Dan Lagace has presented his program for casting with the
opposite hand at many FFF functions. This is a reprint of one of his articles on
how to have your dominant hand teach your "weak" hand how to cast. Just like
casting far, is there a disadvantage in learning to do this?
St. Pete Beach, FL
Gordy,
My interest in casting with the non-dominant came about when I was
preparing for my CCI test. I wanted to become proficient with my
non-dominant hand not only for my test in case I needed it, but also because I
knew I would be teaching both left and right handed students. I quickly
realized that my non-dominant (left) hand was my very own built in student, and
I set about teaching it to cast from scratch. I was amazed at how uniform
and controlled my loops were right from the start. As others here have
stated, switching hands forced me to focus on the fundamentals and good basic
principles. It took my focus off of my line and shifted it to my
rod. I found myself watching the rod to make sure I was
loading, properly stopping, and dampening it on both the forward and back
cast. When I'd shift my focus back to the line, I found that the loops
were tight, uniform, and consistent. Since that time, I have incorporated
casting with my non-dominant hand into a lot of my fishing as well, so much so
that I had to teach my dominant (right) hand to strip and haul as well. I
have found these skills to be indispensable every time I teach a left
handed caster, and I teach all of my left handed students by
demonstrating/teaching with my left hand.
To clarify something about my earlier post:
"One other method I employ successfully, is
I have my students that are having difficulty switch over and cast with their
non-dominant hand. I wait for a cue that suggests their dominant hand or
arm is getting tired (which is pretty quick if they are having issues with their
stop), then I move in and suggest they try a few casts with their off
hand. Again, the focus is not on trying to fix what they are doing wrong,
but rather to present a casting option they have likely not thought of, and
allow them to rest their tired, overworked dominant arm/hand. Most, if not
all of my students that do this are astonished to see they cast better loops
with their off hand. This is especially true of students with a very deep
spinning background who are having as much or more trouble pausing as they are
stopping correctly."
The "focus" as I intended here is not necessarily to rest their
dominant hand, but rather this is my way in at suggesting they try casting
with their non-dominant hand. I suppose it is a bit of a trick, if you
will, since the student doesn't realize what I am trying to do. Credit
goes to Gary Davidson for extracting the resting part from my statement,
and Gordy for suggesting it allows continued practice while resting the dominant
hand. I hadn't thought of it this way as these were simply by-products of
having them switch hands. My intended point here was to use their
tiring dominant hand as an excuse to pull out another teaching tool
without scaring or intimidating the student by suggesting something they might
perceive as harder to do.
I have two very distinct examples from my schools this
year where switching a student to their non-dominant hand helped them learn
a proper stop. For the record, though perhaps inconsequential, both
students were women.
The first student actually told me that even though she is right handed,
she has found that she does certain activities better with her left hand.
After working a while with her using her "dominant" right hand (with which her
stops were very weak, her arc was too big, and she creeped a lot), I thought we
should give her left hand a shot. The difference was dramatic, and it very
clearly illustrated that she understood the mechanics very well, she just
couldn't get her right (dominant) hand to do it. Her casting was so good
with her left (non-dominant) hand, that she actually started thinking maybe she
isn't right handed after all, and it became our joke that she took my class and
found out she was left-handed. When we did switch back to her right
hand though, her casting was notably better since she learned what it was
supposed to feel like with her left hand. What I found very
interesting, however, is when I watched her fish later in the class I
noticed her switching back and forth, and spending more time casting/fishing
left handed than right. So while I wish I could take credit
for coming up with the right teaching tool, I don't think it would
have crossed my mind if she hadn't said what she did about using her left hand
at some things.
The second time I used this tactic to help a student with her stop, I was
at a loss for what else to do. I had spent quite a bit of time with her,
and given her plenty of self-discovery time while I switched from student to
student, but no matter what I did we just couldn't get her to load the rod or
stop it. Her rod traced the basic path of a windshield wiper, and large or
non-loops were the result. She was having a good time, but I could see she
was getting tired and a bit discouraged. I was at the bottom of my bag of
tricks when I recalled the above experience. I thought, why not?
Let's see if it helps. Again, I was blown away by the result. The
non-loops became good loops, and pretty ones at that. She seemed more
amazed than me. This experience really drove the point home to me.
Sometimes, our minds can FULLY comprehend something, but we just cannot get our
bodies to cooperate. She HAD been listening, and she DID understand the
concept. She just need to apply the principles to a hand/arm that would
listen to her.
The above are two examples, but I have used this approach with others at
different times for different reasons. While I do not teach casting with
the non-dominant hand to all of my students, this string of posts makes me think
that maybe I should.
I am glad Two-Handed rods were mentioned. Not only do I find
switching hands to be beneficial to Spey casts, but when I overhead cast in
the surf with my two-handers as well. These rods have truly revolutionized
how I fish the surf, as it allows me to cast with equal effectiveness regardless
of which way I am facing, and which shoulder the wind is blowing in over.
I feel much better at night knowing that my Clouser is flying through the
air on my safe side.
Dan Davala
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Dan... I'm old enough to remember a time
when mothers were encouraged to insist upon their young children using the right
hand even though they began to appear to be "left handed". Makes me wonder
whether some of our students who do better than expected with the left hand even
though they have been "right handed", may have been brought up that
way.
Gordy
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