Simple. You have absolute power to change any technique rules, start/finish rules, age up rules, sky is the limit as long as the rules pertain to swimming. What would you change and why?
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.
Lindsey,
I didn't see your question until now. Skip seems to have given you more than you probably realized possible but then again Skip has been doing that for a long time.
I just have to add that I was priviledged to have know Coach Silvia. I attended the Pine Knoll Swim School in Springfield MA for a number of years in the mid 60's. (My mother first sent my brother and I so she could get some rest in the summer.) Coach was truly and extraordinary man and coach. The school was at his home where he had built a 6 lane 25 yard pool, a diving tank, a softball field, a soccer field, tennis courts and the like. Several hundred kids would come each day. There were some boarders there also. Most were not in the competitive program. The teachers were mainly college and high school coaches from around the northeast that were once affiliated with the Springfield College swim program. The morning and afternoon sessions were each broken into three, one-hour parts: lecture, swimming and some other sport (rotated through softball, tennis, etc.) The amazing thing was that Coach Silvia would lecture the campers (split into groups of 9 and unders and 10 and overs) about biomechanics every day. He had a huge library of films from international competitions and really concentrated on the very things that some of the other threads have spent a long time talking about. I still remember him putting up on the blackboard (me at age 10), the force diagram for a bent arm and mathmatically proving that you needed to bend the arm by showing the equation: F x FA = R x RA (F=force, FA = force arm, R = Resistance and RA = Resistance arm). All the while Doc Councilman was arguing S curves and the rest, Coach Silvia was working on efficient application of force. He was proud of the accomplishments of Bill Yorsk and we did see that film every couple of weeks as part of the stroke analysis. I could go on about Coach Silvia but I will leave that for another thread.
The first time I saw breaststroke swam underwater a fellow from Jamaica did it at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1954 in Vancouver they had a long conference on that occasion but did not DQ him. I saw two beat dolphin used in 1953. This is how I swam fly from my start in swimming fly, big kick little kick in 1953.
I also so found this article on butterfly www.omniswim.com/index.php
Here's what I want:
1. Allow diving backstroke starts off the blocks like for all the other strokes.
2. Swimming pentathlon events. We have a pentathlon meet here in WA that has sprint- 50's+100IM, middle- 100's + 200IM, and long-200s + 400IM divisions. Total time wins, must do all events on the same day.
3. Swimming decathlon event. Not sure what events to include, but you'd need a points system to not favor distance swimmers.
4. Set competitions: Something like 10 x 100 on 10 minutes, from the blocks. Could score points for consistency/descending and/or total time. Could have different point weights for each heat. Time penalties for false starts. Relay possibilities (40 x 100 relay with 4 swimmers).
5. Open water swimming races in strong current. Lots of possibilities. Rivers, rapids, waterfalls, flumes...
6. Penalize incorrect usage of the term "Olympic Sized Swimming Pool".
Leslie, butterbreast has a toothsome, if not salacious, sound to it, however, to reiterate, I am quite happy to 'grandfather' the use of our kick to those 55 and up as of 2007.
Lindsey,
I didn't see your question until now. Skip seems to have given you more than you probably realized possible but then again Skip has been doing that for a long time.
I just have to add that I was priviledged to have know Coach Silvia. I attended the Pine Knoll Swim School in Springfield MA for a number of years in the mid 60's. (My mother first sent my brother and I so she could get some rest in the summer.) Coach was truly and extraordinary man and coach. The school was at his home where he had built a 6 lane 25 yard pool, a diving tank, a softball field, a soccer field, tennis courts and the like. Several hundred kids would come each day. There were some boarders there also. Most were not in the competitive program. The teachers were mainly college and high school coaches from around the northeast that were once affiliated with the Springfield College swim program. The morning and afternoon sessions were each broken into three, one-hour parts: lecture, swimming and some other sport (rotated through softball, tennis, etc.) The amazing thing was that Coach Silvia would lecture the campers (split into groups of 9 and unders and 10 and overs) about biomechanics every day. He had a huge library of films from international competitions and really concentrated on the very things that some of the other threads have spent a long time talking about. I still remember him putting up on the blackboard (me at age 10), the force diagram for a bent arm and mathmatically proving that you needed to bend the arm by showing the equation: F x FA = R x RA (F=force, FA = force arm, R = Resistance and RA = Resistance arm). All the while Doc Councilman was arguing S curves and the rest, Coach Silvia was working on efficient application of force. He was proud of the accomplishments of Bill Yorsk and we did see that film every couple of weeks as part of the stroke analysis. I could go on about Coach Silvia but I will leave that for another thread.
Leo:
Thanks for sharing your story about Coach Silva and your right we could go on and on and he was talked about by Terry and George on the freestyle stroke question thread and the explanation of Silva's "Big Four".
