Teaching acceleration

[Lou Bruno]

I thought I'd move this topic over from the Physics area to the Teaching one. Most of the SL users are intermediate or expert fly casting instructors, at least that's my understanding. If so, how would you present and teach acceleration to best allow a beginner to comprehend fly rod motion as applied to fly casting?

I'm interested in this topic, as we introduce acceleration, or whatever phrase you use when teaching.

Lou

[Paul Arden]

Hi Lou,

“Imagine you are smoothly flicking a small potato off the tip of the rod” is a favourite of mine – for a beginner. I would be surprised if I use the term acceleration for a beginner. Not that I’m concerned about using it, I just don’t think it comes up.

I do talk about it with intermediate level casters and distance casting because I think that the final bulk of the acceleration should be applied via torque.

Cheers, Paul

[Graeme H]

There are going to be some interesting answers here.

When I show my students how to “apply power correctly” (and I may or may not use that phrase, depending on the student) I demonstrate how the desired bend in the rod is applied.

To do this, I have a red patch on my white instructing rod near the top ferrule. I ask my student to watch the rod at that point while I cast and ask them to focus on the bend that develops there.

I show them what a good cast looks like when the rod is bending there and then I show them a poor cast (I.e.poor acceleration). I point out that poor, jerky acceleration is very hard to track visually because the rod skips away from the expected location.

I then place some white medical tape on their rod somewhere near the top ferrule (lower down for slow taper rods, higher up for fast taper rods) and I ask them to make the same casts I demonstrated while they watch the tape carefully. As they get the feel for what that’s like, I point out the fantastic loops they are making without realising it.

This works because the rod’s bend is proportional to the force it’s subjected to. Bend it appropriately for the right amount of time and we get good power application. If the cast is jerky, the student can’t visually track it, so it’s a self-correcting, task-based lesson.

Hope that helps.
Graeme

[Stoatstail50]

I’m like Paul Lou, I don’t use the term at all with beginners or intermediates.

Unlike Graeme, I never, ever, mention bend

If you have directed your caster what to look at and helped them to connect what they do with what they see, they will often self regulate the force they apply during a cast.

[VGB]

I’m a little bit more/a little bit less speed sort of instructor, and may pull my cheeks back like a fly going at Mach 2 to emphasise a point. I might also tell them that the flies expression will scare the fish. I don’t mention bend unless I’m being mystic.

Regards

Vince

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Is suggesting that flyrods are faster than we are, and if you slow down, they will immediately catch up, a backwards way of implying acceleration is necessary without mentioning the word?

If so... I've been guilty of that.

[VGB]

Given that we cast fly lines, I view fly rods as expensive intermediaries, a bit like lawyers.

[Lou Bruno]

Well, Graeme was right! In my years of teaching. I did mention it.
I thought the students understood, or perhaps I was convinced I thought they did. Didn't occur to me to try a different approach, at least when I was teaching more. Good input.

[Graeme H]

If you have directed your caster what to look at and helped them to connect what they do with what they see, they will often self regulate the force they apply during a cast.

I agree Mark, but what I'm directing them to look at when I'm teaching them to control the application of power just happens to be the bend in the rod. That's what they are controlling in real time, while the loop is a lagging record of that action.

Yesterday, I had two students in separate lessons.

The first was an absolute beginner, just bought a rod a week ago and wanted to learn to cast. (First thing was covering safety and wind direction, etc, but then on with teaching casting.) After 5 minutes of establishing the terms I was about to use (fly leg, rod leg, loop and tip path) I did the demo and asked him to make the bend appear in the rod around the spot I had taped on his rod. Within 5 minutes, he was producing 2' - 3' loops with parallel legs that would have been borderline on the CI exam, only occasionally looking at the loops he was forming. During those five minutes, he was establishing the muscle feel, casting arc requirements, smooth application of power and so on for himself, without input from me to confuse the experience.

Next we dealt with keeping power to a minimum and maintaining tension during the cast.

An hour later, he was double hauling and shooting small amounts of line to about 60' and the two hour lesson was complete. He rarely threw tails or wide loops during the lesson (although his tracking was something I made him aware of and to be practiced.) That was a successful lesson for both of us.

The other student was a 25 year "veteran" who wanted to learn to double haul. After establishing that his loops were way too wide and his total effort was way too high (too much power and ill timed), we went back to the same basics I showed the beginner earlier, doing exactly the same drills. Within the hour we concluded the lesson with him producing good loops in addition to double hauling.

Common to both was the need to explain and demonstrate the correct application of power (because all faults have incorrect application of power as their root cause.) Once each of them could see and then subsequently feel what correct application of power is, the other aspects of teaching the student fall into place really quickly. There's little need for theoretical explanations after that personal experience has happened.

Using the bend in the rod as a visual cue in lieu of providing the concept of "feel", and being able to produce and visually track that bend for themselves short-circuits many of the actions that produce the flaws in a cast from the start. Later, when they are by practicing themselves, they have a ready reference tool to re-establish what that correct power application should be - their rod and the bend they put into it.

I know there are many different ways to teach casting. I have tried a few of them, and this one delivers the quickest, longest lasting results for more students than any others I've tried. Until something better comes along, this will be my way of improving the casts my students produce.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Stoatstail50]

Everyone has their own way Graeme and there’s no obligation to justify what you do to anyone.

However…

The reason I don’t mention “acceleration” is that, in my experience, it is translated as “go faster” or “more force”when what I frequently really want is to “go longer” with “less force”.

Most, if not all casters believe that they have to bend or load the rod to make it work. Their primary objective is to bend it. With beginners and most recreational casters this is not a concept I would like them to focus on. I can’t remember ever seeing a caster come using too little force to get their fly out, they’re invariably trying to bend that rod even more to get the fly a few feet further…because that’s how they think it works. I don’t therefore use bend as an objective or even as a point of reference because it reinforces an incorrect concept.

I can’t leverage “feel” to teach.

I’ve found it difficult to have an objective measure of success in a lesson because I usually don’t have the opportunity to measure retention over time.

What I know for sure is that it won’t be 100% whatever they can do in a lesson. This means that I want to find the simplest route to maximum retention. Sometimes, often in fact, this is not the quickest route to maximum performance.