Old way, new way.

[VGB]

Hi Bernd, nice response

It's the huge amount of information, that makes me forget things sometimes...

You are not alone, it’s shocking how often I have to relearn an old lesson but I’m older than you

Balancing the information content of a lesson with the limitations of working memory then getting the newly formed memory into autonomous behaviour is one of the arts of teaching. Physical practice drills with well defined performance objectives carry us a lot of the way but long term lessons like Paul has is the way ahead for consistent positive outcomes.

For years I was looking for an explanation and when I finally found it, I was quite moved. Dont think I could ever forget it. Same in casting. For years I tried to get my loops looking pointy on purpose and find someone who could explain me how to shape them. When it clicked, I was very happy and wont forget.
It can be about how often I use the information or skill. And it can also be who gave it to me or about the emotion caused by getting it.

The art of attaching emotion to events is a huge part of learning and is not particularly well addressed anywhere in the instructosphere. I know Mark has done a lot of reading and put into practice a lot of the psychological aspects of learning which is why he often appears with odd vegetable products. Being able to push those buttons in our students has got to be a growth area, the industry is very focused on facts and definitions but leaves this stuff alone, I don’t know why..

I think Mel Krieger carried a lot of people along with his enthusiasm, forming connections with our students whether through shared experience, novelty or appropriate humour are also weapons at our disposal. We should have an endorphins thread about casting hot buttons that caused a performance leap.

Regards

Vince

[Paul Arden]

There are a couple of points in here I would like to make. The first is I think most of us would be very alarmed to see the same student again 2-4 weeks later after one lesson. I’ve seen that often now and I do not expect any major improvements. Any rapid gain that was made in the first lesson may have disappeared. If we don’t set drills and if they don’t train, then the lesson was a waste of time/money. Even if they do train the drills that we set, the improvements are not going to be as exciting as we would hope and it’s not uncommon to find that they have gone off in another entirely unexpected direction! Oops!

When I think back now on all the one-off lessons I’ve given, and all the one-day clinics, I think maybe I should have been doing something else. So whatever, I would encourage students to book a course. For coaches/instructors this then changes how we teach because we plan a structured course for their development over X amount of time. And you just need to tell them, I can give you one lesson but it’s not going to make much difference or you can book a course of lessons of 6/10/12. The reason that they don’t come back after only one lesson, is not because they are so much better; it’s undoubtedly because they are not! So take the money in advance. The psychology of booking another lesson one at a time is very different to paying for a course. And once they have paid for a course the pressure is off!

The second thing I’d like to mention also relates back to retention. In a single lesson they are only going to remember 3-4 things. That’s all. If the lesson is recorded however, they can watch it again at home and take notes!! Now things have a much better chance of being retained and we don’t have to be constantly questioning ourselves if we are giving too much information because they can watch it again.

I’ve been thinking about how to do this in a one to one environment. How to record the lesson and pass it on to the student afterwards? What a hassle! In a word: Zoom. This is how I’m going to do it. Both wear Bluetooth headsets. Set up two cameras (lots of possibilities there). Connect both to Zoom. Give the lesson as I normally would and the end of the lesson pass on the Cloud recording URL.

There are two major advantages in this. One is that the student has his lesson again. And the other is that we can assess ourselves to see if there are things we would like to improve.

It’s been raining all bloody day today

Cheers, Paul

[Bernd Ziesche]

Hi Vince,
For me it is and for a long time was my normal weekly job to bring a great spirit and happiness into my lessons. Since I met Mel Krieger I was well aware about the massive impact. Best for me has been to make the student realize his success and improvements. Some they realize themselve, some not. Hardly ever they can put their success in context out of zero experience in what to expect. Just to give one example of what can be done.

Hi Paul,
Some of your points sound ridicilous to me. Sorry mate, but I have given a hand out, making videos of individual most important aspects, write extra individual info down per student for a very long time. That's nothing new in my lessons. I didn't need zoom for that. What I want to be available is the important essence. 15 lessons = 15h recording. Have fun when your student calls you because he cant find what he is looking for within those 15h of material. I know many who wouldnt even start digging.

