The eastern cut-off is a variant of the "scissors" high jump styleinvolving a layout. This enables the jumper to clear a higher bar than with the traditional scissors style, while still landing on the feet. The technique is generally credited to Michael Sweeney of the New York Athletic Club, who used it in 1895 to set a world record of 6 ft 5 5/8 inches (1.97 m).The style came to be called "eastern" because of its origin on the US east coast, after the invention of the rival "western roll" style byGeorge Horine on the west coast (Stanford). Horine was in fact the first toimprove on Sweeney's record, when he cleared 6 ft 7 inches (2.01 m) in 1912.