You are the Rules Dictator

Leo, I stand appropriately chastened. :notworthy: For the historians out there: was there a point at which the dolphin kick was legal in breaststroke or was it introduced after the split? Lindsey: I found some information regarding this last night at my home. In 1953, the butterfly stroke with the dolphin is legalized as a separate stroke for competition and thus became the 4th competitive stroke. Between 1936 and 1952, breastrokers perfect "butterfly breastroke" with butterfly arm action and breastroke kick, but the dolphin kick remains a violation of the competitive rules. A few of the breastroke competitors at the 1936 Olympics used this method and that was the earliest detection that I found out where it was discovered. It came about because swimmers found a loophole in the breastroke rules as they existed at that time in that the law made no stipulation about the need to recover the arms foward past the ***. So this butterfly arm action with orthodox breastroke kick became very popular and the fastest method to swim than the orthodox method using traditional arm action and that method was becoming a rarity in competition and hardly ever used. The IOC did not want to add and extra event in the Olympic program to accomodate the vastly different styles. This went on for about 20 years until the 1956 Olympics and two strokes were separated and competed as butterfly and breastroke. One of the main points to the new rule was this: "The hands had to be recovered forward from the ***, at least when swimming on the surface. While swimming underwater, the swimmer was permitted to use a full length pull through the hips." This seemed to make sense at the time and breastroke traditionalists were happy. But there was something in this rule they never would have imagined and was made popular particularly by the Japanese swimmers. Swimmers started swimming long distances underwater with the resultant long pull through to the hips. They would surface for a breath , then off they would go to continue their underwater journey for the whole race. This type of swimming didn't last long and the 1956 Olympics was the only time that breastroke was ever swam like this. In 1957, in response to this FINA made changes in the rules to allow only one underwater pull and one kick allowed at each turn and after the underwater glide after the start. As you can see, swimmers in the future namely David Berkoff, Misty Hyman, and Dennis Pankratov did basically the same thing that the Japanese did first in that if the rules were not in place to stop underwater swimming with advanced technique. The difference was that those three swimmers along with others realized that dolphin kicking underwater with perfect streamlining of the body could result in fasters speeds than surface swimming. Of course FINA made changes and restrictions to what these three were doing and thus we have the 15 meter rule limit today for the max distance allowed. When FINA made the changes, the rule written about the kick was as follows: "All movements of the feet must be excuted in a simultanous and symmetirical manner. Simutaneous up and down movements of the legs and feet in the vertical plane are permitted." From this it sounds like FINA has permitted a choice between the two different kicks and did not take action to change this until 2001, in which they wanted to disallow the frog kick in fly. In 2002, FINA made the exception in masters in Rule 3.10 that "a breastroke kicking movement is permitted for butterfly." In the AAU Rules handbook that I have from 1972, under Butterfly Kick, it states " All up and down movement of the legs and feet must be simultaneous. The position of the legs and feet shall not alternate in relation to each other. The use of the scissor or Breastroke kicking movement is not permitted." The 1994 USA Swimming Rule book in rule 101.2.3 says the exact same thing to the wording. What I would like to find out is when the AAU changed the rule about the kick and what year it was. I remember in the early 1960's seeing people in the swim club leagues do this but no one else. I am wondering when the choice of the 2 kick rule was dropped and you were only permitted to use the dolphin kick. What confusing is that all along FINA allowed it but no one did it because it was against the rules in the USA. Now when masters came along we had had that rule exception built in there so we could always choose but I don't think that was the case in the old AAU days. Another interesting historical fact is, who takes credit for inventing the Butterfly stroke? I have read many diffferent stories regarding this and it seems in dispute much like who was the first to use pace clocks. Coach Dave Armbruster in 1934 is one and used it with his swimmer Jack Sieg. Another is swimmer Henry Myers along with his coach W.W. Robertson and performed it in 1933 and used this new method in a medley race against the American medley champion, Wallace Spence and beat him. There were a lot of disputes with the officals at the meet but Robertson convinced officals that the new stroke did not contradict the rules and Myers was not disqualified and this set a precedent for the new stroke to be used in the future. In 1927, another swimmer from Germany named Erich Rademacher did double overarm recovery before he did a turn at the wall and when he touched at the end of a race and he convinced officals that he did not infringe on the rules. Charles "Red" Silva is the first coach of an Olympic Champion when he coached Bill Yorzyk to the Olympic Gold medal in the 200 Meter Fly in 1956. He is generally credited as the first swimmer to swim the fly using two kicks to "one arm cycle" in competition.

