To think that learning to swim butterfly is pointless?

[Justajot]

Watching my DD's swimming lesson, I finally realised that no one ever needs to be able to swim bufferfly. Breaststroke is good for ploughing up and down, front crawl is good for going faster and back crawl is lovely and chilled, each has a role. But butterfly is there just to be awkward. I've only ever seen one adult swim butterfly at a public pool and they were so slow they might as well have been going backwards. Why do children still dutifully learn butterfly?

Both my children gave up swimming lessons while being taught butterfly. They loved dolphin kick and would choose to use it even when swimming for fun as a family- but add in the arms and they hated it. Really exhausted and frustrated them. By that point I was happy that they could swim other strokes confidently and with strength so I was happy for them to stop lessons.

DD's school only introduced it when they came to an advanced stage, I think the last stage before the scheme was over. By then not a lot of children continued anyway as the parents stopped when the children could swim decently. Mostof the children who continued then either went into swim clubs or just loved swimming.

DD does now Rookie lifesaver and they swam with mermaid tails last week. For that butterfly was important and she had tons of fun.

I hated it as a child, but dd1 does it beautifully and confidently.

It's good for arm strength and if you want to swim competitively then you'd need to be able to do it. Also butterfly legs are a great skill for diving/sea swimming and speed - also use butterfly legs when coming out of a turn.

I virtually grew up in water and never had any lessons beyond what my DM taught me which was breast stroke. We moved back to the UK when I was 14 and I competed at county level at breast stroke and would have swum breast stroke for free style too as I was faster than any of the front crawl swimmers at my club but the coach wouldn't allow it.
Butterfly utterly baffled me and still does. It seems like a huge amount of effort for not much gain.

I do wonder why they introduce butterfly so early in the stages. My 3 year old had two weeks where the lessons revolved around butterfly and she was upset she (unsurprisingly) couldn’t do it. I’d rather they cracked the swimming a length bit before faffing around with hard strokes that many adults struggle with. She hasn’t done it for a while though so I’m hoping it doesn’t make a reappearance on the programme for another few months.

My 3 year old had two weeks where the lessons revolved around butterfly and she was upset she (unsurprisingly) couldn’t do it. I’d rather they cracked the swimming a length bit before faffing around with hard strokes that many adults struggle with.

Is that a typo? Because none of the swimming schools in my area even start teaching proper strokes until at least 4 because they just dont have the attention or capacity to learn them. I know my 3 year old just likes to splash around when we go swimming nevermind learning strokes as difficult as the butterfly.

FormerlyFrikadela01 Not a typo. She was in a normal fun/splashy pre-school class first but just kept swimming away from the teacher so she needed to move up earlier than they might have otherwise liked and she’s the youngest by a long way. I think the butterfly was because they were testing which stage the older 4 year olds would go into once they could join the school-age classes.

It's pretty fast and impressive when done properly. My dad is the only person I've seen who's been able to pull it off though. I think I would die if I tried

Oooh you're completely wrong I'm afraid op. I'm just back from swim training now. Tonight's set included 7x200m butterfly. (Broken at differing intervals). It was awesome. I'm buzzing.
It's exercise. It's as useful as any other. In fact, fly burns more calories than any other sport.

I'm also a swim teacher. The reason I include it in my lessons is;

1. Most kids love doing dolphin.
2. When the arms are added, most kids love the challenge
3. If any dc do progress to club, it is vital that they have the rhythm for it, learnt when young. I have many adults who want to learn butterfly and it is so hard to learn as an adult as the rhythm isn't there.
4. Doing all strokes adds more variety to the lessons, this making it more fun. All strokes help others.
5. Of course I don't include it to make more profit, ffs!

Nolonger Ds can't do breast legs full stop! He has no rotation in his hips and spastic paraplegia (HSP) so his feet turn in and not out 😂 they don't even try and make him anymore!

Don't forget they also need butterfly technique for their turns and underwater phase.

"they swam with mermaid tails last week. For that butterfly was important"

Probably not that vital for most people then.

