Flytie09 and eastfly66,
Thanks guys for the quick response and the great detailed recommendations. Very much appreciated. I think that we can safely assume that I will be heading up to the Pulaski/Pineville/Altmar area for steelhead and salmon fishing. It's an easy drive and only 25 mins from my daughters place in Syracuse. As such I really appreciate the feedback on both the Orvis course and the Spey Doctor. I did a one day PNW trip and it ended up a Spey two handed trip with a Spey guide, that's how I got hooked. Yeah I wish that I had more time on that trip but it was a last minute add on to a trip on family business and I'm sure that I'll get another chance or two to head out that way and get more time in.
In terms of FFI certified instructors, the guy who I've taken lessons from here is one and he has given me some good tips and a couple of practice casting workouts that I can do between trips. While he's great, the lessons are intermittent as we are both pretty busy and I just feel like I'd benefit more from some intensive coaching over a couple of days. You hit it nail on the head, boring stuff but I'd look forward to breaking down a snap t into its basic components and doing each 100 x while a coach watched critiqued and corrected until I had each piece down and was able to execute the cast flawlessly, then move on to snake rolls or whatever else. I studied martial arts when I was younger and that type of training goes in deep, never fades and I take to it like a fat kid to a snickers bar!
I have been to Whitakers and those guys were great and really helped me out on my first trip up to Salmon River. I really like the way that the Orvis course is described at Tailwaters with the video taping and critique. What I can't tell is if the Orvis course is a Spey course, are they able to have a small Spey sub group out of the larger group or if there is just the tip of the hat to two handed spey casting, e.g. a demo and then back to single hand overhead casting. If I could get this done right I can easily see rolling with either Walt or Orvis and then following up immediately with a 1-2 day guided trip with the guys at Whitaker's or Malinda's to reinforce lessons learned in the course. After that it will be easy for me to practice around here in my home waters until I can get myself back up to Salmon River for the next steelhead or salmon run. Next step sounds like I need to give the Orvis folks and then Walt a call tell them what I'm looking for and see what they say.
Last, I hear only good things about the Delaware and the steelhead in it. The guys at my local fly shop head up that way for their annual steelhead shop trip so I can definitely see jumping in on that trip next year and learning those waters too, it's just that right now I've already done a trip to Salmon River, scouted out the pools, shops, places to eat, and stay and have a pretty good idea of what to expect if I do a trip up there. It's also so easy to justify heading there as I can always take a 6 hour road trip to "hand deliver" some "critical item" to my daughter, e.g. napkins, toilet paper or any other of the really hard to find items that one never ever runs across in a city like Syracuse.
Oh and once I get this done Spey Nation in Altmar, is a given. Thanks so much.