Structuring multiple lessons

[John Waters]

I’m currently more or less under a bush. There were fish everywhere yesterday…not a dimple to be seen today.

I don’t teach stretch and release at the cognitive stage, I’m not even sure what it is. At this stage it would be unusual for a caster to have sufficient conscious control over their core to be able to execute anything core complex. They’re usually frozen solid.

Whatever it is I suspect if I did it now I’d fall in

That's the whole purpose, to unfreeze the movement potential of the body, in each stage of learning.

We can only teach what we know.

John

[Stoatstail50]

Just had a couple of fish on the nymph.

One of the ways to help unfreezing is to walk, or step because this employs autonomous behaviour that they don’t have to really think about. This allows them to keep focussed on loop control, no internal distractions from the external source of information. It’s very easy but often disruptive to performance. Same with synchronised motion. I don’t think either of these are stretch and release are they ?

What is it ?

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Stretch and release?

Let me take a guess... which has a better than 50% chance of being wrong.

But I believe it is a common instruction for kids who want to be US football quarterbacks? If you Google for football passing technique coaching, you will find a number of slow-mo videos of famous NFL quarterbacks and how they pass.

The idea of having the hips preceded the shoulders to "wind up" the core, and then have the shoulders follow as if a spring has been released, is a commonly discussed part of the quarterback's passing technique.

John? Is that close?

BTW... does anyone know how to set place marks in threads so you can find where you left off on a discussion of 20+ pages so you don't have to put mindless comments in and embarrass yourself?

[Torsten]

Hi,

good question, I'm guessing Lefty meant SW gear (8-11) and normal WFs with something like a 40' head.

Absolute distances make only sense with the context. For instance even world's best fly casters don't average 110' under controlled conditions (indoor, ED5) - see for instance the swedish study below. For the 8x8 study it was between 29-30m with a stddev of ~2-3m

Greetings,
Torsten

--

[1] INGEMANSSON, Jimmy. Myoelectrical activity in elite and recreational fly casters in trout distance and trout accuracy. 2021.
https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/d ... TEXT01.pdf

I try to get my SW guys into the 110-115’ distance mark. Forehand and backhand. I think that technique level allows you to make 80’ shots into the wind. So one performance level above Lefty’s suggestion. It’s just technique and a measure of it. Carry is a better one for me. Somewhere in the 80 ft mark is that equivalent. It’s mostly about doing the basics extremely well and a little bit of fine tuning.

If you want to make an 80’ shot in a wind you need to be able to cast further than that when it’s not windy.

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

Hi John

Line sag and line slag, means the caster searches for the "feel" of line tension on the rod tip often means the caster falls into the trap of using the wrist/elbow to gain control. The caster reverts to reinforcing an arm centric technique when a body centric technique is the instructional objective..

The only time I see this is at the start of the lesson with self taught casters who are trying to "feel" their back cast, instead of looking at it. Then as mentioned earlier, Old way/New Way takes care of that.

But they not always delighted, are they?

I cannot think of any example of anyone that is achieving their casting objective with room to spare being in any way upset. What problems have you observed?

In your studies of the research available, have you seen an external cue that a caster/thrower can use for the cognitive stage of learning the stretch and release mechanism used in throwing sports?

Like Mark, I am not sure what it is. Initially, it was presented as extended layback but that seems to have gone by the board. I'm fairly sure that you have said that it's not the stretch release cycle and I suggested the hip cocking that you get from stepping but I don't recall getting an answer. That said, I would be surprised to see individual muscle groups being given much coaching attention in a dynamic activity in the cognitive stage. It would be like considering your quads when learning to ride a bike or using nymphs to catch trout.

regards

Vince

[Paul Arden]

Hi Torsten,

I agree and we all have a different way of looking at this perhaps. For me a 110-115’ caster would be a caster who would reasonably expect a cast in 2 minutes of casting to land in this mark. Not the average but just the longest. That’s a very high level. It’s below competition level. Of course it’s very much wind affected which is why I prefer the carry number.

That 110-115 would be 5 and 10WT tackle. The same technique with 6 and 8 would be slightly more and a 7WT most likely the longest. A 12WT would be about 100’.

I know people can get very hot in the collar about distances but I don’t know why. Flycasting is very a very technical sport and the difference between 70 and a 100’ cast is technique. Of course there are many techniques in flycasting, not only distance, and if your focus is on casting in tight jungle situations only, then I don’t see any value in learning to take shots with a 10WT. Funny I do see advantages in learning slack line casts when your goal is shots. That’s because the fine line manipulations seem to help technique.

Starlink is back on again. Thank goodness.

Cheers, Paul

[John Waters]

Stretch and release?

Let me take a guess... which has a better than 50% chance of being wrong.

But I believe it is a common instruction for kids who want to be US football quarterbacks? If you Google for football passing technique coaching, you will find a number of slow-mo videos of famous NFL quarterbacks and how they pass.

The idea of having the hips preceded the shoulders to "wind up" the core, and then have the shoulders follow as if a spring has been released, is a commonly discussed part of the quarterback's passing technique.

John? Is that close?

BTW... does anyone know how to set place marks in threads so you can find where you left off on a discussion of 20+ pages so you don't have to put mindless comments in and embarrass yourself?

