Why does breaststroke get a bad rap?

Learning *** as a survival stroke or in a non-competitive pollywog class is entirely different from doing it for years and years in a competitive team environment. Obviously, I was using some hyperbole but the change to today's modern *** does take a good bit of tinkering from the old days to perfect. I should have clarified this...... I learned to swim the *** stroke the way it was taught in the 70's,but never had the opportunity to swim competitively because there were no programs in place where I grew up,neither HS/college or beyond(rural Germany). I also took a very long break in my swimming and probably started from scratch when I got back in the pool 2 years ago. I could have learned any stroke, but *** stroke felt like the right when I tried it. I see many people at my pool struggling with it because they swim it incorrectly- we even have one gentleman who seems to move backward because his timing is off- but, bless his heart, he keeps at it!I have to bite my tongue to not go over and help him out..... Once in a while someone comes in and just nails it, and you can tell right away that that is "their"stroke.

Learning *** as a survival stroke or in a non-competitive pollywog class is entirely different from doing it for years and years in a competitive team environment. Obviously, I was using some hyperbole but the change to today's modern *** does take a good bit of tinkering from the old days to perfect. I should have clarified this...... I learned to swim the *** stroke the way it was taught in the 70's,but never had the opportunity to swim competitively because there were no programs in place where I grew up,neither HS/college or beyond(rural Germany). I also took a very long break in my swimming and probably started from scratch when I got back in the pool 2 years ago. I could have learned any stroke, but *** stroke felt like the right when I tried it. I see many people at my pool struggling with it because they swim it incorrectly- we even have one gentleman who seems to move backward because his timing is off- but, bless his heart, he keeps at it!I have to bite my tongue to not go over and help him out..... Once in a while someone comes in and just nails it, and you can tell right away that that is "their"stroke.