Pantomime with the empty hand, add a foam noodle, then a rod without line, and hand over the line last. Each stage adds feel without the distraction that makes the next harder.

What the instructor says

• A hand, a noodle, a rod without a line, and then a line. Start sophisticated casts with the hand alone; if a student uses too much wrist, have them move the hand back and forth and stop it in place.
• “We just turn dumb.” With a rod and line in hand the weird feel of the line makes it hard to think, and the caster is mesmerized by the line. He learned every cast this way and says it accelerated his learning.
• Cue the stop with something visible. “As soon as that line comes off the ground, you stop.” Telling them to stop at 2 o’clock is not enough, because they cannot see 2 o’clock.
• Anchor the arc. “Close your casting arc” is worthless for most people; use a palm tree behind and an oak in front, or 12, 1, 2 and 12, 10, 9 — “close your piece of pie.” Always use visual cues for tactile stuff.

Putting it to work

1. Hand only, stopped in place.
2. Noodle, then rod without line.
3. Add line; cue the stop off the line leaving the ground.

Source

From the FFI CI walkthrough series by Dayle Mazzarella (Chapter 3 — FFI Casting Instructor Certification Tasks, Fly Fishing Coach International), lesson 15 part 2, 00:02:33 and 00:02:51, and lesson 23, 00:08:20. See the video library for the series and the CI exam section for the teaching tasks; terms follow the FFI Fly Casting Definitions.