Pantomime / teaching

One side note I might add to my teaching program. The very first thing I do is to teach the class the "fly fisherman's handshake". That's right! I have everyone stand, put their arm in a line pickup position, then pantomine a backcast to a stop then pause momentarily then begin a forward cast bringing the arm to an abrupt stop, then thrust the arm forward and slightly down and shake someone's hand. From then on, everyone goes around the room and shakes each other's hand using the "flyfisherman's handshake". It works quiet well as a pantomine exercise because everytime we get together they all do it quiet well and transfer the exercise to the actual cast with rod.

Jason Borgersimbirsw@xxxxxxx has the student pantomime making a back cast from that, "handshake" pickup position by bringing the extended index finger up to the ear.

Mel Krieger's pantomime of, "down-up" for teaching the double haul is well known as quite effective.

Chuck Easterling reminded us of Harvey Penick's golf teachings where he used very slow pantomime motions for teaching the golf swing. That can be used for teaching casting strokes, too. Many of his other teaching methods are equally effective for golf and fly casting.

Tom White uses his long index finger as a, "fly rod" to pantomime many casting maneuvers.