It’s been very interesting. This week I’ve been going through some Zoom videos with Nick and I have to say I think my teaching can be more focused/structured!! That’s been extremely useful actually. Recently my one-hour lessons have been going on for considerably longer, which is fine and my choice; I like the company! But that’s no good for duplication. So what I need to do is to drive the content back into one hour, imaginary bells and whistles, and then have the fishing chats after this tightly focused hour.

I think that will be better. It will also be more practical for my students when replaying the lessons back to extract the drills, exercises and cues.

I knew that working with Nick was going to improve my coaching/lessons. It was a bit unexpected to see this so quickly. It does make sense to check our work on a regular basis, and having a complete video of the lesson makes this possible. (Another good reason to record lessons!).

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The places in New Zealand best known for trout fishing tend to be picture-postcard. Big trout in gin-clear water. Worth the trip. Inland often.
Less appreciated, but also very good, are the lowland waters. They run from small tributaries up into larger river networks. They also reach the coast and tidal fisheries.

Through autumn, winter, spring and summer, these areas can have an agribusiness-is-everything vibe. Farmers tend to be supportive of fishing. Views differ, but access still often holds up. Given how much rain New Zealand gets, the flows wash through, and the trout fishing is good.

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James and I are back in the UK and are experiencing saltwater fishing withdrawal symptoms – so we are discussing options for Autumn – perhaps Maldives, Los Roques or Belize – though not Mexico after we heard about the 19% charge on fishing equipment when you arrive there. That would be ridiculously expensive for us so if that is what is happening there, then we are not going. Annoying as our previous trips to Mexico were amazing and it would have certainly been one of our top destinations if not for this weird tax.

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A simple job this week. The mylar floating minnow. It's a popular pattern here in Japan, especially a version called the Iwai minnow.

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We started from home Monday morning at 7 am and arrived to Ljubljana on Tuesday morning 5 am. You could say it is long way to the top if you want rocknroll. First two hour car drive to Rovaniemeltä, then 4 hour flight to Bergamo, italy. We didn't risk to get bus on time so we took later bus to Venice. While waiting we had late lunch and walk in huge mall. In Venice we had several hours stop which we spent in snack bar with beer. And then last leg which was 3 hours in bus.
 
We didn't sleep much and it was not good sleep, yet here we are. Tuesday our friend and guide picked us up from bus and we had short sleep in accommodation before picking up rental car and having breakfast. Tuesday was shopping and resting day after travelling. In evening we ended up to do wine tasting for Slovenian wine, from certain farm. Great day and evening.

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I’ve touched on the idea that the biceps has an important role for the fly caster. Now I’ve picked up some new ideas here. How to improve the training of the biceps. If you let your arms hang to the side and externally rotate your arms, let the palm of your hands point forward, your arms will angled out from the body. This is called the carrying angle. This is an angle we don’t spend much time in. Many of us spend a lot of time in the complete opposite angle as we spend a lot of time in front of a computer.

Having the arms by the side externally rotated in the “carrying position” is a good position to fully stretch the long head of the biceps muscle. This ties into the ability to rotate the forearm. And why do we want that? By restoring and having better movement in the chain we are less likely to get pain in the chain or help reduce pain if we have any. So this is something the fly caster wants to avoid or recover from pain in the arm from casting. And almost all casting we are doing we are working with the biceps in a shortened state so we are adding to the problem.

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