Candidates who take years run whole tasks instead of the pieces each task is made of. Nothing gets good enough to put together.

What the instructor says

• Every task has pieces. Task 1 is the pickup, the transition and then the loops: three basic pieces. The accuracy tasks 12 and 13 may involve 15 or 20 separate skills.
• Pieces first, then the whole. Break them down, get each one good, then put them all together. Running task 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 for 45 minutes ends with you at task 15 having learned nothing.
• The timeline is a year, not five. A semi-coordinated, semi-intelligent caster with any casting background and a methodical plan should pass in a year to a year and a half.

Putting it to work

1. Before you pick up the rod, write down the pieces of the task you are working on.
2. Spend whole sessions on one piece: the pickup alone, the transition alone, the loops alone.
3. When each piece is repeatable, learn to do them all together, then rehearse the task start to finish without stopping.

Source

From the FFI CI walkthrough series by Dayle Mazzarella (Chapter 3 — FFI Casting Instructor Certification Tasks, Fly Fishing Coach International), lesson 1 part 2, 00:03:58. See the video library for the series and the CI exam section for the tasks; terms follow the FFI Fly Casting Definitions.