----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 8:16
PM
Subject: RE: Want to pick your brain on
a few things... (PART2)
Hi,
All...
As I
stated before, to me the first draft is clear.
Jason...
re. the physiological action which can allow the rod to unload
is what the average caster feels to be a true
STOP. So now we need to look at what STOP is.
It can be
total, instantaneous cessation of movement. This isn't it with the fly
cast, because no human being can achieve that.
Can it be
sudden reversal of the direction of applied force ? Theoretically so,
but despite the caster's synaptic attempt to use his antagonist muscles to
do that, I doubt it has a significant effect.
Can it be
the act of ceasing to accelerate ? I think Server may be correct in
that this is the only thing really needed to have the rod
unload.
If so,
can this be called "DECELERATION" ? ... or "NEGATIVE
ACCELERATION" ? .... I'm not qualified to say.
If we
want to use terms from physics then no. Deceleration or negative
acceleration would mean that some force is
actively
being applied to slow the rod down. The term "constant velocity" would be
correct but somehow it doesn't
seem to have the same feeling of satisfaction as
deceleration...
The
term "constant velocity " may be correct, but won't be understood by
many. I'm searching my brain for a term which clearly gives the
concept of CEASE
ACCELERATING. G.
I believe
it was Walter who pointed out that the casting hand is necessary during rod
unload to provide a stable platform for the fly rod. This makes sense
to me.
Actually
this is another one Server pointed out to me. I did some work with pendulums
a while back to try and explain why the
stop was
necessary. A discussion with Server pointed out that what I was really
showing was that a stable platform is necessary
for
the rod to unload against or else we lose some or even all of the
energy stored in the rod.
You're
right, it was Server.
G.
His
concept of "launch point" also makes sense.
So as the
casting hand slows and holds (which some will call the "stop"), the very act
of doing this can, I think, provide stability for the rod and control of
trajectory.
To simply
state that "there is no such thing as a stop" or even that "the stop is of
no value" will be met with great resistance. Reasons
?
1.)
Because it is a simple fact of life that most instructors find that teaching
the casting student to STOP is effective in yielding more efficient
casts.
I agree.
It is one of the most useful tools we have in our bag of tricks. But even a
couple of years ago "conventional wisdom" was
that too
wide of a casting arc on the backcast (usually from breaking the wrist)
created a large inefficient loop which was to
be
avoided. Now we have started to think that excessive arc results in the line
being thrown down at the ground rather than
in
a nice horizontal loop.
Excessive arc can to either .... depending upon
the degree of arc and the
trajectory. G.
I don't
think getting rid of the stop as a teaching tool would be a good idea. I've
seen total beginners learn how to make nice
casts in
less than 2 minutes when you introduce the concept of the stop. 99% of
all beginners seem to learn in less than an
hour that
stopping the rod gives them efficient casts. On the other hand
I've seen a few casters who never seem
to "get
it". The reason some of these people don't get it is because they know that
if they put more energy into the cast they
will get
greater line speed and this means they can cast farther no matter what the
instructor tells them. They learn
this when
they throw a lure on the end of a spinning rod or they throw a baseball. The
idea that they need to control
the
angle they throw the line and that this is done by controlling the rod
unload might be the answer for some.
My
days of gut busting 170 casts are past but I think the Mulson wind cast is a
perfect example of controlling launch
points and trajectory without physically stopping
the rod until the tip is almost at water level and this is a cast any of
us
can do without requiring surgery.
As
with any activity there are various levels of understanding that people are
going to reach. A paramedic certainly knows more
about medicine than someone who took a first aid
course and a doctor will have an even higher understanding than a
paremedic.
2.)
In the cited study, the elite casters had more efficient casts when they had
crisper stops. Was this because the rod unloaded differently or with
more energy ? Probably not.... rather that the STOP yielded better
control.
This
study worries me as well. The study defined efficient casters as the
ones who were able to cast the farthest distance
so the
natural conclusion is/was that crisp stops equals greater distance and since
greater distance means greater line speed
the crisp
stop must somehow transfer more energy to the line. The study that Jason and
Grunde did showed that this is clearly
not the
case. Those of us in this discussion understand that a crisp stop doesn't
unload the rod with more energy - we just
need to
convince everyone else. Part of that will be to understand and describe the
real benefits, such as better control,
of
a crisp stop.
Without seeing the video's, I don't know. Perhaps this
crisp stop gave them tighter loops (???????????) .... OR a
more stable "platform" or both.
