Mermaiding in South Africa is growing rapidly
Jenet Rudman said that with the creation of the Mermagic Festival and the South African Merlympics, they have seen a great deal of participation and growth within the sport.
Mermaiding is slowly becoming a popular sport with more people getting exposed to it. South Africa recently held its first Mermaid Olympics known as Merlympics.
Blairgowrie-based mermaids Cathleen van Eeden and Janet Rudman dominated the Merlympics coming in first and second place in all the events.
Janet Rudman has always loved swimming as a child. She was a competitive swimmer throughout school, where she represented Eastern Province and swam at nationals.
As a young adult she started scuba diving, but after a few years she needed to try something new.
“I started freediving where you hold your breath and dive down for depth. I have done this both competitively and for recreation. After starting a freediving Johannesburg school in Johannesburg, I had a request to teach mermaiding, as only freediving instructors were able to teach it at this stage.”
Mermaiding is essentially freediving in a monofin and wearing a mermaid’s tail.
“I realized how much fun this was but it’s not only about having fun in the water. You are also getting fit while doing so. And if you mermaid to depth, you have to be very relaxed. As there is a drag on the tail and the monofin under the tail is less efficient than a freediving tail, it’s actually more of a challenge. And it’s great sneaking up on scuba divers and saying ‘hi’. Not many divers can report seeing a real live mermaid on their dive.”
Rudman said that anyone who can swim can be a mermaid. She runs courses on demand and offers an internationally accredited certification called, National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) for mermaiding level 1 and 2.
“As soon as I have a group of four people who would like to try mermaiding, I run a course. We have fun swims too, where you can do an intro to mermaiding. I don’t charge for an intro to mermaiding on a fun swim, only tail and fin hire.”
She added that she mostly does freediving training. Which consists of swimming under the water with fins on a breath hold.
“I probably train on average about twice a week. A huge amount of fitness is not needed for mermaiding, as you can go at your own pace.”
If you want to be a mermaid all you need to be is comfortable in the water and be able to swim.
Rudman explained how the mermaid costume is used. “We wear a normal swimming costume/bikini. The fin is placed in the tail before you put the tail on. It is made out of a material, similar to that of a swimming costume, so simple to slip on and place your feet into the monofin at the bottom.”
They have two local and international tail makers in their group Moonsong Magic and Two Oceans Mermaid Tails.
Rudman concluded that mermaiding in South Africa is now of an international standard and they are very appreciative to NAUI Africa for all their support.
If you want to be a mermaid you can contact: janetlindarudman@icloud.com
Facebook page: Freediving Johannesburg
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