Butterfly kick

Geraldine, I would not expect that any time soon. Please forgive me if I recite history which you already know. Prior to the 1950s, there were only three competitive strokes; there was no butterfly. Then some enterprising soul noticed that the rules of the time allowed a *** stroker to recover his arms over the water. He tried this method, and discovered it allowed him to go faster, and voila! You had the latest stroke technique craze of that era, and some swimmers even talked about pacing strategies that involved using over water or under water recoveries at various points of longer *** stroke events. Problem was that the *** stroke was (and is) much beloved of swimming traditionalists and antiquarians. (If you troll these discussion threads, you will encounter them. They talk so movingly and eloquently about the sensation of swimming ***, like George Will describing baseball, or those European poets who speak so lovingly of soccer, that they pass out from their own eloquence. However, I digress...) They felt that the *** stroke that they had come to know and love was under assault and in danger of disappearing from competitive swimming altogether when elite swimmers figured out how to make use systematically of the over water arm recovery. The solution of the time was to create a new competitive stroke--butterfly--that required over water recovery, and then change the *** stroke rules to prohibit over arm recovery. In an amazing and unlikely turn of events, they had actually found a solution that made competitive swimming better for everyone involved. The *** strokers got to keep their beloved traditional stroke. The really good over water recoverers got their own stroke (which in my humble opinion is truly the stroke of the Gods, but again, I digress...) Swimming as a whole got a fourth stroke to round out the schedule of events, and let's face it, 200 and 400 are much more regular distances for IM races, and much preferable to the 150 and 300 IM that preceded them. (I'm not pulling your leg. They really did contest those races. Yeech!) In Masters swimming, and only Masters swimming, a *** stroke kick is permitted in deference to the older swimmers who learned fly, if at all, as a modification of *** stroke. At every other level of swimming, a *** stroke kick is forbidden in fly races. So, to get to the point, the possibility the traditionalists will ever agree to let you use a fly or "body dolphin" kick in place of the normal *** stroke kick IN A RACE is about as likely as pigs flying or donkeys speaking latin (or Gull endorsing TI, but there I go again, digressing...) I will observe that if you would like to swim *** stroke that way in practice, no one is going to tell you that you can't (and if you coach tries, fire him; he works for you). I use "body dolphin" *** stroke (i.e. *** pull with fly kick) myself as a stroke drill to learn the "body wave" style of *** stroke. If you don't follow, look for anything Wayne McCauley has written. He is the self-declared, and widely regarded and accepted, *** stroke guru of Masters swimming. Moroever, when I put fins on, even the short blade kind, I actually feel like a real *** stroker for the only time in my life and begin to understand a little bit what the traditionalists are talking about before they render themselves unconscious with their own prose. Matt

Geraldine, I would not expect that any time soon. Please forgive me if I recite history which you already know. Prior to the 1950s, there were only three competitive strokes; there was no butterfly. Then some enterprising soul noticed that the rules of the time allowed a *** stroker to recover his arms over the water. He tried this method, and discovered it allowed him to go faster, and voila! You had the latest stroke technique craze of that era, and some swimmers even talked about pacing strategies that involved using over water or under water recoveries at various points of longer *** stroke events. Problem was that the *** stroke was (and is) much beloved of swimming traditionalists and antiquarians. (If you troll these discussion threads, you will encounter them. They talk so movingly and eloquently about the sensation of swimming ***, like George Will describing baseball, or those European poets who speak so lovingly of soccer, that they pass out from their own eloquence. However, I digress...) They felt that the *** stroke that they had come to know and love was under assault and in danger of disappearing from competitive swimming altogether when elite swimmers figured out how to make use systematically of the over water arm recovery. The solution of the time was to create a new competitive stroke--butterfly--that required over water recovery, and then change the *** stroke rules to prohibit over arm recovery. In an amazing and unlikely turn of events, they had actually found a solution that made competitive swimming better for everyone involved. The *** strokers got to keep their beloved traditional stroke. The really good over water recoverers got their own stroke (which in my humble opinion is truly the stroke of the Gods, but again, I digress...) Swimming as a whole got a fourth stroke to round out the schedule of events, and let's face it, 200 and 400 are much more regular distances for IM races, and much preferable to the 150 and 300 IM that preceded them. (I'm not pulling your leg. They really did contest those races. Yeech!) In Masters swimming, and only Masters swimming, a *** stroke kick is permitted in deference to the older swimmers who learned fly, if at all, as a modification of *** stroke. At every other level of swimming, a *** stroke kick is forbidden in fly races. So, to get to the point, the possibility the traditionalists will ever agree to let you use a fly or "body dolphin" kick in place of the normal *** stroke kick IN A RACE is about as likely as pigs flying or donkeys speaking latin (or Gull endorsing TI, but there I go again, digressing...) I will observe that if you would like to swim *** stroke that way in practice, no one is going to tell you that you can't (and if you coach tries, fire him; he works for you). I use "body dolphin" *** stroke (i.e. *** pull with fly kick) myself as a stroke drill to learn the "body wave" style of *** stroke. If you don't follow, look for anything Wayne McCauley has written. He is the self-declared, and widely regarded and accepted, *** stroke guru of Masters swimming. Moroever, when I put fins on, even the short blade kind, I actually feel like a real *** stroker for the only time in my life and begin to understand a little bit what the traditionalists are talking about before they render themselves unconscious with their own prose. Matt