Well, let's say you're ready to begin practicing. You need to 'string ' your rod(put leader and line through the eyes and out the tip top) and should have roughly a 9' leader/tippet with a tiny fuzzball thingy at the end(so you can see how and where your 'fly' is going) plus about 3 feet of line sticking out from the tip top of the rod. NOW follow J. Castwell's instructions!
If you took your rod/reel and just walked out to a lawn without 'stringing' and stripped off 30' of line from the reel, that line would simply be piled under you on the lawn.