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Walter & Group...
[GH] Congratulations to John Field who passed his Master's exam at Somerset, N.J. in bitter cold and high wind conditions !
[GH] Still no word from our instructors who do NOT use some form of visualization.
>From Craig Buckbee :
gordy,
fairly common with students of any level.
sometimes eyes closed while casting.... "feel the cast".
sometimes eyes closed pantomime the stroke (PULD or False Casting) with or without unstrung rod in hand.
i use it on MYSELF:
- instead of counting sheep
- long subway rides
- help with a mood swing
craig
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[GH] Frank Harford takes visualization a step farther as he adds a form of "self hypnosis" to our bags of teaching tricks :
Hi Gordy
I use visualization during a lesson by asking the student close his or her eyes and picture the cast that we are working on if I'm not getting through with other approaches. I think it's very beneficial as an adjunct to casting practice . At last year's conclave , Dave Barron and I gave a workshop on self-hypnosis (a sort of turbocharged visualization technique ) as an aid to casting practice.We plan to do it again this year .
Frank Harford
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>From John Bilotta :
1 Do any of you use visualization when teaching? Yes.
2. Of any who may, how do you use it?
I use it to help a student visualize how they will use whatever we are talking about while fishing. Something like, “I want you to imagine we are on a steam, the water is flowing left-to-right, and a fish is next to that rock. Now I want you to picture in your mind how that reach mend should look. Where do you want to lay that line down?”
Sometimes I just have them visualize paying me more, other times, just paying me period is good.
3. Do you feel it is helpful?
Very much so. I also ask students to ask questions back at me and try to get them to visualize how they think something works, or doesn’t work.
4. When do you use it?
Pantomime a rod movement or cast.
John
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[GH] Good advice, especially for our MCI candidates. From Scott Swartz :
Gordy,
Visualization as well as Pantomime are both terrific tools to use in mastering new muscle memory movements. They allow accurate practice and can be done perfectly (visualization) and done in slow motion (pantomime).
It is said that practice makes perfect, but in reality, practice only makes permanent. It takes perfect practice to make perfect.
We use both in teaching casting and encourage students to become “arm chair” casters while watching TV, sitting at red lights or while on-hold on the phone. Much muscle memory can be learned by repetition throughout the day. Don’t save casting practice until you find time to take the rod out.
Capt. Scott Swartz
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[GH] Counterpoint :
A few years ago, Jim Valle and I gave a Conclave workshop carried out in such a way that the students were to "imagine" themselves on a stream or river under different conditions. The idea was to have them relate the various casts they were being taught as ways of solving on-the-water situations.
As break time arrived, Jim and I realized that some of the students just didn't seem to have enough imagination to visualize the stream and the "conditions" on an open lawn area ..... so the instruction and performance lagged.
During the break, we went to "Plan B" which was a complete departure from what wasn't working well.
From that point on, things went very well. (My brother said, "Another submarine off the bottom.")
The following year we gave a workshop on salt water techniques on a grass field. That was a great success with lots of very positive student feedback. Had we done it the way we did with the prior course, I think we'd have had the same problem. With the salty course, however, we had lots of props.... even an ersatz "flats skiff" made from canvas complete with a mock poling platform and a 20' pole. We had plastic "fish" and even an 8 foot blow-up "shark". We used mono on yo-yo spools to make the "fish" move in different directions to teach methods of presentation. (At one point, the caster made a presentation to the moving "bonefish" when the "shark" "swam up and attacked it".)...... FUN !
Lessons learned :
1. Not all students have the same capacity to learn well from visualization techniques. ( Like the character Morales in the Broadway Musical, CHORUS LINE . ".....and I felt.................NOTHING")
2. A poor idea to assume that a class of students will respond well to instruction given in a situation requiring the use of lots of imagination. We assumed the "blame" for carrying the imagery a bit too far.
3. When giving courses, workshops, or casting clinics we must be flexible enough to be able to "change horses in mid stream" when it becomes obvious that student reactions are lagging.
4. Masters should have the capacity to go to a new plan with ease when necessary. Seasoned Masters can do this in a heartbeat.
5. Clever use of props can reduce the need for more visualization than the student can muster.
6. FUN GOES A LONG WAY IN MAKING TEACHING SUCCESSFUL !! ( A Lefty ploy if ever there was one.)
7. ???? Perhaps those same students who lacked the capacity to visualize well would have done well if they had taken the Workshop given by Frank Harford and Dave Barron on "Self Hypnosis" beforehand ??? !!
Gordy
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