G.
Just my 2
cents !
I was going to say that your input
is always worth more than that but then I realized that you were talking
about
American
money. :)
Gordy
Okay - here is what we have for a first
draft. We shall add you as a co-author on the next draft.
As I say it concentrates on just the idea
that you don't have to physically stop the
rod for it to unload
because I think that is going to be a
difficult concept for people to buy in to.
Where do I think that leads to? I think every
serious caster reaches a point where they see advanced
casters like yourself ending their backcast
with the rod nearly horizontal but the line still goes where
the caster wants it to. So they realize that
the basic principle of physically stopping the rod is being
violated but they don't understand the
mechanics. Some people will experiment and come up with
it on their own. Others will be unlucky
enough to be spotted by a casting instructor whose sworn
duty will be to get them making the "correct"
stops again. Others will be even unluckier and get a
casting lesson from Paul Arden and end up
with a torn rotator cuff :-P~~
:)
I think it's kind of like telling a beginner
not to use their wrist when casting. The hope is that they
will just bend it a little bit and someday
when they are ready for it they will be given the keys to the
magic kingdom of casting (right next to Epcot
center I believe) and told that rotation is necessary
for casting - it just has to be controlled.
So we will still teach beginners to physically stop the rod
because this is the easiest way for them to
make nice controlled loops. But when we see someone
who is trying to make the next step - smooth
transition to layback or drift - we will explain the
mechanics of unloading without a physical
stop and save them a lot of time and effort and possibly
physical injury.
This means that we would have to define stop
in terms of rod load/unload - which could mean a physical,
hard stop but could also mean just not
applying force.
The physiology/physics concept is a good one
and one I would certainly like to explore further.
Looking forward to the pics!
Thanks for taking the time on
this.
Walter
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 3:53
PM
Subject: Re: Want to pick your
brain on a few things... (PART2)
Walter--Okay, here's the "part 2"...
(In relation to our last, short emails and "hard stop")--I have
been viewing the idea of "hard stop" more and more from the view-point
of getting people to accelerate better (versus "soft stop"--and I'm not
looking at 170 casts, here, foundation stuff), as well as an aiming
device, not an energy transfer device. And yes, what exactly is a "hard
stop," really? Again, I see the idea as related to what happens *before*
unload--better accel, not wishy washy rod movement. Okay, onto the
original email...
Rod unload and all that:
I also
agree that once you reach the "rotational peak" so to speak, you can't
do much from there! Either that rod begins to unload, or we pull a
"superman" and re-load it again (that could get ugly, too!). I also see
what I would think are second-node stuff in some of my "stops" (s-wave
in the rod)--will you all be looking that too, since it seems to
indicate very rapid slowing, or even reversal of the butt very near RSP.
I'll get you a pic or two ASAP.
I know
that I can control the direction of the rod and line, and can control
(at least it seems to me) the point at which I reach peak accel, but
beyond that, it definitely seems to me, and the mo-cap, and the 500fps
cam, that the rod is doing its thing and we are only providing a minimal
amount of adjustment/additional rotation in that very short time period
(thinking MAV through MCF or so). This was shown (I thought) pretty well
in The Rod and the Cast paper, along with supporting video, so that may
help support your work, too.
I would
definitely be interested in what you all are doing, and perhaps being
able to be involved in some way (in fact, I was going to call Server
anyway, and I haven't yet. If you talk to him, let him know that I
will). I think the key issue here is going to the idea of what the stop
is (both the conventional idea of screeching the rod butt to a stop
(actual reversal of accel?) and the idea of the change in the rate of
accel (transitioning through constant to slowing), and how we initiate
it physiologically. That last part, is, I think, the key to
getting people to both understand and perhaps accept some of this (and
seeing a 170 cast made with no "stop", yet the loop is aimed precisely
and not into the ground). I have very clearly seen the caster and rod in
action in short, medium and long casts at all sorts of frame rates, just
like you and Server. And I think we can all speak to each other in ways
that can make sense as a result of some of that, but others may have
some trouble thinking through what's happening physically.
