Structuring multiple lessons

[Paul Arden]

If it works, do you change it?

It depends

I’d take the strap off if that’s what you mean.

There is no physical strap. An imposed mental one perhaps. You must have seen it, many times!!

[Stoatstail50]

Yup...I have.

It still depends. If it's a mental strap then I'll certainly try and dislodge it at some point. They're always mental straps I think.

[Paul Arden]

So….. why?

[Stoatstail50]

Because it’s not a very versatile technique.

[VGB]

Hi John

Sorry, long day at work and the one hour lesson afterwards turned into 2 hours. I then went for fish and chips and a pint which turned into 3 pints.

What verifiable and reputable source did you access that allowed you to arrive at your conclusion that Dan's instruction was "a figure of fun"? I presume was not just opinion because as we all know opinions can be subjective.

As a certified instructor and a qualified engineer, I considered that I was SQEP enough to ignore him and to follow Hank Patterson instead. Einstein himself considered that YouTube was not an authoritative source of information

All the throwing research links distance to release speed and when I surveyed MCIs and national casting sport coaches in 2022, about the determinants of fly distance coaching technique, performance, coaching. Interesting responses about line speed. I suggest distance casting is classified by an individual attempting to cast his line/fly as far as he can.

Maximum release speed or speed with constraints, I suspect that release speed in the throwing research should read launch velocity and is about solid masses not flexible fly lines? I know Lasse aims for fly leg velocity and the physics behind that is solid, James refers to fly leg momentum for the same reason and he is very much SQEP.

If fly fishing distance was only about absolute distance, most anglers would be throwing short lead core heads or beach casters but we are not because there are constraints. Neither is the MCI distance task in the assessment about throwing line as far as they can.

I suggest that is the essence of good distance casting instruction i.e. continuous improvement of an individual's casting distance without the negative outcomes of excessive hand speed as they transition through the different stages of skill development. I'd welcome any specific detail how to achieve that objective.

Would you change that technique if they were casting 12 times an hour for 6 hours a day for 7 days and the cast had to land fly first every time always within 1m of a reference straight line, or they started again? I would suggest that good fishing distance technique consistently achieving the casting distance that you require for the desired fishing task: with the equipment that is best suited to catch a fish in that environment; over a duration commensurate with a fishing holiday, with a reduced risk of injury and fatigue.

Like Mark, I don’t have a model cast and set teaching objectives that are intended to take the student where they want to be and their destinations are variable. The students that I had tonight have several decades experience behind them but are struggling with wild streams.

The triangle method taught them how to monitor their back cast timing and allow them to clear obstacles behind them, this was extended into back cast presentations. The flicking waves down the line with the waves getting progressively more energetic, took them into the roll cast and then roll cast pick ups. Straights and circles became Oval casts that were extended to become under the tip pick ups to avoid overhead obstacles. Range of movement increased in both exercises to improve the accuracy of their movement in accordance with the principles of Fitts Law. As fluidity and accuracy of movement improved, we changed speed of movement or line length and combinations of all of them. Errors were the difference between the objective and the achievement, success was their ability to make adjustments to meet the objective without prompting.

Distance casting on pocket water was a fly first presentation, holding line off the water from the fly landing, tracking the fly back downstream with the rod tip and keeping the line hand movement in reserve for any fast risers. They both miss more than 90% of the takes in this sort of water. Absolute distance with lots of shot line results in instantaneous drag and no fish. For sure, kinetic chains were part of the exercise but I didn’t discuss that at any point, nor did I mention Fitts Law and overhead casts were just another possible objective in the myriad of potential solutions that they may encounter when fishing.

If they practice and make these skills autonomous, I’ll probably introduce piled fly first presentations or piled curves and shooting for slack. All maybe considered casting faults by some models. For me a fault is a difference between intent and outcome.

