Back when we were younger, our school took us primary kids swimming. Our esteemed editor, Mr. Wapojif, was a front crawl expert! But then there came this monstrosity…

What is the butterfly stroke?

Okay, so it’s a swimming style that was designed by a sadist. The goal is to try and dislocate your shoulder blades by heaving your shoulders around like a lunatic.

Invented in 1933, it’s the newest of all swimming strokes. Probably because it’s so useless.

The world’s best swimmers can, admittedly, make this swimming stroke look quite dramatic and glamorous.

For everyone else, you’ll make a hell of a noise and an incredible amount of mess—sploshing and splishing about like a lunatic.

To watch an amateur take on butterfly stroke is like watching someone repeatedly bellyflop into a pool over and over.

Creating this massive excess of froth and foam (kind of like a mini Spume Island). Why? As it’s such a bizarre choice of motion to swim.

Regardless, it was part of our youth. We remember the trips to the local swimming pool in Chorley in the early to mid-1990s.

The chlorine building up under our nails from the pool. Accidentally swallowing some water every now and then and wanting to heave.

Doing a pyjamas day and swimming with your clothes on, even though the chances of that even happening were, like, 100 million to 1.

We did them all. Front crawl, breaststroke, backstroke. The second most stupid is backstroke, as you can never bloody tell where you’re going.

How many unnecessary bloody swimming collisions has that stupidity cost of the years?

But nothing tops butterfly. It makes no sense. Unless you’re a trained athlete, you look like a total idiot.

If you were out swimming in the ocean, Jaws would be on you in seconds due to the staggering amount of commotion.

It’s exhausting, unglamorous, slow, and will ruin your shoulders. Why? Why!?

Glamorous it is not. Stick to front crawl. It’s much more fun and user-friendly.