing those tiny patterns! That must take a lot of patience.

[Mermaid Cetea]

Ello! I just stumbled upon this, but I am also a January born blue haired mermaid with a thing for ball jointed dolls and art! I hope you met your goal and are waiting on the tail you were saving for.

~Best Fishes & Wishes from the US

[MermanOliver]

Hello! Welcome to the network!