Application Blog
I have successfully completed my Senior Exhibit application. For my application, I went down the route of trying to spread my knowledge amongst other people. I love to fly fish and I thought there was no better way than to teach some of peers how to enjoy the sport also.
I had everyone (Raleigh, Nicholas, and Landon) arrive at my house at 1:00 on a Saturday. Truthfully, when the time came around to actually doing the application, I was still a little bit nervous, despite the fact that I was teaching three of my best friends. When everyone arrived, I started by teaching them the two basic knots that are used in fly fishing; one was the standard fisherman’s knot that is used to the fly onto the line, the other was a knot used to attach the liter to the larger fly line. It is impossible to fly fish without knowing how to tie both of those knots. As expected, everything went smoothly and all three students mastered both knots with very little difficulty.
Next came the actual fly fishing. I have been fly fishing off and on for a few years now, so I kind of forgot how hard it is to learn. When I had my meeting with my fly fishing mentor, Harry Robertson, a few days prior, he warned me not to get frustrated because it was going to be very difficult. At the time, I sort of blew the comment off, but I was definitely in for it if I hadn’t have lowered my expectations. I had an area of a field lined off at the bottom of my house with markers every 10 feet all the way until 60 feet. Mr. Robertson had warned me not to start casting before they tried because see someone good fly fish is not going to help a beginner. I took his advice and went through the basic motions of fly fishing without casting any line. After I finished my whole spiel, Nicholas decided he wanted to go first. I seeing him attempt to cast the first time, I knew I would have to try and break the cast down into a forward cast and a backward cast. After ten minutes and lot of instruction, his cast was not “good” by any means, but it was functional and for that I was kind of proud. Slowly but surely, each person came up one by one and I encountered some new roadblocks with each one, but I felt very prepared and I believe all of them finished with a solid understanding of the sport. Nicholas decided he wanted to go again, and this turned out to be a blessing for me. After some more instructing, Nicholas had a solid back cast and forward cast and was able to link them together and hit 40 feet on a good cast, I was very happy to see that.
Overall, I thought my application went well, but the main thing I learned is how hard it is to teach people knew things. I gained a lot of respect for anyone who is a teacher. It is truly so hard because it feels like fly fishing is such a simple sport, but one little thing can ruin the entire cast. Therefore, I was forced to pretty much eliminate all expectations I had and take baby steps with the new casters. In the end, I would call my application a success and I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed fly fishing and maybe one or two of them will try to continue to learn.
I have successfully completed my Senior Exhibit application. For my application, I went down the route of trying to spread my knowledge amongst other people. I love to fly fish and I thought there was no better way than to teach some of peers how to enjoy the sport also.
I had everyone (Raleigh, Nicholas, and Landon) arrive at my house at 1:00 on a Saturday. Truthfully, when the time came around to actually doing the application, I was still a little bit nervous, despite the fact that I was teaching three of my best friends. When everyone arrived, I started by teaching them the two basic knots that are used in fly fishing; one was the standard fisherman’s knot that is used to the fly onto the line, the other was a knot used to attach the liter to the larger fly line. It is impossible to fly fish without knowing how to tie both of those knots. As expected, everything went smoothly and all three students mastered both knots with very little difficulty.
Next came the actual fly fishing. I have been fly fishing off and on for a few years now, so I kind of forgot how hard it is to learn. When I had my meeting with my fly fishing mentor, Harry Robertson, a few days prior, he warned me not to get frustrated because it was going to be very difficult. At the time, I sort of blew the comment off, but I was definitely in for it if I hadn’t have lowered my expectations. I had an area of a field lined off at the bottom of my house with markers every 10 feet all the way until 60 feet. Mr. Robertson had warned me not to start casting before they tried because see someone good fly fish is not going to help a beginner. I took his advice and went through the basic motions of fly fishing without casting any line. After I finished my whole spiel, Nicholas decided he wanted to go first. I seeing him attempt to cast the first time, I knew I would have to try and break the cast down into a forward cast and a backward cast. After ten minutes and lot of instruction, his cast was not “good” by any means, but it was functional and for that I was kind of proud. Slowly but surely, each person came up one by one and I encountered some new roadblocks with each one, but I felt very prepared and I believe all of them finished with a solid understanding of the sport. Nicholas decided he wanted to go again, and this turned out to be a blessing for me. After some more instructing, Nicholas had a solid back cast and forward cast and was able to link them together and hit 40 feet on a good cast, I was very happy to see that.
Overall, I thought my application went well, but the main thing I learned is how hard it is to teach people knew things. I gained a lot of respect for anyone who is a teacher. It is truly so hard because it feels like fly fishing is such a simple sport, but one little thing can ruin the entire cast. Therefore, I was forced to pretty much eliminate all expectations I had and take baby steps with the new casters. In the end, I would call my application a success and I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed fly fishing and maybe one or two of them will try to continue to learn.
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