Thanks John. I also have three levels.John Waters wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2024 9:49 amPaul Arden wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2024 3:09 am It is. But isn’t the question then how to teach these? That’s the interesting part.
Cheers, Paul
1 is the novice caster. I personally don’t think we should be directly teaching them pattern or worrying too much about it. I think the entire focus should be on developing loop control. Even if it’s at the expense of what we would consider good form. Have them casting in all positions, shaping different loops, making mistakes even. Exploring a full range of motions. If this stage doesn’t occur I think we lose robustness and an ability for them to act on the fly later on.
This stage might take 6 months. It can take several years, particularly if they are just fishing. It’s quite possible to get a fly fisher of very many years of experience who has never progressed through or fully developed this stage of learning. Loop control drills. Circles 8s and Straights. Triangle Drill. Taking the line for a walk. Etc. with coaching and training it’s possible to condense 15 years of fishing casting into one to two years of casting development.
2 autonomous casting. The student can cast, can control loops, with variable line lengths. Has a double haul of sorts. This is a typical entry point for me. They might have been fishing for 15 or 50 years. Or even only 2. Certainly it’s possible to get there far quicker nowadays with online content.
It’s at this point when I think we should introduce pattern. I see it as we have all the range of movement available and now we are going to help them hone it. Most of my Zoom students arrive in this category. Not all but probably about 80%.
Block and Flip. Launch Drill. Different stops. Just having them do the drills in 1 will only take them so far. They need to develop better movement patterns.
3 elite level. We both have students at this level. This is mostly competition level (but doesn’t have to be) where every little thing needs to be analysed because at this level everything matters.
I don’t think it’s always three distinct student groups however, instead it’s ladders, multiple ladders in fact because there are different disciplines in flycasting. But I would broadly put students into these levels. Most will reach the end of stage 1 given enough time. That can be sped up considerably with coaching. Without coaching it’s very difficult to advance significantly through 2.
I think 1 is often very poorly taught. Instructors seem to be teaching parts of 2 to group 1. I’ve certainly made that mistake before myself!
I do think how we teach 1, 2 and 3 are all a little different. It’s the cause of some of our differences here. That’s why it’s important when discussing “how” to mention “who”, because they require different approaches. If we are focusing on movement pattern this is different to learning loop control. Typically in group 2 we will work on pattern at the expense of loops and then “fix” the loops later.
In coaching we see mention of the “three stages of learning”, finishing with autonomous. That’s the very beginning of my generalised second student level.
Now it’s also true the “how” can also be similar. You can set constraints in 1 that lead to the discovery of patterns. And in 2 you can (and probably should) teach using constraints also. Teaching is teaching. It’s certainly possible to create huge problems by introducing something too early on. We want to be constantly challenging our students but it should still be achievable… and not too disruptive! Every new challenge is a small spanner in the works. Put too big spanner into a small wheel and all the spokes fall out. For me that’s the equivalent of introducing pattern before loops have been learned.
Cheers, Paul
