Gordy,
On the "difficult" students - some of my
experiences:
- Sometimes you need to understand the motivation
for a person attending a class. I told you previously
about a father/daughter team I taught. The
father was progressing as expected but the daughter kept
reverting to flip/flop limp wristing. My
first inclination was that the daughter wasn't really into it but
what
I found with a bit of discussion is that the
daughter really wanted to learn because she saw fly fishing
as an activity that she and her father could
share. Obviously she was motivated - just not a "quick"
learner when it came to fly casting. Another
issue was that it was a chilly day and she was feeling the
cold and as a result wasn't concentrating on
the casting. My solution was to do as much as reasonable
given the weather and then reschedule
another lesson in the spring time. The second lesson will, I
hope, have a double benefit - first
reinforce the previous lesson and secondly pick a day when the
weather is warmer.
- Some people haven't got a clue of how much a wide open back cast impacts their overall cast.
During
the one on one portions of a lesson I
may get the student I'm working with to watch some of the other
casters and together we will observe a
variety of loops and how they are affecting the casting. I have
this idea, rightly or wrongly, that people
that are taking a class together can help each other in the
future. I know a number of instructors are
dead set against casting aids (butt of the rod in the cuff of
a sleeve or one of those little straps that
go around the wrist and rod butt) but I find they can sometimes
be used to reinforce to the student that
they are, in fact, breaking their wrist and by keeping a firm
wrist their casting improves dramatically.
Just make sure the casting aid is only used for a very short
period of time so the student doesn't
develop a dependency.
- Being able to see yourself casting can result in
an immediate fix. We've discussed a number of ways
of doing this in the past.
Cheers
Walter
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Walter ... Your last statement
says a lot.
Mack Martin has pointed out the great
value in video taping casting students and then playing it back to them so
they can see what is happening as they cast. Joan Wulff did the same
thing. She uses a mirror for teaching hand/wrist/arm casting
movements. Many others have begun to use these techniques,
too.
Molly Semenik had a unique experience a
couple of years ago as she critiqued her own cast using a reflection in a large
picture window of her home !
Rick Whorwood points out the use of
layouts to teach what is happening. One example is his way of having the
caster make a back cast and then stop and allow the line to remain on the grass
behind. His defective arm movement may be reflected in a curved or erratic
layout.
Divided opinions on the use of the
casting "aids" which you mention....... They can be used as you point out,
however ..... to reinforce a point the instructor has
made.
Gordy
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From Peter Lami:
Gordy,
I have
changed the way I teach “The Stop” at the Master level. I tell all my
Master Candidates that the “Stop” is a sequence of events that
starts at the precise moment the fly rod begins to unbend to a split second
after RSP when the loop is formed. Or as Bruce Richards put it, “... tip
path prior to and after "loop formation". I believe this differs with
conventional thinking which posits the “Stop” as a singular event, which of
course is a myth.
This may be something only the Glossary Committee can
appreciate, but I’ve been arguing with folks about this for years. I’d
like to know your thoughts. Is the “Stop” an Essential Rule as it
applies to the basic overhead cast?
Cheers!
Peter Lami
FFF
Master
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Peter,
Essential ?....... When teaching students?
YES. To scientists ? no. To Master candidates ? A
qualified no.
Paul Arden pointed out that you really can make many
satisfactory fishing casts without a true stop.
Our physicists have shown us that it isn't really
possible for a human being to achieve a true sudden "brick wall" stop.
They have shown that in the real world of fly casting, the best casters achieve
rapid negative acceleration at what we like to call the "stop".
The elite casters in Al Kyte and Gary Moran's classic
study had the most sudden "stops". Their videos showed that even
these had some rod deflection as they did that..... so they were not perfect
stops in the physics sense of complete cessation of motion.
The Casting Analyzer shows the same thing.
When Steve Rajeff was asked for one secret to his
winning championship cast, he said, "STOP THE ROD". One of the reasons
(among many) that he does so well with distance casts using heavy rods is that
he has the strength to achieve greater negative acceleration at the end of his
stroke to counter the inertia of the moving rod.
Floyd Dean did a demo at a conclave a few ago,
where he made casts with a true STOP as his rod cork struck a metal bar at the completion of his cast. Result was a layout
which wasn't pretty, because of the shock waves transmitted to the line and loop
and distance suffered.
HOWEVER :
I feel strongly that we should teach
the stop to our students !!!
The concept of STOP at the end of the stroke
gets into students' brains and works just fine. We are not here to teach
them science..... we are here to teach them to cast !
Getting into the detailed physics of negative
acceleration would serve only to confuse them as we teach.
When coaching our Master candidates, I'd still
emphasize their stops for efficient straight line casting ... though I would
have them try to understand the physics behind all this as background
information.
Gordy
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Peter also comes in with a prime example of lack
of motivation:
Gordy,
Everybody
knows you can’t teach a pig to sing. If you try, it will annoy the
pig.
Peter
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