Mermaid Mode

Sasha Bondareva
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  • Health & Fitness
  • Updated Semiweekly

Mermaid Mode is a podcast for women who feel most alive in, on, or near water. It’s a space for athletes, water-sports professionals, cold-water swimmers, and women who use water as a tool for recovery — physically, mentally, emotionally. Each episode explores the stories, rituals, and mindsets of women who have answered the call of water in their own way. Not all mermaids are the same.But they all know how to dive deep. Get in your Mermaid Mode. Dive deep. Stay wild.

  1. 3d ago

    EP 13 | Zara Hoogenraad - kitesurfing, building community and being open online

    Zara Hoogenraad is one of the most recognised names in Big Air kitesurfing — a GKA tour competitor, two-time King of the Air runner-up, world champion, Capital.com and Mystic team rider, and one of the only women in the sport building a genuinely engaged community around the reality of being a female professional athlete. She started kitesurfing at 23, partying her way between sessions in Tarifa from a converted camper van. Seven years later she was world champion. This is a wide-ranging, honest and deeply personal conversation. They cover Zara's origin story and the turning point that took her from festivals to full-time training, how she spiralled into negative self-talk and isolation early in her career and what therapy and journaling changed for her, the shock of being dropped by Core after five years and how she processed it, and why she genuinely believes performance alone is no longer enough to sustain a career in professional kitesurfing. There's also an excellent thread on strength training and why lifting changed her riding, her plans for a women's coaching boat trip and girls' day, the algorithm and bikinis debate, what it's actually like to edit YouTube videos in CapCut when it keeps crashing, and why her biggest goal right now is still to win King of the Air. Raw, funny and refreshingly grounded. 🌊 Chapters:00:00 Introduction01:21 From party girl to professional athlete — Zara's origin story05:33 Therapy, journaling and the mindset shift07:15 Starting late and becoming world champion10:13 Aging as an athlete — fear, injury and changing how you train13:33 What the party years taught her17:51 Journaling methods and the Mind Journal21:30 Training alone with the guys and feeling isolated24:36 Opening up to her boyfriend and her community28:44 The Diary of a Kitesurf Girl — building a female YouTube community31:10 Being dropped by Core — processing it and moving forward35:09 Adapting to new kites and rebuilding confidence39:00 Teaching girls to kite loop — and why understanding beats just going for it41:36 Plans for a women's coaching boat trip43:42 The mental side of coaching girls — fear, comparison, confidence47:03 Social media, likes, the algorithm and bikinis52:00 What content creation actually costs — time, editing, boundaries55:41 Morning routines, dog walks and brainstorming with AI58:22 Filming angles, gear quality and content creativity1:07:00 Cold Hawaii, injury, and getting back on the water1:09:00 Becoming world champion — the setbacks, the proof, the moment1:11:42 Goals, King of the Air and how to handle not reaching them1:16:02 Focus on what you can contro1:19:18 How Zara's workout posts got Sasha lifting1:20:32 Strength training for kitesurfers — why it matters more than you think1:24:05 A secret Mystic design?1:25:23 Closing thoughts

    EP 13 | Zara Hoogenraad - kitesurfing, building community and being open online

  2. Aug 11

    EP 12 || Alessa Sophia Mensch - female hormones, mental health & Big Air kitesurfing

    Alessa Sophia Mensch is a professional Big Air kitesurfer, GKA tour competitor, Brunotti and Naish team rider, and the co-founder of a women's health app currently in development and launching in December. She's also one of the most thoughtful people in the sport when it comes to the intersection of female health, performance, and mental wellbeing — and this episode goes deep on all of it. The conversation covers a huge amount of ground. They talk about what it took for Alessa to learn to rest — really rest — after years of training alongside male athletes on their schedule, eating like them, sleeping like them, and wondering why it wasn't working the same. They get into endometriosis, hormonal cycles and what the research actually says about how the female brain-body connection affects energy, fear and performance across the month. Alessa shares how she restructured her own training to stop fighting her cycle and start working with it — and why that changed everything. Then there's the app: a female athlete health tracker she's building with her co-founder Julia, designed to help women understand and optimise for their cycle without selling their data. There's also a long thread on the mental side of competing — comparing yourself to others, performing in front of male peers without feeling judged, what it means to crash like a kook in front of pros and do it anyway, and why the most important comparison you can make is only ever with yourself. Plus Brunotti, the Naish House movie, learning to jump on your weak side, and a very honest conversation about why she doesn't share more of the difficult stuff on social media. One of the longest and most substantial episodes of Mermaid Mode. Worth every minute. 🌊 Find Alessa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_alessasophia/ Follow Alessa's app development: https://www.instagram.com/herphase.app/ 00:00 Intro 01:41 Meet Alessa — rest, recovery & recharging 08:09 Training with guys: FOMO, guilt & what's actually in our heads 13:24 The hormonal cycle no one talks about in kitesurfing 14:38 Living with endometriosis as a pro athlete 22:28 What's missing in women's medical research 28:01 Introducing Her Phase — the app Alessa is building 39:09 Atomic Habits, overthinking & the mindset shift 45:16 Choosing kiting over a degree — going all in 51:21 Finding your people: the mom, the instructor, the Cape Town call 1:00:48 Brunotti & Nash — what a great sponsor actually looks like 1:08:44 The Antidote to Chaos film project & creative freedom 1:09:41 Being a couple in the same sport — Jason, Luca & the crew 1:16:12 Competition culture & why the women's fleet is special 1:24:32 Weak side training, right foot forward & the language analogy 1:31:58 You can tell a good kitesurfer by the way they crash 1:37:52 Kitesurfing with flow — style, basics & feminine riding 1:40:25 How fast can you actually progress? The truth about pros 1:46:30 What the highlights don't show — injuries, vulnerability & social media 1:52:08 Wrapping up

