Obstructions and wind force you off vertical and horizontal; the flatter the rod, the more gravity sags the line, and a tick on the ground breaks the rules. Each step down costs speed: about 10 miles an hour at 12 o’clock, 12 at 1, 15 at 2, 20 at 3.

What the instructor says

• Lose an hour a step. Two casts at vertical, then on a back cast “after I count two, I go down to 11 o’clock” — and keep stepping down. Four steps beat three, though the three-step 12 → 1.30 → 3 “satisfies the rules”: each jump swings “really a big swinging loop” and “a huge tracking issue”.
• Finish horizontal. The last cast must reach 3 o’clock: examiners want “a definite difference” between the four planes.
• Accelerate and turn. “Your acceleration is going to have to be faster as you go down,” or the line dips and hits — and he turns his body as the rod drops.

Putting it to work

1. Sit at vertical, not near it. Ten or fifteen degrees off is probably not too bad; further and you cannot make good casts.
2. Turn in the wind. Two or three miles an hour will make a near-vertical loop hit the rod or itself, so stand with the loop blowing slightly away.
3. Map the hours. Put 12, 1, 2 and 3 o’clock on a line of trees in the background — the one you face — so you know where each hour is.

Source

From the FFI CI walkthrough series by Dayle Mazzarella (Chapter 3 — FFI Casting Instructor Certification Tasks, Fly Fishing Coach International), lesson 6, 00:00:20. See the video library and the task pages for the exam wording; terms follow the FFI Fly Casting Definitions.