PLEASE NOTE: In order to post on the Board you need to have registered. To register please email paul@sexyloops.com including your real name and username. Registration takes less than 24hrs, unless Paul is fishing deep in the jungle!

Instructors platform

Moderators: Paul Arden, Bernd Ziesche, Lasse Karlsson

User avatar
Paul Arden
Site Admin
Posts: 19528
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:20 am
Answers: 2
Location: Belum Rainforest
Contact:

Re: Instructors platform

#21

Post by Paul Arden »

Hi Andrew, that’s why I suggest asking your student to teach you what he/she is doing down to the smallest details. Ie where is the pressure on the rod grip at different points in the stroke? How is he moving his body? Where is his weight positioned? What is he focussed on? and so on. You need to ask him down to the tiniest details… this has several benefits. Firstly it gets the student to analyse his or her cast, probably in a way they have never done before, breaking it down into small parts. Then you can replicate what he/she is doing and offer a change to a specific piece of movement.

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

Flycasting Definitions
andrewparkeruk
Posts: 213
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:49 pm
Answers: 0
Location: near North Wales, UK

Re: Instructors platform

#22

Post by andrewparkeruk »

Great stuff Paul. Thank you
User avatar
bartdezwaan
Posts: 550
Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 6:39 pm
Answers: 0

Re: Instructors platform

#23

Post by bartdezwaan »

Hi Andrew,
While I think it will be a good learning experience trying to reproduce the fault, I also see some drawbacks as opposed to a video of the student.
Over the years it keeps surprising me that so many people, who are demonstrating, say they do something but show something different.
When we as teachers will demonstrate the fault I would be afraid that crucial information will get lost. Maybe some subtle shoulder or wrist movement we didn’t see but someone else does.
But it’s better than nothing and could lead to some interesting discussions. :)

Cheers, Bart
User avatar
Paul Arden
Site Admin
Posts: 19528
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:20 am
Answers: 2
Location: Belum Rainforest
Contact:

Re: Instructors platform

#24

Post by Paul Arden »

Personally I don’t think either works. You don’t go direct from A to B but instead make lots of small steps along the way, sometimes forward, sometimes sideways, sometimes backwards! And there are many staircases you can use. Some work, some won’t. That’s down to the individual. So that doesn’t fit well, especially since every student is different and your relationship to each individual student is very different too. And never underestimate the importance of your relationship!

What might be useful is to post a video and then say what is wrong with this cast, how would you like it to look and what are the different staircases you can use to get there? That information would be useful. But even that is a small picture because if you have a long term student then you have many more options available.

I will write “something”. It may take until the end of the Wet Season. What’s really is required is a clear road map with specific detailed intersections. It’s a great idea, Bart. It’s also a total pain in the arse to do :p I’ve been putting a lot of thought into it.

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

Flycasting Definitions
User avatar
bartdezwaan
Posts: 550
Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 6:39 pm
Answers: 0

Re: Instructors platform

#25

Post by bartdezwaan »

Thanks for wanting to put in the time to write something about it Paul.
I don’t however understand why you keep saying that the proposals don’t work. I don’t propose any tactic. The only need I personally have is to discuss with other people what tactics might be employed for a given student.
Because talking about a student in public might be difficult I though a more private setting may help.

But if you are able to write something for instructors it will undoubtedly be of massive value. So please do.

Cheers, Bart
User avatar
Paul Arden
Site Admin
Posts: 19528
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:20 am
Answers: 2
Location: Belum Rainforest
Contact:

Re: Instructors platform

#26

Post by Paul Arden »

It’s partly because I don’t see teaching flycasting predominately as fault fixing; mostly I build parallel strokes and use one to improve the other. The other issue is that the route that we take from where the student is to where we want the student to go very much depends on the student him or herself. There are times when we want to make small alterations to an existing stroke, and that’s where the process offered above (of having them teach you) can help.

I broadly work by teaching three techniques for the overhead cast; accuracy, open distance and at some point 170. What is amazing is how teaching one of them will improve all of the others like turning on all the lights at once. I’ve seen this happen many many times. For example the 170 makes everything smooth, or can improve timing. A lightbulb moment in one cast can transform all casts. And I think that’s a better way of teaching because you are teaching depth, new stuff, the student feels like he/she is learning (and is!) and when you end up down a hole you have to option to move across to another stroke and make the changes there. Most importantly if we get stuck somewhere we’re not going to turn one small minor problem into a train wreck.