    EP 12 || Alessa Sophia Mensch - female hormones, mental health & Big Air kitesurfing

  3. Aug 4

    EP 11 | Lana Herman - Big Air Competitive Kitesurfer

    Lana Herman is a professional Big Air kitesurfer from Slovenia, a Harlem Kite team rider, and a GKA tour competitor currently based between Brazil, Cape Town and wherever the next competition takes her. Before turning professional, she was a finance consultant. She quit to risk it for the biscuit — her words — and hasn't looked back. In this episode, recorded on a rest day in Brazil where Lana is training with her coach ahead of a packed competition season, the conversation goes everywhere. They cover the mental side of learning high-risk tricks — the meditation, the visualisation, the step-by-step process of not getting injured — and the story of how Harlem rejected her sponsorship application, then came back and offered her a spot on the team after her profile started getting attention from other brands. There's also a great thread on the Slovenian and Slavic identity, collective suffering as a cultural value system ("my mother grew up thinking if you suffer in life you are doing good"), pre-competition Balkan yugorock pump-up playlists, and the social media post where she asked ChatGPT to make her look rich. The life philosophy holding it all together: "Life sucks and then you die." It makes more sense in context, we promise. A warm, funny and surprisingly deep episode — Lana is exactly as good company as she looks on the water. 🪁

    EP 11 | Lana Herman - Big Air Competitive Kitesurfer

  4. Jul 17

    EP 10 | Leilani - Rise with the Wind - female empowerment

    Leilani is a French engineer turned barefoot entrepreneur, kitesurfing instructor and the founder of Rise with the Wind — an organisation helping women from underprivileged backgrounds gain IKO certification, learn English, and build a livelihood through kitesurfing, all within a single year. In just a year and a half, the programme has launched in Brazil, Zanzibar, Morocco and Mexico, with a second Brazil location on the way. The conversation starts with Leilani's own story: a high-performing corporate career in France and Australia, a decision to leave it all behind with six months of savings and a freshly earned IKO cert, and a broken fibula two weeks into her new life that turned out to be one of the most important moments of her journey. From there it opens into something much bigger. They talk about the women in the programme — the girl in Zanzibar who prays five times a day, collects seaweed, and is now a kitesurfing instructor; the woman who left her husband because he didn't want her to study; the group of girls in Brazil who passed their IKO and went on to work at a Duotone centre. They discuss what it means to enter a culture with humility and curiosity rather than assumptions, why kitesurfing can change a woman's relationship to fear and failure, and what it might look like to create Muslim-friendly kite schools. And then, towards the end, a thread on passion burnout, golden cages, and why identity is just a dress you can change. Episode 10. One to sit with. 🌊 Support Rise with the Wind: https://www.rwtw.surf/ Photos in the episode by: https://www.instagram.com/sam.vox

    EP 10 | Leilani - Rise with the Wind - female empowerment

  5. Jul 3

    EP 9 | Nathalie Lambrecht - competitive Big Air kitesurfer

    Nathalie Lambrecht is one of the most exciting kitesurfers in the world right now — a professional Big Air athlete, North and Mystic team rider, GKA competitor, and reigning Red Bull King of the Air Women's Devision champion. She grew up in El Gouna, Egypt, started kitesurfing at eleven after her babysitter came home glowing from a lesson, studied in Stockholm from fourteen to nineteen, and has since made the world her home. This conversation goes well beyond the competition highlights. Nathalie opens up about the mental game behind Big Air — the journaling practice she's kept for over two years, working with a mental coach, and what it's like to simply enjoy the time in the water during a heat. We also talk about what it means to build an identity outside of kitesurfing, the beautiful community between women on the GKA tour, the walkie-talkies and banana strategy that gets her through competition heats, her sister's role as her most important support person, and why she travels everywhere with a teddy bear, a yoga mat, and a set of board games. Grounded, honest, warm and genuinely fun — this one is a treat. 🪁

