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Walter & Group...
[GH] Let's try to stay cool as we read different points of view. This from Mike Heritage:
Many thanks to Dan Davala for being able to express something that has been on my mind for some time. While I enjoy learning new things as much as the next man, or woman, I often wonder to what use I can put it as an instructor where simplicity is normally the name of the game. In fact the only time I get to use all this knowledge is when mentoring potential CCIs, MCIs, on forums or here. Basically 80% of the stuff I have learned in the last few years, as enjoyable as it was, and is, is of little use to me as an instructor.
I don't want to come across as some sort of ludite but there has to be a distinction between what is useful from an instructing point of view and what we learn to further our personal understanding of the mechanics of a fly cast.
Mike
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[GH] From Gary Eaton :
Gordy,
I appreciate Paul Arden's insight regarding the technology applied to casting changing and correcting previously indiscernible concepts. This only helps us become more accurate in what we teach.
Dan Davala's reaction sounds a bit like a Flat Earth Society meeting. Hanging onto incorrect explanations in the face of advanced proofs. This may teach limited concepts to casual learners, but much of what they hear will need to be un-learned to progress to higher levels of understanding.
The greatest technical teachers, in any field, develop understandable methods of instruction that do not compromise accurate truth with excessively convenient over-simplifications. I foresee no harm in discarding "the line follows the rod tip" simply because it is so completely easy to disprove. To do less represents intellectual laziness; a sure path to mediocrity.
Likewise, many so-called experts of previous arts have sunk to serious ethical chasms asserting some version of "it's really all magic and only in becoming my student will you be able to comprehend the mystery". Much of the study of medicine carried such "white robe" mysticism until the 1911 Flexner report. Lister was ridiculed out of the professions for advocating the absurd notion of washing one's hands to reduce infections in delivering babies - Now every six-year old understands the process. Ignoring advances produces stagnant mediocrity.
Anyone serious about taking casting students to upper levels benefits from replacing the mantra under discussion with some internal version of "rod influence of loop path is pretty complicated". Similarly, their communications to students, especially paying students, needs to consistently include concepts that they will NOT have to un-learn to enter a conversation such as this group generates - leave that to undisciplined chat rooms and no-qualifications-required forums.
Perhaps some form of " the convenient focus is the rod tip, the way the caster loads and unloads the rod exerts the biggest effect on line layout" - is the truest part that gets printed in the handout. From this discussion, the incorrect, over-simplification of "line follows tip" seems beneath the standard. Soon enough, students will have access to all of this and not comprehending and trying to apply best technical information undermines credibility of the certification.
Further, this instructor apparently reads through lenses of over-simplified inaccuracy, too. When he states-
To argue, however, that "the line follows the rod tip" is an antiquated belief and should not be stated is not only throwing out an effective and proven teaching tool that is easy to demonstrate, but a primary component of Bruce Richards' 6-step method of fault correction which is simple, effective, and proven.
- he asserts that Bruce Richards has also, so asserted as "a primary component". This is FALSE!
Re-read Bruce's article on Communication to discover his wise use of terminology that does definitely NOT include that "the line follows the rod tip" at http://www.fedflyfishers.org/Portals/0/Casting/Workshops/HO3Communication.pdf
If Bruce Richards were wrong, he would likely be among those advocating inclusion of new facts - Bruce Richards did NOT write incorrectly.
I see no need to teach elementary school kids advanced Physics nor fiction writers Engineering. There appears no harm in using common language that remains accurate. To claim Mastery, it may be required.
Gary Eaton
P. S. If an MCI were to steer a former student away from an instructor known to have misleading over-simplifications as the student prepared for an FFF exam - would that demand an ethics investigation?
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[GH]
Hard for all to stay cool during heated discussions. I try to do so, however, as I look at both sides of the situation.
We can look at fly casting as art shrouded in mystique and explained with time honored phrases or strictly by physics including detailed mathematic equations.
Most of us are somewhere in the middle.
One way to do it is to expose Master candidates to all of it and let them place themselves to the right or left of mid-position as they learn as much about fly casting as they can in order to be better instructors.
I do agree that holding them responsible for detailed physics and formulae on a Master's exam is not the way to go.
At the same time, I think they should have at the very least, a rudimentary understanding of basic common sense physics including terms such as, "line speed:", "acceleration", "energy stored in a bent rod", "rod load", "tracking", "energy dissipation", "rotation/translation", etc., in order to qualify as true Masters.
To me, part of being a Master is to have the wisdom and capacity to explain things to students in terms the students will understand. If that means teaching without the use of any scientific words to those who wouldn't understand them, all the better.
Quite apart from Master qualification is the fact that we will always have those whose thirst for what actually makes fly casting work is their burning objective. As they study fly casting with modern equipment and a solid foundation in physics, the rest of us can only profit from what they can teach us.
Out on the water, as we make our presentations to fish, we are Worlds away from thinking about what benefits we can possibly have gained from all the physics and calculations that went into space exploration ..... until we reflect upon the fly rod we may be using which is made from graphite fibers developed for that very program. A bit of a stretch? Yes. But not too far from the things we learn by the study of fly casting mechanics and physics which may eventually result in more efficient casting and teaching.
Gordy
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