You can steal money, jack cars, and squat in mansions.  The only thing you truly have to earn is knowledge - respect too but the line between fear and respect is blurry at best, and Love you can rent.  Seriously, there is no lottery for knowledge,  no edict a government can pass to make people less ignorant,  and even when freely offered understanding can’t always be taken.

The capacity to learn, the skill of gaining and retaining knowledge is the single most important ability a person can practice.  With it, you can truly accomplish anything.  Where I think many people - and perhaps society as a whole - make a mistake is in thinking that only intellectual activities are learned activities.

A baseball pitcher learns to throw a fastball, just as a dancer learns ballet, a pianist a selection, or a nerd learns science.  Granted, the process for each is entirely different,  but they are all learning.  I actually find it rather pathetic that in order to be an Honor Roll student at most High Schools a person need only have the ability to listen and remember.

When you consider that most experts put the number of distinct human intelligences at 9 and some even higher, this can only be regarded as a failure and a step backwards.  Thousands of years ago in Ancient Athens an equivalent education included athletics, speech, dance, music, but history class was probably a lot easier.  Still you see the point.  Exercising only one aspect of your mind is like exercising only your left bicep.

Exercise is a good analogy.  I think too often people allow themselves to fall into the belief that intelligence is set from birth.  I don’t think that is so.  The Flyosopher has been fortunate to have had a pretty good education, during which he has met some brilliant people.  I think that the most truly intelligent people in the world share one key trait, curiosity.  Curiosity is the intellectual equivalent of an athlete’s drive.  I’m sure genetics plays a role, but a person who is genetically disposed to being a superior athlete who is a couch potato will be less physically developed than a person less genetically gifted who works out every day.  The same goes for intelligence, and more importantly the ability to learn.  The goal is to be the best you you can be.

This idea of various intelligences applies to fly casting instruction.

There is a bit of debate as to what is the best way to learn to cast.  Some people learned through reading, others by watching DVDs, and most of us had instruction from either a professional or a friend.  In the end most people eventually learn through trial and error, which evolves into a sense of habit.  This is very similar to learning to ride a bike, in that many of us can not pin-point the exact moment that we “got it,” but once learned it became instinctive.  Things that are instinctive are some of the hardest things to teach.

“The best learners often make the worst teachers.  They are, in a very real sense, perceptually challenged.  They cannot imagine what it must be like to struggle to learn something that comes so naturally to them.”

Stephen Brookfield

I became a High School teacher because I have always enjoyed being in school.  Learning in that environment was natural to me, easy.  This is the case for most teachers, they enjoy school and thus when they become adults they gravitate back towards teaching.  An unfortunate side-effect is that many teachers teach the way they learned, and have a difficult time with students who struggle to learn their way.  Again, I am not faulting the teachers, but rather the system.  These same issues are apparent in fly casting instruction.

Some teachers will use analogy like the classic clock-face, others will try to describe mechanics like a physicist, and still others will physically limit their students but tying the butt of the rod to their wrist or forcing them to hold a hat in their armpit.  None of these methods are wrong, but all of them are incomplete.  I learned primarily by drilling the components of a cast.  May sound odd but I made at least a 100 backcasts before I was allowed to make a forward cast.  With the line straight on the grass before me, I would make a backcast, and allow it to fall to the ground.  Turn around take a step back with the rod tip down and repeat.  When I teach people this is how I first teach them.  For some it works wonders, for others it does nothing but confuse them.

Not all instructors can teach all students in the manner thay are best suited to learn.

It surprises me how often when an instructor is advertising his classes the literature focuses more on his casting abilites than his teaching abilities.  I would much perfer to have an average caster who is a superior teacher instruct me than a superior caster who is only a moderate teacher.  The best teachers are those who can teach in more than one method, the very best teachers are those who can determine how best their students can learn.

So if you are looking for an instructor don’t feel afraid to ask them how they teach and if they can teach in a variety of styles.  However, I feel the very best way to learn is to attend a school.  Schools generally have multiple instructors, each of whom will teach a slightly different way dramatically increasing your chances of learning.  In addition to this, there will be other students, and each of them will learn a slightly different way.  This means over the course of the day you will be exposed to far more learning opportunities than you would have been with one-on-one instruction.

I also believe that another great way to learn something is to teach another person.  This is especially true if you find yourself “stuck” at a certain skill level and unable to improve.  If you can make a perfect 30 foot cast, but can’t cast in the wind or can’t make distance, try teaching someone your 30 foot cast.  You may find that by verbalizing what you know, you dicover that you know even more.  That by answering “basic” questions you come to understand more advanced topics.  I learned an awful lot by teaching my dog.

A big part of the enjoyment of anything comes from learning more and more about it.  I hope you’ll have fun.  Learning to cast is a big struggle, but it is also likely a good portion of the reason you became a fly fisherman in the first place.  Also once you learn to cast, don’t stop, the fun is just starting.