Background

For some time I’ve wanted to create a section dealing with the teaching of fly casting. What stopped me was a relative lack of teaching experience. You need a lot of miles on the teaching clock to have experience that is both wide and deep enough to speak with authority about goes on between casting teachers and students. Teachers are the keepers, borrowers, contributors and conveyors of the fly casting body of knowledge and more needs to be said about how people learn and teachers teach to greatest effect.

I have also wanted to take this site in new, different and more expansive directions by opening it up to other authors who could add to the fly casting body of knowledge. After a bit of head scratching and discussion with people whose opinions I respect, the solution decided upon was to do both at the same time. The new section will house contributions from casting teachers and, hopefully, from students as well.

Among casting “instructors” there are people who have gone beyond orthodoxy in what they teach and how they go about it. They understand that the job is teaching people to fly cast rather than teaching fly casting to people.

Further, there are people who, like me, understand that teaching fly casting is teaching movement and accordingly there will be other contexts, including other sports, in which relevant knowledge and experience has been accumulated. Teachers elsewhere will have learned things we can take up and adapt to teach fly casting better.

A huge amount of money, effort and time have gone into the science and practice of teaching movement. To take advantage of that we need look past the assumption that fly casting, like fly fishing, is completely unique and exceptional. The trick is to look for similarities (instead of assuming fundamental differences) in the subject matter, the learning and therefore teaching of movement.

Call for Contributions

This post has two purposes. First, it announces a new section and my intention to take this site in new directions. Second, and more importantly, it is an invitation to casting teachers who have ventured beyond orthodox thinking and would like to share their experiences with others. If you have experience as a (casting) teacher that seems to fit the bill please let me know. If you use the contact button in the side menu to send me an email we will get the ball rolling.

The broad subject areas I have in mind are:

• Teaching people – Relevant principles, perspectives, approaches and concepts
• Learning movement – Understanding how we do this best “naturally”
• Teaching movement – Other contexts
• Teaching Fly Casting – Combining the above

I should add immediately that I am seeing these as potential assemblies of content and not as spaces reserved for an exhaustive collection of all available knowledge. The latter is neither possible nor necessary imho. What we need are fresh ideas freely expressed that have been field tested and proven.

As well as these knowledge assemblies I also want to make space for students to participate by providing us with Student Reports of what worked for them. Lastly I can see room for a multi media Resources Collection – bibliographic suggestions. One thing at a time though. We’ll open and start populating the space shortly, kicking off with a ripper piece from Mark Surtees.