Learning Vs. Repeating

I had a disturbing exchange recently with a member on one of the discussion boards I moderate for. He was having a hard time grasping a concept of blade usage and design, and was asking me some questions to try and work that out. He did get the idea, on his own I might add, which is always great - I love those "aha!" moments myself - When telling me about it he mentioned a course he'd been to about the knife method at hand, and to explain why it didnt "click" with him then he said "I just did what I was told".
I was greatly disturbed by that.
Bright, intelligent people, go to a class to learn something, but when the instructor starts teaching instead of learning, they mimic. They follow directions, but they dont try to understand why.
What we do at training courses is follow the instructors instruction so that we can learn it - but thre is a difference between doing it to learn it, and simply repeating what the instructor demonstrates without any effort to understand it.
Sometimes its the fault of the instructor, no doubt - but sometimes its the fault of the person training. I know the modern school system for standard education is fond of saying there are no bad students, but thats bullshit. It is possible to be a bad student. Many people are.
We have to apply critical thinking to our defensive training, from practical unarmed combat to edged weapons to firearms. We have to see beyond the motions, and understand what they accomplish.
Unless that understanding is achieved we havent really learned any skill - we've repeated some motions, and maybe learned how to repeat them in the future.
A skill is something you can access repeatedly, under diverse and challenging circumstances outside previously experienced parameters. You need skills, the flexible, adaptable, software that is the core of any "fighting program".
Patterns of by-rote mechanics are one trick ponies, not skill.
You run into this problem a lot in traditional martial arts, being taught to the traditional method of that art - the student stands there, repeats a hundred perfect combinations of something, and thats it. No effort is encouraged to understand what thats for, or how it can be applied. You run into elsewhere too, the shooting community for example (the people, even instructors, who do perfect, flat footed, range presentations and double taps to paper targets - over and over and over - and think thats "good enough"), but one example is as good as another. If you arent one of those people, dont get your panties in a bunch. If you are... your anger should be directed at yourselves, not me. Dont shoot the messenger just because he forced you to look at something nasty about yourself.

There's a great Bruce Lee quote that goes something like "Before I studied the art, a punch was just like a punch, a kick just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I've understood the art, a punch is just a punch, a kick just a kick".
I've always liked that. When you are just repeating a thing, its simple but its useless, you have no way to practically apply it.
When you understand a thing, have learned not only how to perform it but why and when, it is no more complicated than it ever was, but now its not a repetition - you have the skill to use it, its become a tool.
You can draw a picture of a wrench, do shadowing and paint it in silver and it'll look like a wrench, you can even cut it out and hold it in your hand. But if you try to turn a nut with it, it'll tear apart.
But If you go to Sears and buy a wrench, and know righty-tighty/lefty-loosey (except for gas lines ;) ), you can do your work.

When you train, learn what you are doing, dont just repeat what your instructor is doing. The instructor has to teach in an environment condusive to learning, but you as the student have an equal responsibility to make yourself open to actually learning. Make the effort to think about what you are doing, the mechanics of it, what it achieves, and what it allows. If you cant "get it", be self-aware enough to realize that, and to ask a question to answer it. Asking questions isnt a sign of the fool - just the opposite.