If your students didn't come back, because they weren't better, fine. I have always been happy seeing my students again. Because they mostly were then casting in a way making me smile and telling them, feel free to tell to have had a lesson with me.
Thats also why they send me their friends. A clear sign of success and happy clients.

Teaching thru a bottle neck is less effective unless you compare 10 lessons with one lesson, which is nonsense. 10 lessons cost a lot more. That way I could easily travel around and have my travel costs paid, while I need less lessons because face to face beats online teaching. I have done both.
Yet analysing whats needed and what goes wrong is a big part and the bottle neck puts quite limits and stretches the time needed a lot.

I understand that Zoom brings back regulary teaching which living in the end of the world obviously made impossible. Great.

Anyway, I will never teach ppl from my area online for many good reasons. Its fine when it makes a lesson possible, that otherwise wouldnt be possible. But it doesent make the lesson more or as effective. I agree, that it still can be a good lesson with all limitations there are.

All that aside I never ever regret a single day of my life, in which I was into any area of fly fishing. Not even the worst lesson I got! It was always a hell of a journey and I would give everything not to miss a single day! Seems we are different in this, which surprises me a lot. Always thought of you feeling it the same way!?
Cheers
B
P.s.: No offense intended, just being straight.

[Paul Arden]

I also had my reservations Bernd and I gave my first lessons for free. I was wrong too

But the point is you can do this in person. 12x1hr lessons over 10 months, often recording the session. That to me would be the interesting comparison. That’s how it’s done in other sports and for good reason I believe. Then the question would be, what difference would it make in-person? I don’t know because I’ve never done this in-person before. I can only speculate.

The big issue I’ve always had in my lessons is travel time. In Essex it is not uncommon for someone to travel 2hrs each way to a lesson!! You’d need someone very local because those 4hrs could be spent as lessons and so is a poor comparison. Basically to compare you need to live very close.

So I don’t know how much that part makes a difference and in what way. But I do know it’s silly to compare one long day to 10 or 12 shorter lessons over 8-12 months of coaching. Thats not even a proper comparison.

In 12 months you can totally transform someone’s cast giving them a complete range of casts. Some will go from <70’ to >120. Most will be in the 110-115 bracket. They will have the complete range of Spey casts. All presentation casts and mends to and around targets. A superb accuracy stroke. Their casting and ability to control loops will be outstanding. They will have the ability to take accurate shots forehand and backhand in all wind conditions. And all will be at or above instructor level casting.

I don’t think it matters if the lesson is 1 hr or 10hrs. You can only really take the student up one step in one lesson. 12 lessons with 5-10 hrs training inbetween and they are up a ladder.

My suggestion above is not to coach on Zoom. It’s to coach a course of short lessons over a year and to record each session. It’s easy and a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned and what we should have been doing all along.

Cheers, Paul

[Paul Arden]

Have fun when your student calls you because he cant find what he is looking for within those 15h of material.

I have an open window of communication via WhatsApp with all my students. While some do go back through earlier videos, what I want is for them to go through it the next day (preferably) and to take notes. This is an enormously effective teaching tool. It enables me to pass on far more information than I would without it. It also enables them to see exactly what they were doing at the time. It’s so effective that I will do this in-person too. Otherwise it’s not a good comparison either, because I know the results won’t be the same.

I ask for them to send me these notes by the way. That tells me a lot about whether I’m doing a good job or not. It also allows us to stay on the same page. I think that’s better than me giving them notes although I usually give a short summation with links for further viewing/reading if appropriate.

But the bit that really interests me is their training; how effective the drills were, what worked well for them and what was a struggle. The first ten minutes of a lesson is truly fascinating.

Cheers, Paul

[Bernd Ziesche]

12x1hr lessons over 10 months, often recording the session. That to me would be the interesting comparison. That’s how it’s done in other sports and for good reason I believe.

Hi Paul,
if you look into Bayern Munic's football training:
6 days a week a 2 x 2h + personal training every day on top. Then the games in addition.
If you look into the hobby section instead:
Much less money for a lesson in handball to give an example. That makes it possible to train 2 x a week.

