Hi Vince,
The 5 essentials are not core for me. Don’t get me wrong. I think they are a wonderful tool for instructors and the variable casting arc can be a lightbulb moment for an intermediate caster. But I don’t structure lessons around them.
I see them as “theory” but I’m much more interested in teaching “movement”.
I agree that the backcast is hard to learn and that it is easier to learn timing by watching it. It’s for this reason that I also start with the Triangle Method (that and we use the same method for fail-safe double haul teaching, and if we start students this way we can often get the Double Haul in place very early on — double bonus!).
However what I don’t like about watching the backcast from a side position, is how the body moves the rod. Instead of the shoulder naturally “blocking” the forearm on the backcast, and the elbow, shoulder and knee all aligned on the forward cast, we have the student casting parallel to his shoulders (or a variation of this) which makes consistency very difficult particularly when not watching the backcast and critically, it fails to make use of the shoulder in the up/down motion (Ie Flexion/Extension), which for me is the essence of good form.
I also don’t like this “half open” stance which is not really one thing and not another, but most casters appear to use for all their fishing, both short and long, which when combined with horizontal shoulder abduction and adduction is what we often see in untrained casters.
So while I certainly use it to gather the benefits, I'm very quick to say that this is a drill. I would say that less than 10% of my students who are experienced fishermen have used Closed Stance. And almost all that do have been taught. I test for it! I put targets out and ask them to cast at them while I “set up”.
What I find interesting is that Closed Stance Accuracy appears to help Open Stance Distance backcasts, despite the fact that they are different. And to the extent that if a student is having a problem with tracking in Open Stance, switching to closed and then back to open can fix it.
Breaking 180 is always fun. It only works (lands straight) with a relatively short line of course! In fact breaking/manipulating all the 5Es leads to interesting casts. That would make for an interesting 5Es lesson.
The way I look at all of these things, is that I ask myself where do I want the student to end up? For me at a minimum that means Accuracy and Distance strokes, Roll and Jump Roll. It may also mean the 170 (Saltwater). It might mean the inclusion of Presentation Casts and possibly the Spey cast family. When I have these objectives in place, and I know that I have a course of lessons, then it makes life easier. It also makes life interesting too, because I find that there are different routes that can be taken to reach the same destination. Which enables me to structure my course. And as unbelievable and surprising as it sounds, I plan my lessons
Anyway back to the original topic; there must be something when we contrast different techniques that helps cement the respective components of each. This must be why contrasting Closed Accuracy against Open Distance is so effective.
Cheers, Paul