Hi Gary,

That's close enough. Interesting you say that it is taught to kids in the US for a sport specific purpose like throwing a football? That must be in the cognitive and associative stages of the learning that sport . I bet baseball coaches do the same with their young and novice pitchers. I wonder how US sports instructors do that?

Sounds to me like an example of the specific application of a general biomechanical principle in the early stages of learning.

I can't help you with your question, sorry. I can't set a place mat on a table.

John

[John Waters]

Hi Vince,

Again in bold.

John

Hi John

Line sag and line slag, means the caster searches for the "feel" of line tension on the rod tip often means the caster falls into the trap of using the wrist/elbow to gain control. The caster reverts to reinforcing an arm centric technique when a body centric technique is the instructional objective..

The only time I see this is at the start of the lesson with self taught casters who are trying to "feel" their back cast, instead of looking at it. Then as mentioned earlier, Old way/New Way takes care of that.

That's fine, we are all constrained by our experiences.

But they not always delighted, are they?

I cannot think of any example of anyone that is achieving their casting objective with room to spare being in any way upset. What problems have you observed?

Attend a WC and talk to competitors about that.

In your studies of the research available, have you seen an external cue that a caster/thrower can use for the cognitive stage of learning the stretch and release mechanism used in throwing sports?

Like Mark, I am not sure what it is. Initially, it was presented as extended layback but that seems to have gone by the board. I'm fairly sure that you have said that it's not the stretch release cycle and I suggested the hip cocking that you get from stepping but I don't recall getting an answer. That said, I would be surprised to see individual muscle groups being given much coaching attention in a dynamic activity in the cognitive stage. It would be like considering your quads when learning to ride a bike or using nymphs to catch trout.

Layback is very much a part of stretch and release chaining in sport. All the research tells us that. Happy to discuss layback fully if you want. I'll leave that call to you. I don't recall saying it was not part of the stretch and release cycle. Please find my post where I said that and post it here. I'll retract it and apologise for misleading everyone. Layback is external rotation and is but one segment of stretch and release within the total kinetic chain. If I understand your reference to "Hip cocking that you get from stepping", that suggestion is very limited. Stepping is primarily linear and is used in many sports, including fly distance casting, to move the body's centre of gravity in the direction of the throw. It does not activate torso rotation and separation. As to how and when it is used, I refer you to post 213. Gary has stated it is used to teach kids in the US how to be quarterbacks. Unless I am mistaken and, or ignorant of the terminology you have used, would that not be based on coaching individual muscle groups dynamically in the cognitive stage? Who knows, some US instructors may even use banding. It would be very much replicate your reference to bike riding or nymph fishing.


Vince

[John Waters]

Stretch and release?

Let me take a guess... which has a better than 50% chance of being wrong.

But I believe it is a common instruction for kids who want to be US football quarterbacks? If you Google for football passing technique coaching, you will find a number of slow-mo videos of famous NFL quarterbacks and how they pass.

The idea of having the hips preceded the shoulders to "wind up" the core, and then have the shoulders follow as if a spring has been released, is a commonly discussed part of the quarterback's passing technique.

John? Is that close?

BTW... does anyone know how to set place marks in threads so you can find where you left off on a discussion of 20+ pages so you don't have to put mindless comments in and embarrass yourself?

Hi Gary,

Spot on, a lot of information is out there, accessible from all sorts of information sources. Your reference to US football is very relevant, where like baseball and javelin, joint separation extends to layback. I would extend the term "layback" to include the wrist, but it is mostly used to describe the shoulder movement pattern only. It not only extends the length of the hand acceleration path but most importantly increases the acceleration achieved, both important when you want to cast your fly as far as you can.

The impulse created by javelin throwers, baseball pitchers, quarterbacks and is one of the great chain reactions in the sporting world.

John

[Paul Arden]

Hi John, I think an external cue would be to reach (or hold) back with the hand as the chest turns to target.

I have a similar issue with casters not fully straightening their rod arm (or hauling arm, or both) on stopless backcasts. For them I have them really stretch out to imaginary targets in the distance and accelerate to this point. I will have them first stretch out and then ask them to cast to this position.

Even though stretch is an internal cue, stretching out to something is external. I believe I get better results asking them to stretch out to a target.

I like this (your) stretching observation very much incidentally and have been playing around with it. It’s not something I have heard of before in flycasting and it makes perfect sense to me. When do you introduce it?


The point of my sidetrack is that distance techniques in competition are the same as in distance casting when fishing and also when talking high speed shots. The cues are the same and the pattern is the same. For advanced level students I will sometimes have them cast 2 minutes on the clock longest cast (I like this because I see what they do under pressure and it’s not too dissimilar to taking a distance shot – limited false casts, good technique, trajectories and targets and so on). What is different is that for the shot we check the shoot for accurate fly placement.

I think the movement pattern (shoulder/elbow/wrist) for both the rod arm as well as the hauling arm is what initially takes our flycaster from 70’ to 100. And they will use less effort as a consequence.

But I don’t start beginners this way. If they end up going that way left to their own devices then great but I’ve never seen it. I do think if we introduce the pattern too early on then we create problems. I’m not sure why, perhaps because we run the risk of internal focus, which for a beginner is the kiss of death.

Cheers, Paul