If you read Phil’s “sparse weighted fly short cast” thread you can observe someone that has been trained to a particular set of fishing objectives, struggling to achieve a different set of objectives. There’s nothing wrong with that, anyone that challenges themselves will hit that barrier at some stage. It’s not so long ago that I couldn’t remember how to do a 90 degree SS. If you don’t practice the skills they fade. Angling is a highly variable task but having the tools to make the necessary adjustments means that you are likely to be more successful and distance casting is just one of the tools in the bag.

Regards

Vince

[VGB]

I’m all in for error reduction in competition casting or assessment preparation but I’m not so enthusiastic for recreational purposes when error is much more highly objective dependent. What is a tracking error in your competition cast might be extremely handy in a presentation cast. In the recreational environment, being able to reproduce what would be errors in the model cast paradigm can be very useful indeed so, I don’t teach people how to avoid “errors” I teach them how to make them on purpose.


Only in my opinion of course

Nope!

Not only your opinion!

^^^^^^^

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Sorry!

SQEP?

[VGB]

Sorry Gary, a spillover from work

The term ‘SQEP’ is used in industry to mean ‘suitably qualified and experienced person’. SQEP may be considered as a criterion for competence. Also, ‘competence’ and ‘competency’ are both used to mean a measure of an employee’s knowledge, skill and experience.

Regards

Vince

[John Waters]

Re your post 155, no worries Vince, flat out myself today and tomorrow. I don't have time to respond to your post in full, but will. I can quickly do so for your first point about YouTube.

What verifiable and reputable source did you access that allowed you to arrive at your conclusion that Dan's instruction was "a figure of fun"? I presume was not just opinion because as we all know opinions can be subjective.

As a certified instructor and a qualified engineer, I considered that I was SQEP enough to ignore him and to follow Hank Patterson instead. Einstein himself considered that YouTube was not an authoritative source of information.

Love the acronym SQEP, I had to look it up to find out it meant a "suitably qualified and experienced person". With the greatest respect, may I suggest you have missed the point completely about my citing Dan’s video in this thread. It very accurately highlighted what an arm centric casting stroke is as did the FFI produced Jeff Wagner YouTube videos, Dan’s sightly more so the Jeff’s. The singular purpose of me flagging both videos was in response to your request in post 117 for me to provide you with an example of arm centric teaching. I made no comment about the quality of the instruction contained in either video.

We can agree to disagree on what qualifies a casting SQEP and the relative quality of YouTube sourced instructional videos. I obviously have a long way to go before I could nominate myself as a casting SQEP , but irrespective, love the acronym .


John
NCSQEP

[VGB]

How do you equate the contribution of Jeff’s hips and shoulders compared to his arm movement to line speed? He defines distance casting as “whatever is longer for you” so that covers quite a range of recreational fishing distances. Good definition.

Thanks John, I’ve looked at the video and know what you are looking at. Now considering I asked you for your views on the adage for short line/short stroke- long line/long stroke earlier in the thread. At post 102 you answered:

Short casts and long casts use the proximal to distal principle, the challenge (for caster and instructor) in either cast is the use of translation. The adage does not contradict the principle, unless translation is incorrectly used.

His demonstration of the long cast is proximal to distal and fits the adage of increasing stroke length with line length, as did the video of Joan Wulff that I posted where she advocated increasing the elbow movement for longer line. You did not perceive a problem with her explanation, why is that not an arm centric technique? The demonstration is performed sat down.

Both techniques meet general fishing distance cast objectives but I perceive that there could be a risk of hyperextension injuries occurring for the reasons I described in Post 101 but I couldn’t quantify the degree of risk. Neither Mark or myself cast like that but we both carry shoulder injuries and our technique is aligned to your thinking, not for absolute distance but to reduce distal load. I did qualify the practical limitations though at Post 89:

As ever it is down to objectives. If your objective is to achieve maximal acceleration and the largest possible speed at the end of the linked segments of the kinetic chain then you are going the right way. Personally, I have never given a lesson where that is the objective.

I would coach the use of the kinetic chain to reduce the possibility of injury but the “right” way doesn’t work if I’m sat on a rock in the middle of a stream like a happy little Buddha, it has to be modified to the objective and the solution may be arm centric.

Regards

Vince