To not see the point of butterfly? (Swimming)

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

Slight frustration as the only thing holding DD back from moving up a level at swimming is her butterfly legs. Elder DD is on the lesson above (stage 5) and has had children move into her group barely able to swim a width in any stroke. Meanwhile DD is in level below able to do proper breaststroke, front crawl and backstroke. But her butterfly legs are a bit messy.

But what is the point of butterfly? Front crawl is fast. Breaststroke has it uses for people who can't go underwater and is calm. Backstroke has uses for when you get in trouble.

Neither child will be going into Club swimming... unfortunately Covid has put paid to any chance of that as they are too old now really.

My views might be slightly effected by being a former Club swimmer who didn't do butterfly after breaking my arm leaving it with a slight weakness... I could do the others fine.

So.. is there a use for the Butterfly stroke outside of competitive swimming?

Like many here, I allowed my DS to give up swimming lessons when the only thing preventing him moving up a level after weeks of trying was not swimming butterfly perfectly.

Its only purpose as far as I can see is keeping kids in lessons longer than necessary (and parents spending more than necessary) and demoralising them.

@OchonAgusOchonOh

The main use of butterfly is to ensure nobody gets in the same lane as you in a swimming pool.

My DH loves the butterfly and I just watch everyone hating it around him.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

The unfortunate thing is they came to English swimming rather late. They learnt abroad and it was different... it was strength and endurance rather than style. We returned to UK and they started English lessons in January 2020. So they've been in their current stages for over 2 years because of pool closures and waiting lists!

I just don't get how the teacher can't notice a child is on 98% and not think to check to see if she can do the last thing on the list (she is on Performed for butterfly legs, not Mastered.)

Tell the teacher your views. You are paying for it.

Both DC's gave up swimming at this point! Both had been able to do the butterfly legs easily for ages, but couldn't get the hang of doing the arms at the same time. We realised we were wasting our money, and they were getting bored and frustrated. Several years later both are still good, strong swimmers who can be safe in the water. That's all we really wanted from the lessons anyway.

It's a very useful stroke for disabled swimmers who can't differentiate left and right.... not helpful I know!

It's a powerful stroke that looks amazing

My 13 year old swims competitively (Australia). She’s going through a rude, annoying teen stage. I don’t watch her train or anything weird like that but when I do see her swim ‘fly I am in awe of her and so feel less irritated by her.

Disclaimer: I’m not in awe of her because she’s amazing at it, or anything. Just because it’s a cool stroke to watch.

@Turquoisesol

I thought it was the stroke of choice for life saving in the sea ??!

It's been a while since I did open water lifeguarding, but we were always taught to use the fastest stroke we could do without putting our head under the water as the goal was to keep our eyes on the person in trouble so that if they went under, you'd know where to aim for.

I loved butterfly as a competitive swimmer! when really fit it feels amazing to do a good fast 100m or 200m fly in competition.

if she's struggling with the legs, it may be her timing that is out - that can impact on how she is able to perform the kick. it really is a whole body stroke rather than arms and legs viewed separately. the phrase we always used is "kick your hands in, kick your hands out" which was quite useful. maybe try YouTube for butterfly timing drills? also if she can try fins, that can help too. where I taught and coached, lessons didn't cover butterfly other than for "fun" - but we would introduce it in the first squad of club swimming. however we didn't have a minimum bar for standard of butterfly before moving up to the next squad. swimmers ability was judged overall, some kids are fab swimmers but just havent got the hang of butterfly. imo they tend to pick it up and improve in technique as they get older, stronger and fitter.

Your daughter’s stage 5 class sounds a bit rubbish though. They are doing lengths in the stage 4 class at our pool.

I do agree re butterfly but also breaststroke for the early stages. My 5yo is in a stage 3 class and really just needs to get her 10m stronger but is spending a lot of time doing butterfly kick and floundering. Watching them so breaststroke kick is even more painful though. None of them have the coordination to do it properly so they seem to spend a lot of time lying on the wall doing it on land. I’m sure it’ll come but she’s doesn’t have the coordination yet so it all seems a bit futile.

We were taught to use head up front crawl for lifesaving. Can’t see butterfly would work as your head is down other than for breathing.

Butterfly was never a thing when I had swimming lessons as a child, so no I don't see the point of it either. It's seems like a rather inefficient way if swimming. I do lessons with my children so they become competent swimmers, as it's a potentially lifesaving life skill. I don't see a need for butterfly in that.

I'm not sure if the 'mermaid' Is the same but DS does a dolphin like dive up and down the pool as he can't butterfly either. He can do a lengths crawl and he's greased lightening doing the backstroke

Breaststroke has it uses for people who can't go underwater and is calm.