Leo, I stand appropriately chastened. :notworthy: For the historians out there: was there a point at which the dolphin kick was legal in breaststroke or was it introduced after the split? Lindsey: I found some information regarding this last night at my home. In 1953, the butterfly stroke with the dolphin is legalized as a separate stroke for competition and thus became the 4th competitive stroke. Between 1936 and 1952, breastrokers perfect "butterfly breastroke" with butterfly arm action and breastroke kick, but the dolphin kick remains a violation of the competitive rules. A few of the breastroke competitors at the 1936 Olympics used this method and that was the earliest detection that I found out where it was discovered. It came about because swimmers found a loophole in the breastroke rules as they existed at that time in that the law made no stipulation about the need to recover the arms foward past the ***. So this butterfly arm action with orthodox breastroke kick became very popular and the fastest method to swim than the orthodox method using traditional arm action and that method was becoming a rarity in competition and hardly ever used. The IOC did not want to add and extra event in the Olympic program to accomodate the vastly different styles. This went on for about 20 years until the 1956 Olympics and two strokes were separated and competed as butterfly and breastroke. One of the main points to the new rule was this: "The hands had to be recovered forward from the ***, at least when swimming on the surface. While swimming underwater, the swimmer was permitted to use a full length pull through the hips." This seemed to make sense at the time and breastroke traditionalists were happy. But there was something in this rule they never would have imagined and was made popular particularly by the Japanese swimmers. Swimmers started swimming long distances underwater with the resultant long pull through to the hips. They would surface for a breath , then off they would go to continue their underwater journey for the whole race. This type of swimming didn't last long and the 1956 Olympics was the only time that breastroke was ever swam like this. In 1957, in response to this FINA made changes in the rules to allow only one underwater pull and one kick allowed at each turn and after the underwater glide after the start. As you can see, swimmers in the future namely David Berkoff, Misty Hyman, and Dennis Pankratov did basically the same thing that the Japanese did first in that if the rules were not in place to stop underwater swimming with advanced technique. The difference was that those three swimmers along with others realized that dolphin kicking underwater with perfect streamlining of the body could result in fasters speeds than surface swimming. Of course FINA made changes and restrictions to what these three were doing and thus we have the 15 meter rule limit today for the max distance allowed. When FINA made the changes, the rule written about the kick was as follows: "All movements of the feet must be excuted in a simultanous and symmetirical manner. Simutaneous up and down movements of the legs and feet in the vertical plane are permitted." From this it sounds like FINA has permitted a choice between the two different kicks and did not take action to change this until 2001, in which they wanted to disallow the frog kick in fly. In 2002, FINA made the exception in masters in Rule 3.10 that "a breastroke kicking movement is permitted for butterfly." In the AAU Rules handbook that I have from 1972, under Butterfly Kick, it states " All up and down movement of the legs and feet must be simultaneous. The position of the legs and feet shall not alternate in relation to each other. The use of the scissor or Breastroke kicking movement is not permitted." The 1994 USA Swimming Rule book in rule 101.2.3 says the exact same thing to the wording. What I would like to find out is when the AAU changed the rule about the kick and what year it was. I remember in the early 1960's seeing people in the swim club leagues do this but no one else. I am wondering when the choice of the 2 kick rule was dropped and you were only permitted to use the dolphin kick. What confusing is that all along FINA allowed it but no one did it because it was against the rules in the USA. Now when masters came along we had had that rule exception built in there so we could always choose but I don't think that was the case in the old AAU days. Another interesting historical fact is, who takes credit for inventing the Butterfly stroke? I have read many diffferent stories regarding this and it seems in dispute much like who was the first to use pace clocks. Coach Dave Armbruster in 1934 is one and used it with his swimmer Jack Sieg. Another is swimmer Henry Myers along with his coach W.W. Robertson and performed it in 1933 and used this new method in a medley race against the American medley champion, Wallace Spence and beat him. There were a lot of disputes with the officals at the meet but Robertson convinced officals that the new stroke did not contradict the rules and Myers was not disqualified and this set a precedent for the new stroke to be used in the future. In 1927, another swimmer from Germany named Erich Rademacher did double overarm recovery before he did a turn at the wall and when he touched at the end of a race and he convinced officals that he did not infringe on the rules. Charles "Red" Silva is the first coach of an Olympic Champion when he coached Bill Yorzyk to the Olympic Gold medal in the 200 Meter Fly in 1956. He is generally credited as the first swimmer to swim the fly using two kicks to "one arm cycle" in competition.