    EP 9 | Nathalie Lambrecht - competitive Big Air kitesurfer

  6. Jun 18

    EP 8 | Emely Freja Petersen - Ocean Soul - kite & yoga

    Emely is a kitesurfing and yoga instructor who runs camps in Akayaka, Turkey — a place she fell in love with on a visit nearly seven years ago and never left. Recorded beach-side at Sydvestpynten, one of Copenhagen's most popular kite spots, this episode covers a huge range of ground: starting kitesurfing in Denmark in early 2000s, competing in the Danish Freestyle Tour, why fewer girls are entering competitions these days, and why "free ride" categories might be the key to changing that. They also dig into the role of yoga in kitesurfing recovery and injury prevention, how kite culture has shifted from "just kite more" to gym sessions and protein shakes, and what makes a destination like Akyaka so special — protected nature, zero high-rises, and a community vibe that's hard to find elsewhere. Things get especially fun toward the end, with talk of slalom races, kitesurfing challenges, and a half-serious pitch for a kitesurfing app. A warm, funny and wide-ranging conversation between two people who clearly love this sport. 🪁

    EP 8 | Emely Freja Petersen - Ocean Soul - kite & yoga

  7. May 22

    EP 7 | Lena - Cold Water Sirens - cold water surfing & surfing as therapy

    Lena is an artist, surf coach, certified surf therapy facilitator, and the founder of Cold Water Sirens - a community built around cold water surfing on the North Sea coast of Denmark. What started as a question: "why is there nowhere for women who don't fit the standard surf school mould to go?" became a community, a coaching practice, a film, and a philosophy about what the ocean can actually do for you. The conversation goes deep, in the best way. They cover the mythology behind sirens and mermaids and why the figure means so much more than the male gaze version of it, what cold water surfing in a thickest possible wetsuit actually feels like, and why the North Sea will teach you something about letting go of expectations. Lena walks through her holistic approach to surf coaching — always a mix of mental, physical and embodied work — and explains the "Surf Your Cycle" workshop she developed around hormones, energy levels, and what your body needs at different points in the month. There's also a brilliant thread on fear of deep water, the Blue Mind theory, surf therapy as a practice, and why sometimes the most radical thing you can do is just sit with a cup of tea and look at the sea for 20 minutes.

    EP 7 | Lena - Cold Water Sirens - cold water surfing & surfing as therapy

  8. May 14

    EP 6 | Maria - Flip'n Fun Wakepark

    Maria grew up water skiing in Gambia at age seven. By the time she moved back to Sweden, there was nowhere nearby to ride. So eventually, she built her own. Episode 6 of Mermaid Mode is the first recorded on location — at Flip & Fun Wake Park in Sweden, currently a building site an hour and a half from Copenhagen, and soon to be Scandinavia's biggest cable park. Maria and her partner Henning have been working towards this for over a decade, including seven years just waiting for permits. Now the diggers are in, the groundwater is high, and the dream is finally taking shape. The conversation covers everything: how Maria got into wakeboarding, why she co-founded Nordic Wake Girls back in 2014, the case for building a water sports community that feels like a second home, what it actually takes to build a cable park from scratch in Sweden, and why more girls in the sport starts with atmosphere, female staff, and making it genuinely okay to fail. There's also a great thread on the creative process — from Pinterest boards and aquarelle sketches to AI visualisation tools — and a peek at what Flip & Fun will eventually offer: a restaurant, a sauna, cabins, possibly a snowboarding hill, and year-round riding if they can swing it. One to watch. Literally. 🌊

    EP 6 | Maria - Flip'n Fun Wakepark
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About

Mermaid Mode is a podcast for women who feel most alive in, on, or near water. It’s a space for athletes, water-sports professionals, cold-water swimmers, and women who use water as a tool for recovery — physically, mentally, emotionally. Each episode explores the stories, rituals, and mindsets of women who have answered the call of water in their own way. Not all mermaids are the same.But they all know how to dive deep. Get in your Mermaid Mode. Dive deep. Stay wild.

Information

  • Creator
    Sasha Bondareva
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Sasha Bondareva
  • Show Website
    Mermaid Mode