Teaching acceleration

[Bernd Ziesche]

How do you cover off 1 and 4 in a single lesson?

What type of practice regime would you set to ensure adaptability? Massed practice?

Vince,
1. I check, if there is improvement in both understanding how to and performing. I check, if my exercises add up and if it clicks for my student. I check, if he can adapt what he learnt. Can he properly perform essentials in a new cast or changing situations.

4. When students are highly motivated, inspired and happy with their progress, I often saw them shortening breaks, having some extra casts in the end and focussing in each exercise. Not loosing focus vs. loosing focus tells me a lot. That I can tell from my trips and watching progress over several days.

That aside lets not forget, that I also need to sense and best work with not all students want much of casting improvement. Some want to have a fine day with me. This is often older people. Especially when they dont have a fishing friend. They pay and decide what they want.
Regards
Bernd

[Bernd Ziesche]

Paul,
I know what I need: Understanding what exactly to do and what typically not do do.
That isnt so different from one student to the next. Unless we talk about a high level of difficult movements, most can quickly perform well what's needed as soon as it clicks in terms of understanding. Sometimes words do, sometimes watching does and sometimes feeling does.

I would use those 5 years to study more fish, and tell myself to spend most time fishing the planet. There are too beautiful places holding too beautiful fish to spend more time in casting as needed to become well. And no, I would leave myself space, not commenting every false cast. I d step in, if I believe something evetually isnt clear. For sure I d limit my carry quite sometimes

Lefty had a fair point to recommend not just to throw one's faults further.
Cheers
B

[Stoatstail50]

I have zero objection to the dictionary definitions Bernd.

I teach, my students learn.

OK. You have two students. Both perform a beautiful Roll Cast in your lesson. They leave.

Are you able to predict from this performance which student will perform the Roll Cast one year later, just as you taught them, and which one will not. ?

[VGB]

Hi Bernd

I’ll try and clear the terminology for you before I reply. This is a typical graph of a learning curve

A measurement at any spot point on the line is performance, a measurement between 2 interim points is indicative of learning trends, dips in the line may be a retention issue. Once you get to the end of the line at the top of the graph (assuming that was your original teaching objective) you have learnt. After this time, the line may plateau for a bit, or drop away with skill fade.

For me, the problem with your answer to my Post 187 slide points 1 and 4 is that the time interval within the lesson is too short too demonstrate relatively permanent improvements in performance.

That aside lets not forget, that I also need to sense and best work with not all students want much of casting improvement. Some want to have a fine day with me. This is often older people. Especially when they dont have a fishing friend. They pay and decide what they want.

Before I was 60, I also had ambitions of punters paying to spend time with me but my wife objected to me becoming a gigolo . I am now the “older people”.

Regards

Vince

Regards

Vince

[Bernd Ziesche]

OK. You have two students. Both perform a beautiful Roll Cast in your lesson. They leave.

Are you able to predict from this performance which student will perform the Roll Cast one year later, just as you taught them, and which one will not. ?

Hi Mark,
I hope none of them will perform the way they did when they left. Hopefully they will work with what they got and will do even little better. Consistency usually increases as slightly does avg. distance.
If one won't use it at all, he can still look into the notes and get into fair performance in short time.
I had a student who was in 7 or 8 lessons based on trouble shooting his roll cast. This was his number one fishing cast in his main home river. He called and asked, if I could help him (while yet no one could). "My leader does not straighten fully, especially not when trying to reach the other bank." I told him, thats not even a half hour lesson. He booked a flight, came over and after 5 minutes was happy. Another 10 minutes training and after 30 minutes he left and very happy rescheduled his flight back. 2 years later he went fishing with me. Excellent roll casts, both dynamic and static. I only taught him the static one. Only key he was totally missing: rotation at the right time. No doubt, he'll never forget this input as long as he uses it sometimes. If not, he has a video of me. And how could you not perform such an easy movement to a fair degree? Impossible once you understand it. I never had any student who couldn't learn this quickly. Easy to remember, easy to perform.
All this aside, no human ever could predict future.
Regards
Bernd

[Bernd Ziesche]

For me, the problem with your answer to my Post 187 slide points 1 and 4 is that the time interval within the lesson is too short too demonstrate relatively permanent improvements in performance.

Hi Vince,
I would prefer to have quality of performance instead of experience on the vertical axis. I dont think our quantity of experience can drop, but only increase or remain the same every day. But I get the point of course.
The horizontal (time) axis is without unit. It can be minutes, hours, days, month or years.
In my experience the best matching unit depends on what is to be learnt. Some things are very easy and others are very complex and then there is everything in between.
A lesson is too short for some and long enough for other movements. But you can drive this wheel over the horizon. If your student wants to cast a MED 5 140 feet ten lessons may not do or two lessons may do. It all depends on what he does post the first lesson or in between them.
My goal is to teach how to train and troubleshoot and make understand as well as perform to a fair degree straight away. I dont try to be god and there is responsability left with every student.
Cheers
B
P.s.: I ll be busy next weeks and probably cant further discuss. Thanks for exchanging!

[VGB]

Hi Bernd

As you say, you can vary the vertical axis to measure whichever qualitative or quantitative measure that you wish, I prefer to reverse engineer the answer from the objective. With regards to time, I think we need measurements over a reasonable length of time to ensure that we have a relatively permanent change in performance, so I’m talking months at a minimum.

I took the graph from a writers site because the theoretical values on scientists learning curve are smoothed and our experience is different. I also liked it because it reflects the inner conversation that gets in the way, more often than a wrist or elbow being at the wrong angle. Will and Mark have been looking at this inner dialogue for quite some time and I think it’s very relevant to what we do.

Have a good trip and will catch up soon.

Regards

Vince

[Stoatstail50]

I hope none of them will perform the way they did when they left. Hopefully they will work with what they got and will do even little better

I hope so too, but hope is not a means of measuring learning. The measure you have is not the one at the end of your lesson, that’s only half the story. It’s the one at the end of your lesson compared to the one at the start of the next. Two performances, over time.

I never had any student who couldn't learn this quickly. Easy to remember, easy to perform.

OK

[Paul Arden]

If a student is only fishing 10-20 days/year, then it’s unlikely that they are going to devote many hours to training to be a high level caster. It would be very atypical for me to have someone book a course with so little annual fishing. My students are, by and large, obsessed. I must attract them

The only students I get who might (almost) fit into that bracket have taken up fly fishing later in life. Typically in their 40s, having a number of destination trips/year. Eg Seychelles, Oman or New Zealand (but it’s far more likely to be SW) and have recognised that in order to have more successful trips, then being a much better caster is a key. These guys will train 5 days/week to learn the required skills. But even then they are fishing considerably more than 20 days/year, and can see direct use of what I am teaching them.

So it’s definitely a different world. My typical student is very similar to CI candidates who have decided to take the CI to improve their skills. I have a far more developed (in scope) casting program for them, than the more-focussed CI training program, that I’ll use if that’s the plan.

So it’s totally different. That said, how you teach and how you assess whether something has actually been learned, is the same. I certainly don’t think an annual lesson would suffice in my students’ circumstances, where we are trying to make significant long term and robust improvements. Typically I expect my student to be at or above CI casting level within about 12 months. Some then decide to do the CI, which is fine. This is not me suggesting it, but usually other people they then meet.

The bit that interests me the most in coaching flycasting, is taking someone through to being a high level flycaster. I find this totally fascinating. I have an unusual situation in this too, in that the better they get, the more influence I seem to be able to have.

Burned 6900 calories yesterday. Time for some food!

Cheers, Paul