Teaching

Every student is different and we must treat them according to their personality and context. A good instructor must earn respect and trust and you will get neither of these if you are not honest. Too many negatives and the effect is negative and also too many positives and the effect is negative. Communication is not just about what we say it’s actually mainly about how we say and more importantly how the message is received and interpreted. Hence written communication is much less effective than physical and spoken communication. A combination of positive, encouragement and negative must be used. Negative has the most influence over human behaviour.

I do not teach student just how to make a good fly cast, I teach fly casting which is a much more comprehensive subject and includes how to make good casts, bad casts and mistakes. Before my students even hold a rod they will see examples of all the common mistakes and a few decent casts, they will have them explained, ask and answer questions and they will be asked to identify what I did wrong during examples. When they start casting they usually make mistakes and then I ask them if anything was wrong with that cast. Usually they can make a correct diagnosis and that is very positive. If not I will ask them what they think happened, I will suggest what I think happened and we will work out the problem and solution together. I don’t know if would work for everyone but it’s worked for my students and me for a long time including a fair number of “second hand” students who had not progressed elsewhere. If students understand how casting works they are half way towards being good casters. A job planned is a job half completed.

Best wishes,

Ally Gowans

See my web sites http://www.letsflyfish.com and http://www.flyfish-scotland.com

Trout fly fishing and fly casting school "Tackling Trout" at The Kenmore Hotel May 16/17/18. Spey Casting and Salmon Fishing School at The Kenmore Hotel June 13/14/15. See my web sites for details for more details of schools

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Comment: Here is a method which does use the caster's mistakes to help achieve an understanding of the corrections.

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