I’ve said it a many times before, it’s often far FAR easier to teach something completely new than to make small changes to an ingrained stroke. The trick is to find something somewhere else that relates to the “problem”.

Also I think there is something else here too… after a while of being able to make small alterations to a new stroke, it becomes easier to make small changes to the ingrained one. I’m sure there is some sort of neurological reason for that.

And this is all very practical too. Most students have one stroke that they use for everything. It’s a sort open stance, wide arc, often misaligned cast. So straight away I introduce rings and teach closed stance accuracy. Now I’m teaching them something solid and I’m not messing around trying to change an ingrained stroke one step at a time.

This applies to intermediate students, not beginners of course. Beginners are somewhat easier because they don’t have an ingrained stroke. Well maybe a spinning one but not a flycasting one. But it’s generally much easier to make changes with beginners.

So wild example… Let’s say the student has an ingrained fault. Can be anything. Tracking, timing, power application. And this is with his ingrained untrained open stance cast that he brought along. We will sort it out in Accuracy technique.

Let’s say the caster is very tense but also that we have constructed the building blocks: 170. It sorts out a lot of problems and it’s perfect for backhand deliveries into the wind for example. So I will use that stroke to make changes elsewhere.

That’s how I go about it at least. Of course we invent drills to improve what’s being taught at the time. Some hurdles take many hours to jump over and I think that’s best done out of the lesson and in practise! So I use drills to reinforce learning and also to climb a little bit higher when I’m not there… for example how long did it take us to learn to be able to pick targets in distance casting and to do it naturally? It took me over a month!!

I am regularly asking them to analyse their own stroke, particularly when they have a breakthrough. They need to be able to recall what they did at that breakthrough moment. And the great thing with this is a) you understand your student a bit better and b) when you find a ‘similar’ student you can use whatever analogy or sense or bit of information you got, on your new student.

Mel Krieger said you really have to connect with your student. And that is it in a nutshell. You must get right inside their head. There’s a lot of trust there and responsibility I believe.

So anyway that’s why I think picking out little pieces bit by bit isn’t the game. It’s more like negotiating a braided river than a series of stepping stones. And going stone by stone is a recipe for disaster.

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

Flycasting Definitions
User avatar
bartdezwaan
Posts: 550
Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 6:39 pm
Answers: 0

Re: Instructors platform

#27

Post by bartdezwaan »

Thanks Paul. Good stuff.
You should make sure it gets a place on you website somewhere.
This thread was meant to get ideas about how you can connect instructors to other instructors so they can get/give each other feedback. Do you have any ideas about that?

Cheers, Bart
User avatar
Paul Arden
Site Admin
Posts: 19528
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:20 am
Answers: 2
Location: Belum Rainforest
Contact:

Re: Instructors platform

#28

Post by Paul Arden »

Instructors as a whole I think that’s down to continuing education within the respective associations. This is something none are particularly good at. What would be beneficial here is more online students on the Board. It’s not the best or fastest way for them but it is free, it does work and it is always a two way learning street. Maybe more open dialogue would help too.

However the main thing I can do is put up a section on Sexyloops which isn’t just broad but also offers specifics and we can discuss details and other instructors can add as well. Basically it’s teaching the teaching of the manual.

Incidentally if you were to ask me I think that’s one of the problems with the exams. They are all based nowadays around the FFI test and that’s not how we teach. Ie tight loops at 40’, open loop and 40’, tailing loop at 40’… So it’s kind of abstract. What it really needs is teaching methodology right from the beginning IMO. I’m not surprised people get lost. I even see people trying to teach people casting with 30’ of flyline out. Why make life difficult from the outset?

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

Flycasting Definitions
User avatar
Lasse Karlsson
Posts: 5757
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:40 pm
Answers: 0
Location: There, and back again
Contact:

Re: Instructors platform

#29

Post by Lasse Karlsson »

Because rods are highly calibrated pieces of burnt plastic glued together that only load correctly with 30 feet of flyline in the right number outside the tip 😉
Thats why...

Cheers Lasse
Your friendly neighbourhood flyslinger

Flycasting, so simple that instructors need to make it complicated since 1685

Got a Q++ at casting school, wearing shorts ;)
User avatar
Paul Arden
Site Admin
Posts: 19528
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:20 am
Answers: 2
Location: Belum Rainforest
Contact:

Re: Instructors platform

#30

Post by Paul Arden »

Yeah probably :D
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

Flycasting Definitions
Post Reply

Return to “Teaching”