curious about FINA

Can I add a little bit of History here? At one time, the breaststroke rules simply stated that the arms had to recover simultaneously. The stroke morphed into an over-the-water recovery keeping the breaststroke kick. During the first half of the last century, it was commonly believed that man (or woman) was not able to sustain the over-the-water recovery for a whole 200 meters. So swimmers would start out with the over-the-water recovery, convert to the underwater recovery for the middle and then complete the last "sprint" with the over-the-water recovery. As the century progressed, training techniques improved and women (and sometimes man :) ) learned to swim the entire race with the over-the-water recovery. So the strokes were split. Over-the-water recovery was butterfly and underwater recovery was breaststroke. Please note that FINA did not outlaw the breaststroke kick in the butterfly for kid's swimming until about 5 years ago when Masters got into a tizzy when they did. (FINA Masters only lists exceptions to standard FINA rules. So when they deleted it, we didn't have an exception!) The first Olympic games that had the butterfly stroke was the 1956 Olympics and most (if not all) people used the dolphin kick since it was faster. Bill Yorsyk, coached by "Red" Sylvia of Springfield College, won the men’s 200 meter butterfly. Masters chose to allow the breaststroke kick in the butterfly because many (most?) of our initial members learned the breaststroke with over-the-water recovery. We were also consistent with FINA if not USA-Swimming but I don't know if that was a consideration. We haven't changed the rule in part because many of those original swimmers are still around (says something good for swimming) and also some of us younger folk use it on occasion (like the last time I swam the 200 M fly at nationals - last length all breaststroke kick - got 8th out of 9 !) Hope you find this interesting. Leo

Can I add a little bit of History here? At one time, the breaststroke rules simply stated that the arms had to recover simultaneously. The stroke morphed into an over-the-water recovery keeping the breaststroke kick. During the first half of the last century, it was commonly believed that man (or woman) was not able to sustain the over-the-water recovery for a whole 200 meters. So swimmers would start out with the over-the-water recovery, convert to the underwater recovery for the middle and then complete the last "sprint" with the over-the-water recovery. As the century progressed, training techniques improved and women (and sometimes man :) ) learned to swim the entire race with the over-the-water recovery. So the strokes were split. Over-the-water recovery was butterfly and underwater recovery was breaststroke. Please note that FINA did not outlaw the breaststroke kick in the butterfly for kid's swimming until about 5 years ago when Masters got into a tizzy when they did. (FINA Masters only lists exceptions to standard FINA rules. So when they deleted it, we didn't have an exception!) The first Olympic games that had the butterfly stroke was the 1956 Olympics and most (if not all) people used the dolphin kick since it was faster. Bill Yorsyk, coached by "Red" Sylvia of Springfield College, won the men’s 200 meter butterfly. Masters chose to allow the breaststroke kick in the butterfly because many (most?) of our initial members learned the breaststroke with over-the-water recovery. We were also consistent with FINA if not USA-Swimming but I don't know if that was a consideration. We haven't changed the rule in part because many of those original swimmers are still around (says something good for swimming) and also some of us younger folk use it on occasion (like the last time I swam the 200 M fly at nationals - last length all breaststroke kick - got 8th out of 9 !) Hope you find this interesting. Leo