Volker asked Osborn many questions about his participation in the 1924 Olympics and published articles about Osborn and other athletes who competed in Europe. In a letter to Volker dated January 31, 1969, Osborn described how he developed his style of jumping: "I more or less found my style of high jumping by accident, as I was trying to imitate Ed Beeson's style, and what developed was natural to me, and as I became more proficient and with much practice, I utilized leg and arm lift and body ‛kip' and then slid across the bar more or less on my back, and as I got to the far side of the bar then started to uncoil and dropped my take-off leg and arms for landing." Ed Beeson was a Berkeley student and track competitor who also used the Western roll style. In the same letter to Volker, Osborn commented on Dick Fosbury's jumping style—the Fosbury Flop. Osborn wrote that Fosbury's style would have been illegal when he was competing in 1924 because the rules did not allow the head to cross the bar first. The flop was an innovation in the high jump that attracted a lot of attention when Fosbury introduced it at the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City. Fosbury jumped with his back to the bar and went over head first. It required much more cushioning on the landing side, also a dramatic change from the days when Osborn jumped into sand.