So as a former club swimmer you used to keep your head out of the water doing breast stroke?

I lived in America for a year as a child and was a good swimmer so went to a lot of lessons, about three a week. To make us do proper butterfly legs they literally tied our legs together and made us swim lengths up and down the pool. At the time it seemed fine but I look back now and think WTF!!

I feel the same way! I’m one who didn’t make it into swimming club due to butterfly. Don’t think I would have enjoyed club that much though, so probably for the best! Too much being told what to do and not enough messing about.

@Wnkingawalrus

Breaststroke has it uses for people who can't go underwater and is calm.

So as a former club swimmer you used to keep your head out of the water doing breast stroke?

No, I can't breaststroke without going underwater. I'm still very fast at it! (It was my stroke!) But its the calmest stroke really for most people.

Mermaid is DDs name for the whole body worm motion.

Thanks everyone for listening to my frustration earlier. I just want them to become strong safe swimmers so we can enjoy watersports (we have a Canadian canoe and enjoy kayaks and paddleboards as well on rivers and lakes). I find their lessons prescriptive but they listen more to proper teachers than they do to me or DH when it comes to specifics. Hence the lessons.

I love butterfly and echo the poster above who says that once you can do it and are strong in it, it just feels much better than any other stroke does.

I suspect you might have to have a certain body type/proportions though. Many good butterfly swimmers are quite compact in swimming terms.

Its also a really fast stroke and keeps your head out of the water and your field of vision clear, which means it can be useful for ocean swimming, and for entering and leaving the sea. Its very easy to breathe. Once you're fit for butterfly, it feels like you can do it all the time but you aren't supposed to do it in a relaxed way at all, its meant to be a sprint stroke. There was a woman who did a lot of ocean swimming using only butterfly though, which kind of proves my point!

I find it quite addictive. Its faster than my front crawl though. Hate breastroke out of all the strokes, I feel almost like I'm treading water. Backstroke is fine.

The only point I could ever see was to keep spectators entertained.
It does look awesome when the occasional senior swimmer masters it, but mostly it looks very funny when overwhelmingly most people are trying to learn it.

I think that if swimming schools want to keep children once they can swim "enough", they would do well to look at alternative models. Mine was held back by her breaststroke, which was very difficult for her due to hypermobile hips. I would happily have paid for a session of lane-swimming with an instructor to give guidance/encourage stamina, but with no insistence on them doing all four strokes. For those not interested in competitive swimming, that would seem a more useful end-point than just giving up when they're fed up of the stroke they hate. It might also lead on more naturally to independent lane-swimming for fitness.

If you view swimming as fundamentally something to stop you drowning, then it has no purpose whatsoever. No-one has ever got into difficulty in the canal and thought “I’ll butterfly out of this one”.

I'm with @MuttsNutts, it gets an extra term or two of swimming lesson fees out of each set of parents.

The stages really aren't that standardised. My DC swam with 3 different swim schools and they all applied them differently. There are good schools and bad ones, certainly, but that's not defined by whether their stage 4s can do lengths.

I firmly believe that Butterfly was invented solely for middleaged men to signal to women and children that The Pool is a Male Space.

Ex was County Level as a kid. And by God, did he make sure everybody knew it.

TBF, one of my DCs swam for a club at mini meets without ever managing to swim fly legally (swam back and breast and we just didn’t put him in for fly or medley).

I’ve also seen a wee boy swim a fly competition by diving in, pulling his arms back and fly kicking the entire length and then bringing his arms over to touch at the end. Perfectly legal. Good one for the referees though.

I agree op.
But i cant do butterfly. I think my legs too weak i feel like im drowning. My dc is only stage 3 due to covid and the teacher said they cant pass due around to not doing proper breathing which is harsh. Dc can swim easily 25m probably hundreds. The only thing left is one push off - not the breathing so do wonder if it about the money. As they dont realise dc already did 6-9m stage 3 pre covid.
Dc2 was put into stage 1 even though they swam half a length in the deep end.
I think they should be allowed to progress more easily so they can get to a stage that does stretch them.
Dc2 put in stage 1 had already done equivalent in ducklings.
Dc1 passed the school swimming so that must be low stage 3 which is surprising. As swimming lessons havent given her any distance badges.
Dc only got 7 school lessons.
It iS expensive we did 18m i think to get to stage 3-4.

Personally i would prefer every day lessons or maybe an hour. Up to 25 min isnt enough really

The point is it’s hard, I guess. I think complaining about it is a bit like having your kids go to gym club and saying what’s the point of the parallel bars or something.

Very good for stomach muscles also, as I recall.