We matriculated at the Wulff School on a Friday evening, and graduated on the following Sunday. It was a quick education, and unlike high school I paid attention. Mostly. What they taught was useful, and even what I knew already it was good to hear again.

Here is the thing about the Wulff School: it has been on this earth for 40 years. It pre-dates trout hipsters. It pre-dates fly fishing for carp as a lifestyle choice and Euro-nymphing. It probably predates some parts of Europe. This is all trout all the time, and a trout fishing education of an older school. Sometimes the information is a bit idiosyncratic—that clinch knot variation and the water sock come to mind—but if you’re fishing for trout it’s stuff that will make your fishing better, or introduce you to fly fishing in an ordered and systematic way.

And it’s fun. There was no class bully. There was no prom. I declared myself class president and president of the National Honor Society and quarterback of the Joan Wulff Fighting Salmonids and nobody said no. Still, there was that anxiety that every school I’ve ever been to produces: Will I excel? Worse, will I embarrass myself? Well of course I will embarrass myself, but still . . . One worries about such things.

I suspect it was pretty much the same class I would have taken at the Wulff School in 2009, or 1999, or 1989. There were no Power Points, and laptops weren’t required. It was old school and it was charming. If Ms. Wulff started her school today it would be different, but I’m not sure that Power Points would add much.

There was plenty of hands-on stuff like knot tying and wading and casting. Then we cast some. Then we cast some more. Sometimes we didn’t go outside to cast, on Friday evening (after watching the 1969 Trout Unlimited video, The Way of the Trout) we practiced our grip and our power stroke with sawed off rods that consisted of the reel seat, the handle, and the first four or five inches of the butt section. Kris pointed out to me that there were no spells in these magic wands, then she had the nerve to shush me when I laughed out loud. I’m pretty sure she set me up to get in trouble with the teacher.

Did I mention we cast some? Joan Wulff made her bones as a caster and of course the most frustrating part of fly fishing is fly casting. Well, that and tangles. Tangles and putting down fish. Tangles and putting down fish and getting your waders filled with cold water and getting your back cast hung in the trees. But casting is right up there.

There were 22 of us in the class, and six instructors, and Ms. Wulff was around a lot to make seven. The students and instructors took class together, and we ate dinner together, and we hung out together. To practice casting—did I mention that we practiced casting?—we went out to the ponds in three groups and the instructors—all of whom were excellent—would watch us flail around and make encouraging and calm suggestions: Take your thumb to your temple, use your shoulder joint to bring down your elbow. Relax your shoulder. Relax your hand. Relax your shoulder. Relax your hand. Did I mention they told me to relax my shoulder? I think they discussed it in the teacher’s lounge: go by and tell the Thomas kid to relax his shoulder . . .

And why in Beelzebub’s tarnation are you casting sidearm? Ok, they didn’t say Beelzebub’s tarnation, they said if I didn’t stop casting sidearm my arm was going to fall off. Ok, they didn’t actually say that my arm would fall off, but that was what they would have said if they’d just thought of it. I started to tell them that I was 62 years old, and that if my arm hadn’t fallen off yet, it wasn’t going to because I tended to cast sidearm. I had come though to learn stuff, and even though I knew I was sloppy and lazy and could usually get done more or less what I wanted with my sloppy and lazy casts I could be a better caster if I just did what they told me to do.

The school director, Sheila Hassan, at one point had me shut my eyes and go through the motion of the cast on feel, just like Obi Wan and Luke. Then she said I was doing really well. And for that moment or two I really was. I felt the Force, Luke. However much I may have wanted to brand Ms. Wulff’s method as nit-picky and unrealistic, it was marvelously accurate, totally without my normal leftward slice of the leader and fly at the end of the cast. Normally I can cast a great slider. It’s just too bad the point isn’t to strike the fish out.

But with Ms. Wulff’s method, sidearm? Not happening! I was really feeling good, but then they filmed us on video and it all fell apart. Sorry Sheila. I know for about five seconds I was your star pupil.

I also fell apart any time Ms. Wulff watched me cast. Ms. Wulff is a handsome and active 92, engaged with her instructors and her students, and as demanding as the high school English teacher who made us read the Book of Job and Murder in the Cathedral the first week of class to get ready to start the Canterbury Tales. Why Job? I still don’t know. But like Mrs. Selman Ms. Wulff doesn’t accept laziness. She doesn’t accept sloppiness. I’m a bit surprised she didn’t rap my fingers with a magic wand.

Days later, fishing for pike in New Hampshire, throwing an eight weight with flies the size of baby ducklings, it occurred to me that I was concentrating. I wasn’t my usual lazy and sloppy self. I was following Ms. Wulff’s method and my casts on the river were both far enough and clean. I wished Ms. Wulff could have seen me, not like that time in class when she came up to watch me cast.

“Relax your shoulder,” she said. “Lift your arm up before it falls off.”