I got to be a mermaid for a day, thanks to AquaMermaid!

If you’re a Disney Princess fan, like myself, you know the tale of The Little Mermaid. In the film, Ariel is a young mermaid who only dreams to be a human and trade her fins for legs so that she could be with her beloved Prince Eric. With the help of the evil sea witch Ursula, she does just that but at the expense of losing her voice. Oh to be young and in love, amirite?

I know I’m not the only one who though Ariel was crazy. Why would you want to be a human? There’s so much responsibilities and ugh, you have to deal with adult stuff like taxes.

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But, for an hour a week, you can leave all those worries behind at AquaMermaid in Toronto! Originating in Montreal, AquaMermaid (or AquaSirene) was started by professional mermaid, Marielle Chartier Henault. The movement soon expanded to several parts of Canada, debuting at Toronto’s Jimmy Simpson Recreation Centre just last year.

At $60 per class and open to everyone, the hour-long lesson features series of tutorials on how to swim with your fins. The first part of the lesson is a bit of stretching to get your body relaxed. The next is putting on your fin. The fins are super awkward to put on since you’re basically thrusting up in the air like you’re in a vintage fitness video.

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The fins are surprisingly heavier than I thought but once you get in the water, you feel like an actual mermaid princess. *Cue “Under the Sea” playing in the background*

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Tracy Ragelle, Swim Instructor for AquaMermaid explains what exactly goes in an hour of each lesson. “We teach participants how to swim on their front, under the water, how to swim on top of the water and how to swim on their back and their sides. We teach them flips, we teach them tricks — like tail flips. We teach them all kinds of things.”

Because your legs are constricted in such a tiny area, most of the swimming is actually a lot of super awkward thrusting. But don’t worry, it looked a lot graceful under water.

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The entire lesson itself is a pretty great workout — as soon as I got home, my entire body just felt so sore but I knew that meant that it worked! If going to the gym isn’t your thing — AquaMermaid is pretty much the best alternative there is!

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If you’re ever hesitant to try it, Tracy explains: “The only reason you should hesitate is if you don’t like living your dreams”. That seems like a pretty good reason to me.

Check out some of the pictures here! (Photos by Amanda Galbraith)