Constantly Improving

I don’t think that’s what life is. Instead, I think life is about constantly learning and improving. As a coach, we can’t expect our students to want to continually learn if we don’t. Hell, the fun is learning. The whole reason to go fishing in the first place is to learn, not to catch fish. Don’t show me what you caught, tell me what you learned!

The risk is, that as coaches we set ourselves up as being Oracles, and have a fear of being seen as wrong. Being wrong is learning! I don’t respect anyone who is never wrong, because then they’ve stopped learning.

I’m often wrong about many things. In fact some people would say I’m rarely right!! That is how we learn. The person who is wrong the most, stands to learn the most. No fear of failure on this ship; I’ll just learn more and try again.

There is a discussion on the Board at the moment about coaching. I want to personally thank Mark Surtees and Vince Brandon (and I believe Will Shaw should be thanked too) because they have changed how I approach coaching over the past years. And I can tell you right now I am rapidly learning. I’m the sort of chap who is never content with where I am. I want to be a longer caster, better shot taker, have more fluidity of movement, be a better fly fisherman and be a better coach.

(I don’t need to be a better fly tyer because I’m already perfect. In fact I’m so far in front in this regards I could write books about it. “How to tie fucked flies” by Paul Arden. That would be a best seller.)

Learning is a state of mind and being open to change. Really listening to other people and realising that they may be right, even if they are annoying. Great! New stuff to learn.

If we are going to be proud of anything, then we should be proud of improving. Not about being where we think we are.

Two “fly casting” coaching books that Mark suggested I read, and I agree with him, that every coach should read them, are Nick Winkelman’s “The Language of Coaching” and Rob Gray’s “How we Learn to Move”. I’m reading a third book on his recommendation at the moment, which is pretty mind-blowing: “Motor Learning and Performance” by Richard Schmidt and Timothy Lee.

If you are coaching flycasting, then you are coaching movement. None of this information is part of any instructor exam or any flycasting coaching programme that I know. We are so in the dark in our professional associations that it is staggering.

I’ve been having great fun over the past three years experimenting with students. And the results are far better than before. Quite fascinating — and let’s face it, it would be very bizarre to think that this would not be the case.

It turns out that the top of the mountain was just a crest, and that the rest of the mountain was, still is, and always will be, shrouded in clouds. Fortunately, as you climb higher, the clouds unroll, enabling you to look down to see where you’ve been.

I have no idea how large this mountain is, but it’s a hell of a lot bigger than I thought, and maybe there is no “top of the mountain”. Which is just fantastic if you like the process of learning. And if you don’t like the process of learning, then what the hell are you doing coaching?

Andres of the Laguna podcast sent me the Wild Bill Gammel episode. It’s a really good one and I enjoyed it immensely. It sure brought back some great memories!! Really wonderful to hear about Bill’s early years and how he and his father came up with the Five Essentials.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-laguna-podcast/id1686134147?i=1000631426044

Enjoy and have a great week!

Cheers, Paul