What I will remember about him is the articles that he provided in the 1960's about the Fly stroke and how he experiemented scientifically with swimmers, mainly Bill Yorzyk to explain the concepts of this new stroke. I remember his explanations of the arm stroke movement, perfecting the kick, and the timing of the dolphin. I remember that he stressed that the power of the kick comes from the downward knee joint and not from the hips. With this action there is an upward movement of the hips, which forces the water backward to propel the swimmer forward. I also remember him suggesting to breath every other stroke and discouraged breathing on the side because he felt when a swimmer is fatigued, the side on which he is breathing will began to drop into the water and the swimmer will struggle and maybe disqualified because the shoulder will drop and not be horizontal.
In my high school years when I was taking CPR and Water Safety instruction from the Red Cross to be certified as a life guard I came accross his name again. I learned that he was the first to embrace mouth to mouth restoration, the method of choice today for artifical respiration.
Another point Leo mentions is that he had all his students do different sports and perhaps this is where he got some of his ideas about the scientific concepts that he applied to swimming. I know he was a baseball coach at Springfield College and perhaps he learned some things and applied them to the Pine Knoll and Springfield swimmers. I have never read anything about his background as a competitive swimmers and I really don't know if he ever swam competitively and perhaps that is why he was open to a lot of ideas that others were not experiementing with in his day.
I remember when I competed at the Long Course Nationals in Buffalo, NY in 1988 and there was a coaches clinic from a coach that I never heard of at that time and was the coach of the University of Rochester that was nearby. Today he is regarded as one of the most famous and successful swimming consultants in swimming. His name is Bill Boomer and he had a series of successful videos out about 15 years ago. I remember him talking about cycle rates, stroke tempo, vessel shape like swimming to reduce drag and resistance, using speed buckets for power to create swimming velocity in sprinting racing and studing the axis of the body during swimming. I remember him saying that he went to Springfield College and thought maybe he was a mentor of Silva and asked him. He said he didn't even swim there but played basketball and soccer and coached those activities when he came to Rochester and was asked to be the swim coach without a competitive background because they needed one. I remember him saying that he came to swimming with free mind and that he wanted to experiement with advance concepts that no one was doing at the time. That at a small Division III program he could do this because he could get the type of swimmer who would not be set in his ways for experiementing. This type of coaching style was very similar to Silva's.
I never did meet Coach Silva but I did meet Bill Yorzyk. At the 1983 Long Course Nationals at IUPUI, I saw him go in the low 2:30.00 range for the 200 Meter Fly and was impressed not so much for the time but at that time I had never seen such perfect form for fly swimming by someone who was over 50. I remember he got a standing ovation after his swim and would have won the two younger age groups below his. He used to come to the meets and hang out with Many Sanguily. I had heard shortly after this meet that his son David had died in a tragic car accident. I don't think he has swam in many years but I will always remember seeing him swim as a masters swimmer.
Hi George:
I don't remember him wearing big ear plugs but he could have been. When I saw him swimming I was up far in the stands at IUPUI and couldn't see that well for that. I just remember him swimming the 200 Meter Fly with excellent form the whole race and everyone else struggling to finish. That was the last time I saw him swimming and I know he went through a lot of personal hardships after his son died in that tragic accident. I am not sure if his son ever swam mastes but I know that his friend Mani Sanguily got the memorial award instituted in his name for the best 400 IM done at the Short Course Nationals and its still awarded today. Maybe someday he will come back and we can see his excellent Fly. Not many people beat him after the 1956 Olympics and Mike Troy kind of took the mantle of the 200 Fly around 1959/1960.
3. Swimming decathlon event. Not sure what events to include, but you'd need a points system to not favor distance swimmers.
USA Swimming has the IMX Challenge which doles out points based on performances of selected events depending on age group. Something similar might work for Masters Swimming.
Hey Skip did you ever see the weird ear plugs that Bill used. When he came to Canada to go to University of Toronto he wore these strange earplugs that covered his whole ear with a band that went all around his head. He was being troubled with ear infections. We raced a few fly races he always beat me.
The last lecture I attended Silvia talked body types and swimming. I found this article when I did the search for Coach Sivia and body types, a lot of pages findarticles.com/.../ai_n8915614
Allow backstrokers to do the stand up start with feet in gutter and holding side of block. When did that go aways anyways?
couldn't have been that long ago - a girl on my high school team did it her four years, and she graduated in 1999.
maybe people just stopped doing it because it wasn't as fast as the other?
is it in the rules that you can't do it?
i think it died with the high school rule change in either 2000 or 2001. high school rules used to allow you to have most of your foot out of the water, so if you could get your feet on the gutter and still have your heels in the water, you could do that start. but with the rule change, high school rules matched USS rules and made you keep your whole foot under water. but i think that has since changed, again. :shakeshead:
