Jonas MagnussonIn my professional life good instructional videos were priceless to me. However, I did not get much help from the videos before I had mastered the basics, and only then did I understand what was going on, and they became extremely valuable. So, I think complex motion is very hard to teach to beginners unless some basics are mastered first.
We all have seen on some thread or the other that some beginner queries. “How can I learn to fly cast?” The answers come thick and fast. “The xxx Fly shop has some awesome videos, and you will learn it in no time.” Or “Cedric at the Churchmouse will take you out into the street and sort you out in no time.” The sobering fact is still that most fly casters could improve a lot.
A quick Google search “fly casting videos” yielded “about 40,400,000 results (0.55 seconds).” I haven’t watched all of them and I won’t. But I have watched a lot of them, probably way too many. The mere fact that there are so many leads me to conclude that most of them are bad. Why would we keep producing millions of these videos if there were some good ones out there to do the job? Whoa – I hear you scream – “are you saying that all instructional videos are useless?” No, I am not saying that. I am only saying they are useless for beginning fly casters, who don’t have the basics down pat first. The speed at which everything moves during fly casting makes it very hard for a beginner to get what’s going on. For instance, in a slow cast, the rod tip can be traveling at 60’/sec (40 miles/hour). If a beginner watches a beautiful fly cast for the first time, he/she only pays attention to the loop, and “oh how pretty it is” is a common exclamation. Because of the speed at which it happens, it is hard to understand all the various steps that are needed to produce the pretty loop.
If the instructional videos worked for beginners, we should all be casting, and golfing, and …… (insert any sport you like) – like gods. However, sadly we don’t. I think the reason the videos don’t work for beginners is that they don’t understand what they are watching. In many videos, the teacher casts nicely but the verbal part doesn’t match the casting action leading to a Gordian knot of misunderstanding. There are standardized casting terms adopted by FFI
https://flyfishersinternational.org/Casting/Become-Certified/Definitions/General-Casting
and it would be great if they were used correctly by everyone in the casting community especially those who are producing the teaching videos. Unfortunately, these simple terms are not used by all teachers.
I concede that a few of the videos are pretty good and some are excellent, but most are lacking. So, what are the odds of a beginner locating the useful ones in a pool of forty million videos! The odds are bad. So, the odds are, that the poor student is watching one of the majority of videos that are substandard, thus learning the wrong stuff! Even the videos with good content are usually bad because the “celebrity” presenter bloviates and hides the good stuff in a bunch of fluff words. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the quality of the video and its length. The same goes for the number of words used.
The videos I have found to be good to great are found on FFI’s website.
https://flyfishersinternational.org/Education/Learning-Center/Casting/Casting-Instruction
They are short to the point and have been very carefully scripted.
And Paul Arden has several videos on his website suitable for beginners to advanced casters.
https://www.sexyloops.com/flycast/introduction/
I have learned a lot from Paul’s videos but only after I got the basics in place. I am not saying that these two sites are the only good ones. However, they are the best I have come across for beginners.
Even the good ones aren’t all that helpful, mostly because they can offer no feedback to the unfortunate beginning learner. The learner watches the video then goes out to try out what she’s/he’s “learned”. The student thinks she’s/he’s doing what has been learnt but isn’t and doesn’t know it, so ends up no better and more frustrated.
So, what can be done? The obvious step is to turn the process on its head i.e., film the beginners and then have the instructors point out all the things that need to be addressed.
I found two certified casting instructors that provide this service. Captain Chris Myers of www.orlandoflycasting.com
and George Roberts of www.masterthecast.com
The very best way to learn the basics is to get solid instructions from some certified casting instructor. However, anglers will rather spend their money on gear they don’t know how to use properly. One of my blogs delves into the GAS syndrome (gear acquisition syndrome),
https://everyjonahhasawhale.com/cci-certified/you-cant-buy-a-cast/
but the fact remains that you can’t buy a cast, so you don’t, but you should buy solid instructions.
The answer to the question posed – Are videos useless for beginning fly casters? – is yes.
Research seems to agree.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617740646
