h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A few years back I began swimming nearly every day and soon got quite fit and reasonably adept at breast stroke and crawl but my ambition was to do the butterfly as I regarded it as the ultimate pose in a swimming pool (provided it is done correctly).

I found it very difficult but then I happened to go on holiday ot Greece and found that I could do it rather well in the sea - the extra bouyancy of salt water helped.

Once I tried it again in fresh water it worked a treat and I ended getting pretty good at it.

Two things I noted though. One, you have to be pretty good at other strokes first, confident and fit - you mentioned the stomach thing in the entry, I don't think an unfit swimmer could do the 'fly.
2. It's very difficult to do a lot of lenghts of butterfly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone in a pool do more than two lenghts at once (excluding competition swimming). It's really rather tiring.
Having said that, a good lenght of fast, rythmic butterfly is a very exhilirating and satisfying experience

Under the guise of the 'h2g2 Editors' tag, I don't mind revealing that I too once tried the butterfly stroke in a swimming pool while with friends. This was ambitious of me to say the least. I thought I might look like Duncan Goodhew, athletic, dolphin-like. But actually I didn't manage to propel myself forward, not one bit. There was a tremendous amount of splashing, great sprays of water. It looked like I was being eaten by a crocodile. I just sort of stopped and tried to hide my embarrassment by swimmming underwater for a bit.

Fair play to anyone who can do this stroke well.

Did you, by any chance, just use your arms?

To the untrained eye (and mine was once as I also have done what you describe) it looks all arms whereas, as the article eloquently points out - it's actually all in an undulating body movement with dolphin kicks thrown in.

It is the drowning man's stroke if done badly

Even a good buttefly is spraytastic, I often used to break into it and overtake someone who'd particularly annoyed me during lenghts sessions.

As I recall, and not having had the benefit of reading this fine entry, I just used my arms. A shocking effort.

Shocking indeed