There's definitely some myopia here about how those who teach/swim competitively can't see that's not a factor for the majority - summer up by someone suggesting that learning butterfly is the solution to our sedentary society for heavens sake. Surely you can identify those who are keen and athletically inclined and give them the chance to develop that rhythm without waylaying others who just want to learn to swim without this obstacle needlessly elongating the process?

Yanbu. It’s strictly for showing off purposes. I’m just jealous because I’m rubbish. But done properly it does look awesome.

There’s lots of other things included in the levels that wouldn’t help you survive at sea either- you aren’t going to mushroom float, handstand or forward roll your way out of trouble. But people don’t seem to complain about these in the same way, despite the same argument applying.

The levels are all about building up to the skills needed for one of the 4 disciplines after level 7. It isn’t just racing, it’s skills for synchro, diving and water polo too.

Maybe there’s a gap in the market for some classes which ignore all these skills, but I’m not sure you can blame the governing body of swimming in England for developing a programme which meets their end goal of swimmers with a broad mix of skills to progress into one or more of the disciplines in levels 8-10 and beyond.

They do say children should get 3 awards a year and not take more than 1 year to complete any level.

Butterfly is utterly unimportant. You can be a great swimmer without being able to do butterfly. But I can't get irritated with the swimming authority wanting to take swimming and butterfly learning seriously, it's kind of what they do.

But people don’t seem to complain about these in the same way, despite the same argument applying.

You seem to have completely missed the point. None of the other things you talk about are impossible to do properly for most primary age children, because they lack the core strength required, but get 25% of lesson time anyway, leave the children too shattered to do anything else, and destroy their confidence to the extent that some give up swimming lessons altogether.

I used to race butterfly. I used to be placed every race, largely because there were seldom more than 4 entrants in my category.

It’s an excellent work out.

Erm because it's good exercise?!

It is lovely to watch though. I make DH do it so I can watch him

I have used butterfly legs for turns for years. I don't need to know butterfly arms for that. I'm not saying it should not be taught at all but it shouldn't be a requirement to get through the stages.

And if you are an adult swimming for fitness, all you really need is front crawl, with a bit of the other strokes to use different muscles and have a change occasionally. We don't do a lot of butterfly in my sessions, but certainly more than we used to.

I am useless at it. But I am also useless at breast-stroke because I am pigeon-toed. Having toes that turn in is an advantage for the front crawl legs, but is a massive handicap for breast-stroke! I think about 80% of the propulsion in breast-stroke comes from the legs. With me it's about 8% ;)

I agree that butterfly is unnecessary unless you intend to swim competitively.
I was lucky insofar as my 4 DC learnt to swim at a school which didn't focus on the ASA awards. It did, however, have a coach who was connected to the local club. So, if swimmers wanted to progress to club standard he would concentrate on getting them stroke ready for a trial there.
All of mine had mastered freestyle, breast and back whilst at swimming school but didn't really touch on fly until they were swimming at club level.
My 2 DS are now county level fly swimmers; it is a joy to watch when done properly. Almost balletic.

My stroke of preference is that breast variation where you don’t get your face/hair wet. So there.

This is apparently called mom stroke and not in a nice way. However, it is actually the only stroke mothers can do in the pool when their children are young/newly independent swimmers. The young men in my pool that laugh at the "mom swimmers" would not be laughing long if younger children were allowed to run riot whilst their mothers flashed up and down doing front crawl...

Sorry to derail the thread OP

Well, I buck the trend, because I taught myself to swim front crawl aged 19-20 in my local swimming pool and I also picked up butterfly, simply from watching it on tv. I'm sure that if I trained in butterfly more than front crawl, I would be faster in it, as it is, doing one length each time I swim keeps me pretty competent in it.

Its a lovely stroke, much easier to learn than front crawl, which took me nearly a year. With butterfly, the breathing is much easier because its to the front.

As for swimming away from the Titanic, in the sea with waves and ship engines trying to churn you back to it, you would clearly be better swimming butterfly as its such a powerful stroke and you could see which direction you were going in and you rose slightly above the waves each time you breathed! Its the best stroke for sea swimming, particularly when you are cresting waves on your way back to shore.