Teaching concepts revisited

[Bernd Ziesche]

"Disagree" sounds a bit too much like one way is right and the other is wrong. With that I disagree. There are many ways, and what matters is how you walk them ime.

Let's take a novice. You want him to first time lengthen his line false castingwise. You let him start with about 6 feet outside the tip.
Do you try to have him self discover as you prefer or tell him how to do it? And if you tell how, then how would that be?

[Stoatstail50]

self discovery of what?
Grip?
Stance?
Timing?
Everything or just a few particular keys?

Grip for me, if I need to, is full on internal focus, I tell them how to hold the rod. No point in any other way. I’m like you, I prefer to teach finger up but if they arrive with a functional grip I’ll leave it alone unless it really causes a problem.

Stance I also initially set by looking at the feet and basing out for stability. This is going to change as the drills become more complex and they will have to work out for themselves how to maintain stability as the task constraints change. I’ve seen people resist moving their feet almost to the point of falling over. Then you can certainly suggest that they do, how they do that is up to them. As a rule they’ll begin to shuffle without much further prompting after that and they obviously do it automatically if they walk.

Timing is about visual cueing and although it’s obviously explained and guided in a lesson they’ll also work this out for themselves. Changes in timing can be also driven by changes in the task. Cross body drills are perfect for this, right from the get go.

Self discovery doesn’t mean they’re handed the gear and left to get on with it. As instructors we design motor skill problems they then try to solve. We are free to leave as many clues as we like but the better the design the fewer clues are going to be needed to solve it. Sometimes with something like grip for example, there’s no point in doing this, with timing there is.

There’s a whole thread on lesson design waiting to happen because it’s obvious from this and other threads that the objectives for some contributors are quite different to others.

[Paul Arden]

Let's take a novice. You want him to first time lengthen his line false castingwise. You let him start with about 6 feet outside the tip.

Why would I have them lengthen it? I want them to play with false casting loops.

[Bernd Ziesche]

Because you said to move them from short to long in loop shaping and varying rod plane.
They either lengthen the line castingwise or pull/wiggle it out.
I thought you have them lengthening castingwise.

[Paul Arden]

No that comes later. I want them to play around with forming loops, starting from a short length of line. All planes, different loop sizes, using different fixed lengths. I don’t go one foot at a time, but instead 6 feet increments. But I don’t think ithat matters and it’s just a recommendation. The important thing is variety.

I certainly don’t need to go hands-on with this approach and they build a range of movement, knowing how to make the changes and how to rebuild things when they experience problems.

These are not just beginners’ exercises. But I have all my students do them, particularly when warming up (unless we are intentionally starting cold eg competition casters).

This then becomes “safe place”. Everything can be reconstructed from this. And besides, short-lining fishing is a very important skill to have.

[Bernd Ziesche]

got it.
no need to repeat you dont do hands on at all. I got it on page 1.