Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 22 November 2017
Once I was told to "Bernd, please move your rod tip along a straight line path." in order to have me (the student) shaping tight loops.
I first was taught the (quite famous) SLP-concept for shaping tight loops more than 20 years ago in a very first fly casting tuition I baught myself in. Today still a lot of fly casting instructors believe in this concept to teach beginners and advanced students how to shape tight loops. The IFFF (the largest organisation of fly casting instructors around the globe) also still holds this concept up high.
In my own teaching experience I made much better (and faster) teaching progress by concentrating on the fly caster him/herself instead of trying to focus on the rod tip with my (or the student's) eyes. The rod tip often moves in more than 100Km/h. That makes it hard (impossible to be more precise) to control it's path anyway.
Besides that this old concept to me sounds like saying: "Please shape tight loops." Of course this leaves the student with the one question of HOW to?!
By the way - did I mention, that if you (somehow would manage) to move your rod tip along a straight line path your line will run into the rod tip/rod? Really? Yes, the old SLP-concept is (and will always be) wrong. To me this was enough of a reason to have completely banned it from my teaching long ago.
My best teaching results always came when telling my students how to move their body based on all key elements of fly casting. You know, it's YOU moving in the first place. Your rod tip is just one part between you and your fly.
Now that the world of fly casting instructors has spent decades to mark the SLP-concept as one of the (if not the) most important one(s) in teaching fly casting it seems obviously, that I can't just outline this concept to be a wrong one and then it will be gone. :)
Well, who knows maybe one day I won't come over it again and again anymore?
Back into teaching right now. ;)
Great week to all of you!
All my best
Bernd
P.s.: I am nowhere near to tell you which way is the best one of teaching fly casting. All I am saying is, that the SLP-concept is a wrong understanding of what happens in the details of fly casting.
Pictures of our last week as usual...
