I'm turning 21 soon but I've been swimming competitively for the last 13 years (and counting). More recently, I've been racing other girls in swimming at the national level for the last 6 years. I'm already qualified to go to nationals again for my 7th year. I've been swimming year-round for a very long time and have even won a bunch of National Championship races. But even I held off on trick training in my monofin for a couple of months. Tricks are hard to pull off. I waited because I wanted to be confident in the movement of my monofin. It's significantly different from normally kicking with your legs together.
I know I've spoken to you on another thread about what my friends and I have seen at the pool when inexperienced people try on mermaid tails. Please don't attempt anything in a monofin if you can't even do it out of a monofin. They can cause a lot of drag in the pool if you use it improperly. Especially if you're trying to do tricks in them. 98% of that video was me working my abs so I could whip that tail around fast enough to look natural. And even rewatching it now, I see so much technique that I still need to work on.
Please, please, please, please, please be careful when you train. Train without a monofin before you add one. My friend was lifeguarding when she had to dive in and save a girl because she tried doing a flip in her mermaid tail but got all turned around in the water and couldn't find the surface. I know it sounds ridiculous that someone couldn't do a flip but you'd be surprised how many young adults I've had to teach a flip turn to when I'm coaching. Some people aren't just oriented enough to do one in the water. Please don't do anything fancy until you can do it without a fin.
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