The Missing Lesson

There has been very little written about advanced tenkara casting in the English language, and as I studied the motion of Masami Sakakibara’s “Oni Loops” and watched the “J Loop” principles described and demonstrated online, there seemed to be a ‘missing link’ or a missing lesson hidden inside the mechanics of his technique. 

    Mr. Sakakibara was doing more than was being described is how I would interpret this “missing information.” Something in his casting stroke that either wasn’t being taught or something that was lost in translation. Whatever the case, I was sure there was more to his movements, but I couldn’t readily figure it out.

    Fast forward a few years’, and it was when watching Masami Sakakibara demonstrating his “Oni loops,” in a YouTube video when an interesting observation occurred to me. The “J loops” Masami Sakakibara was using reminded me [in some way] of spey casting techniques.         

    Spey casting is a two-handed casting style whereby anglers use anchored points-of-contact, usually between the fly line and water, but can be aerial or airborne “anchors” to make a weighted fly line obtain a certain directional force. 

    It was in this realization that “the missing lesson,” if you will, of Mr. Sakakibara’s “Oni loops” hit me like a fly in the back of the head! Oni loops was in some-way a spey cast “tenkara-style?!” At least that’s how it appeared to me in the video. I would discover later that there was much more to Mr. Sakakibara’s technique, but it was the spey-cast that led me to explore “Oni loops” and tenkara casting in a whole new direction.

     

    In spey casting there is a cast known as the “circle C cast.” This cast can be made either by anchoring the line on the water or by using an aerial technique; much like how a snake roll cast is performed. Holding the line off of the water and using a circular motion to create line tension, the line energy is then redirected [with the help of speed] to make a cast opposite from where the anchor point was last established. The fly giving an airborne point of opposing force to the rod tip. This is known as the 180 degree rule in fly casting.

    I wondered, was this what Sakakibara-san’s overhead-circling was all about? Line tension? Not only was Sakakibara-san using “J Loops” to cast aerial mends, he was rolling his wrist in between casts. These "wrist rolls" were sometimes overhead rotations he'd make, and other times side-arm in position. These seemingly indifferent rotations were [it seemed to me] not only directionally important and determined where the fly was going to go, but how the fly line was going to be released to achieve the desired aerial mend cast.

    Using these pre-cast "wrist rolls" were much more than just warm-up maneuvers, but when timed with each next cast seemed to add a certain casting advantage and tempo to his fishing. 

    It was obvious that Mr. Sakakibara was not only making masterful casts, but that real efficiency was being shown by incorporating these rotational "wrist rolls" or circumduction techniques into his casting motion.