Walter & Group.........
I'LL BE AWAY FROM MY MAILLIST CONTROLLER UNTIL RIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GORDY
For those of you who have burning questions, I'll be using my other email address intermittently and will be happy to help with answers or suggestions. hillshead@xxxxxxx
Gordy
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From Troy Miller:
Interesting, I’ve had more students that can initially make good backcasts than foreward casts! I believe it’s because it’s so much easier to make a quality stop coming back then going forward. Now, I’m talking about a beginner here, where the modest length of line out dictates a short stroke length. When I can show them a short stroke with a stop near the shoulder or the ear, and encourage a stiff wrist (thumb in-line with the radius) – the average beginner can make a totally effective backcast within 2 minutes, and even steer it. For many, the forward cast is different in that they already know many forward motions and most involve a followthrough. That’s a bad thing in general. Throwing balls of various types, playing racquet sports, golf, shooting pool (for the most part), even kicking things – almost always involve acceleration of an object followed by a gradual deceleration after a moment of impact or release. Only on our final presentation do we employ something similar to followthrough, but only after something similar to a stop to create our loop. Again, talking beginner level discussion.
I think it’s up to us as instructors to help the student achieve proper form as simply yet accurately as possible -- and do it quickly so they feel an early sense of accomplishment and reasonable progress with time. If we can get them a good backcast the first day, we should be able to get them a good forward cast by the second lesson.
I very much agree with the horizontal, on the ground casting for rank beginners. It really allows them to slow it all down and see the loops against the dark background. They get to put the pieces of the puzzle together systematically, and establish cause/effect relationships more quickly. When I do this, the rod does that, and the loop looks like this and goes there. JMHO
Regards -- TAM
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Troy....
Many ways to do it in our, "bag of tricks".
One reason some students make better back casts than forward casts, is that they are less likely to apply excessive force to the back cast. Despite this, the most common error I continue to see with back casts made by beginner students is the, "out of control wrist" directing the back cast loop back and down.
Teaching in the horizontal plane at ground level is made even more efficient when having the student cast loops directly over a straight line on the ground .... a rope, string, etc. This is especially true as we get to teach the student to relate the stroke length and rod arc to the changing lengths of line carried (distance of the cast.) The student finds quickly that he/she cannot keep the loop and layout over the straight line when changing distance and line lengths unless the stroke length and rod arc are modified accordingly. Works much better than words, alone!
Check out p. 58 of Joan Wulff's, FLY CASTING TECHNIQUES. In slightly different ways, Lefty Kreh and Joan Wulff showed me these teaching techniques many years ago.
Gordy
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From Walter Simberski....