i think this is just shu-ha-ri - http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri - in short there are three stages to learning somet

i think this is just shu-ha-ri - http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri - in short there are three stages to learning something: * first, it makes little sense and you follow by rote * second, you understand and explore * third you have absorbed and use what is appropriate, naturally and this is "ri-testing". it's going to confuse shu and annoy ha, hence the defensiveness... (more generally, i think this is a very useful way of looking at progress. one danger, though, is that it's tempting to think you are ri when you're actually just a ha that's screwing up.) (and apologies for using what i suspect are very carefully defined terms in some marshal art out of context and in grammatically odd ways.)