Paul Arden | Tuesday, 23 August 2022
I was reading a book that Mark (Stoatstail) put me on to called “How we learn to move”. Which was a very interesting book. One of the arguments is that a skilled blacksmith was shown making a wide variety of movements when striking with a hammer. Potentially throwing an anvil in the idea that we should be teaching repetition. Furthermore, repeating exactly the same movement again and again can cause injury. No two tennis shots are every the same and so on. It’s actually an excellent read, and I would recommend it.
And so an idea has appeared in coaching called “differential learning”, which may mean hitting big rubber balls, or for that matter ping pong balls, instead of tennis balls. In other words exploring variety in movement is a critical part of learning.
So I thought I would try teaching Aerialised Snaps and Snakes to a few Zoom students and ask them to explore. This is work in progress and it will be interesting to see what results (hopefully no broken rod tips!). This is something I would only normally teach to a very tiny proportion of students, all of a very high level.
Am I convinced? No. The reason I’m (as yet) unconvinced is because I don’t think that the blacksmith learned his technique by using a baseball bat and his ability came through repetition. Ie millions of strikes with the hammer.
So I wouldn’t necessarily go that far. However we do have many exercises that would fit with “differential learning”, without resorting to extremes. Targets at various distances, different lay downs (fly first, fly and line together, line first from rod tip to fly), Bill’s one foot at a time speed/casting arc drill, all the rod and loop planes exercise, an infinite variety of presentation casts (which can be combined), all the Spey casts and variety of ways of “turning the rod over”. So we use it in training by constantly changing the parameters. That I do think VERY important.
“Variety within Repetition” would be how I look at skills development, or “Play”.
Anyway, if you would like to play around with aerielised Snaps and Snakes then have a look at today’s embedded video. The basics of the casts are in the video manual. Begin by aerialising all the Spey casts, there is a huge amount of control required for this.
So the question is, do I think that this has made me a better flycaster? Absolutely. Most important thing? No. Top three? Maybe. Direct use in fishing? Highly limited – although arguably it’s opened up some change of direction Snakehead Shots.
I learned it with the Lumi-line by the way. We have a new shipment of these coming soon. Imagine the video where all you see is a glowing flyline in pitch dark and there you have your evening entertainment!
Cheers, Paul