Excellent question Ron. Firstly, coaching fly casting is mostly not about fixing faults, instead it’s usually about making something better. Which should hopefully be a much more positive experience.
But undoubtedly there are “faults”. Most of which can be narrowed down to force application and/or timing. And I mean both in a very broad sense.
The way the FFI have structured their question does exist in teaching. For me that’s a 5 minute quick-fix teaching situation where we can sometimes find ourselves (at fishing shows for example, not so much in 1-1 lessons). They give you approx 7 minutes to fix 3 faults. Which is fast fast fast.
And you definitely want to use the 6 Steps because they ask for it. They will also tie very nicely into the 5 Essentials.
So I would just focus on that. And sometimes it actually does happen like that in teaching. Far more likely of course is a long ingrained action that needs to be redeveloped over time.
A few ways I deal with
that is to find a way of isolating the movement, either broken down into separate casting stokes (or sometimes an entirely different cast where it’s often easier to make changes before transferring back across). Find ways of doing it in slow motion and then contrast to the previous method to cement.
Another method is to take the existing problem and amplify the error, which should allow them to be able to control it – in other words we give them access to the very point when the error occurs to play with it.
Video is fantastic. I find casting practise drills that offer control over the variable timing/force application within the error phase to be very important.. because I don’t actually believe that the quick fix we have in the field is necessarily going to be lasting on the water when a fish pops its head up or a 100lb tarpon swims past the boat. For this lasting change we need to develop alternative casting exercises for each error. Particularly control drills with a short line such as the Triangle Method will solve a lot of problems. It might take 20 hours of practise to reprogram a 20 year ingrained habit.
So there are quick fixes and there are lasting changes. Sometimes the quick fix will result in a lasting change but only when you are very lucky.
The exam approach can often be the first step in the process anyway. Just don’t expect it to always work first time because it will run your ship aground if it doesn’t and you persist in tying to make it.
However for the exam focus on what they want. Which is identify the fault and then show the right way. Three faults in seven minutes. That’s little more than wrong way right way, offering a single cue.
In the exam they are going to make one of the six listed faults. Your approach is to use the six step method verbalising it from start to finish. Ie Loop - rod tip - hand/body - offer the cue to make the change to hand/body - rod tip - loop. If it was always this easy we would be overpaid and teaching would be a lot less interesting than it really is.
Cheers, Paul