To play
devil's advocate, I'd first ask how physiological actions enact
rod unload--the rod doesn't move our hand through the loading portion of
the stroke (although I think we could have some pretty interesting
discussions about the unload portion and forces from the rod, but that's
another idea). We move the rod, and we direct it, otherwise we'd never
be able to alter its aim or path or have any say at all over loop
dimensions (And yeah, we can also adjust loop size post-cast with
swoop/bounce-through, lift, pull-back, etc., but I am talking about the
physiological picture inside the stroke proper (all the way
through through MCF). Do you get what I mean there? We may not typically
be able to apply force in a reverse direction during unload (the "hard
stop" as it were), but at some point our bodies either reach a point at
which they can't sustain accel of the rod butt any longer (something
I've been thinking a lot about with range-of-motion, by the way), or we
have to "tell" our body to move a certain way so that the line will be
directed toward a certain spot . That requires the rod to begin the
unload process to send the line in the desired direction, so we need to
be able to link the physiological to the physics (and perhaps Grunde can
also help here, too).
All
that said, getting rid of the term "stop" could be an uphill battle that
would not be pretty in the least (and probably counterproductive, since
it "makes sense" to so many students). If the goal is to at least intro
"alternate terms," what are they?
So...I'm interested in seeing what you guys are up to, and
finding out what the thought-process is, and how it can "jive" with
current terminology (or not).
Hit
me.
Jason
On Apr 15, 2009, at 12:13 PM, Walter Simbirski wrote:
Jason,
Server, Gordy Hill, and I are working
together to try and capture Server's ideas for a paper
on casting mechanics. Initially the paper
will be presented to Gordy's study group but
who knows where it will go from there. I
know a couple of people who will probably be using
it in place of toilet paper
:)
The gist of what we want to talk about is
the concept that it is necessary to stop the rod
in order to unload it and to get
efficient transfer of energy to the line. The quicker the
stop
the better the energy transfer would be
"conventional" wisdom.
Server has pointed out that stopping the
rod has nothing to do with unloading the rod and,
therefore, has nothing to do with
efficient energy transfer. The reality is that once the
rod
is loaded there is virtually nothing you
can do to prevent the rod from unloading (assuming
a "normal" casting stroke). Also there is
no reason why the rod has to be physically stopped
in order to unload. As long as we are
applying force to accelerate the rod it will bend. Once
we are no longer accelerating the rod it
will unload.
The thing to remember here is that no
acceleration does not mean no velocity or no movement of
the
rod. Once the rod tip reaches 100 miles
per hour it can continue at 100 miles per hour and the
amount
of force required to keep it moving at
100 miles per hour is just the amount of force to balance air
resistance
which is minimal. What this means is that
at this point there is nothing we can do to prevent the
rod from unloading (unless we have some
near super human ability to start accelerating it again).
It's going to unload whether we continue
it moving at 100 miles per hour or we come to a dead stop.
The amount of energy the rod transfers to
the line during the unloading phase has nothing to do with
whether we continue on at 100 miles per
hour or come to a dead stop. The things we can do at this
point are to provide a firm base for the
rod to unload against (by keeping a firm grip and with
muscle
tension) and to control the path of the
rod tip so that as the rod unloads the tip pulls the line in the
same
direction it has been pulling up to that
point and then gets out of the way so a loop can form.
A couple of years ago I was fortunate
enough to be in one of your classes at the conclave. During
your
description and demonstration of the stop
you asked us to look for the stop in your back cast.
There
was no discernable stop until the rod
came to rest at a near horizontal position. In the mean time
the
rod had obviously unloaded in the
classic 1 o'clock position. If I recall properly you explained
by
saying that the stop was there it was
just that advanced casters are able to stop, causing the rod
to
unload, and then follow through so
quickly and smoothly that it was almost impossible to see. Based
on
the discussion in the previous paragraph
I think it is more likely that you took actions to cause a
quick
and efficient rod unload (this would mean
firming your grip and transitioning from high acceleration
to
constant velocity (zero acceleration))
and then following through from there without a momentary
stop.
The other reason I think about you in
this discussion is that the work you did together with Grunde
Lovoll
would support the idea of a stop being a stoppage of acceleration
only rather than a hard physical stop.
So this brings up a couple of
questions:
Does the idea that a hard physical stop
is not required make sense to you?
Would you be opposed to our using some of
the information from the paper you and Grunde did?
Would you want to be involved in what we
are doing at some level?
And more importantly - Are we going to
have a chance to fish together this summer? Some place in
Washington
state or Oregon? I prefer not BC because
I don't want to mortgage my house for a daily non-resident
licence.
I just saw your question about capturing
video from the videolyzer on your web site - this could be a
good
place/time to do that. We are still
undecided about the conclave this year so that probably isn't a
possibility.
Any way...
Cheers!
Walter