What you recommend a beginner in fly fishing?
Spend 12 x 80GBP to get started just in casting?
And then all else for equipment on top...

I am sure spending 100 to 200 Euros for a proper start is realistic where I live. 960 GBP would not be at all.
That would keep most out of the school.

Oh, and I am not wrong. Face to face beats online. Just look into the studies which have been made.
HNY
B

[Paul Arden]

Oh I think they should train 5 days/week if possible when picking up new skills. I ask them to train 8-10 hrs between lessons. Sometimes it needs to be more. Without this time spent training there is no point in having another session until it’s happened. We set the drills for this training duration.

For beginners I recommend 6 lessons over 4-6 months for $400. I do very limited numbers of this. There are some interesting options here but I’m not going to go into them.

I’m surprised at you reading studies! Got any links?

https://barbell-logic.com/online-coachi ... ectiveness.

https://www.leighstafford.com/quality-i ... n-coaching

From what I’ve read the determining factors are student and coach motivation. The coaches ability to build a trusting relationship. I would also think how things are being coached would be very significant too and there are plenty of studies supporting this.

There is no question you need to change some of what you do, since it’s not possible to hold the rod with them. There are things you can’t do online and there are things you can’t do face-to-face. I’m not encouraging anyone to coach online however! What I’m suggesting is that a course of 1-1 lessons is more effective that one group lesson once/year, delivered in any format. And to get the very best out of it, you should video the lesson.

Cheers, Paul

[Bernd Ziesche]

There is no question you need to change some of what you do, since it’s not possible to hold the rod with them.

Hi Paul,
I didn't know you were holding the rod with them by looking at a pretty small screen for a short period of time.
In fact I can hold the rod with them, while you can't.
I also can see their loops, while you can't well. I see tons of casting videos on YT for example, in which it's very hard to see the line. Much worse to what I see when being in the same spot.
Then you have to live with all the connection issues, that are common by all sorts of video calls.

The home schooling, which was done a lot in times of Corona was studied by many scientists.
It was said to have been as effective as summer holidays (none effective at all).
https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2021-0 ... -frankfurt
Here is a very good article showing a lot of disadvantages especially for teaching beginners online:
https://www.bonedo.de/artikel/online-le ... nterricht/

On of the major disadvantages is, that you have a lousy 2-d view on your student and his rod, line and so on, while I have an excellent 3-d view, always able to change focus as I want it.
I get much more and more specific information by teaching face to face. In many aspects like performance observation, motivation, and so on.
Those reports present similuar findings.

Teaching a beginner online for just an hour or less, you'll leave him on his own while he misses a lot of key points still. How will he train proper casting with such a miss?

And most students I had wanted to start fishing soon, not only casting for month to start.
Regards
B

[VGB]

Hi Bernd

The first article is behind a registration wall, the Bonedo article is one mans opinion but he does present a balanced argument:

For anyone who already has some experience and masters the basic techniques, online teaching is definitely a sensible alternative if necessary. As I said, a 1:1 transmission is not so easy.

However, subject areas such as analyzing and learning songs, rhythm, harmony theory, transcriptions, scales, chords, etc., work similarly well as in face-to-face lessons - but only with appropriate preparation and preparation!

Thematically, I would actually see clear restrictions (as already mentioned above) basically only for beginners as well as basic game techniques, since here e.g. B. often the hand posture of the student must be corrected. And as already mentioned, unfortunately, you have to do without making music together……………

Online Lessons vs. Face-to-face lessons - Conclusion

……….Here I have personally experienced extreme reservations on both sides, but with a corresponding mindset and possibly small modifications of the content, online lessons with relatively few restrictions are quite a practicable and good alternative - especially of course in situations where there would otherwise be no alternative!

Regards

Vince

[Bernd Ziesche]

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/mcnvk

The studie of Frankfurt university...

About the points you picked from the other fine report...
Biggest miss for us in online teaching is watching the line. You need excellent light, background, line color, line thickness and camera set up for a half way decent visualizing of loops back and forth. Very difficult for most. Huge disadvantage....

That and others aside, I also agree with the advantages.
Cheers
B