For what it's worth, here's my December column for BTOJ.

Kind regards,
Andy
---------------------------------

Great Expectations

Since most of us who grow bonsai are not full-time (nor even part-time) students at any sort of a bonsai academy, our bonsai learning opportunities are limited. We can, however, find learning opportunities of sorts within our community, through bonsai workshops, conventions and online discussion forums. These venues are not ideal, but they are often readily available and the cost is quite low or nil.

Based on what I’ve read in online discussion and have heard from my friends at conventions, however, many of us are misjudging the instructional value of these venues. Many of us are mistakenly equating the tips and advice freely offered online and in workshops with real instruction. This is a mistake that can lead to unnecessary disappointment and cause us to level unwarranted criticism at those we believe to be teaching us.

Online discussion forums and bonsai workshops are fun, interesting and sometimes helpful, but they are by no means credible substitutes for real instruction. They’re actually quite poor places from which to get instruction.


A Matter of Degrees

Contrary to what many may believe, bonsai is complex and intricate. The art and science of bonsai is as deep and complex as any other art or science. Bonsai is no easier to fully understand and practice than architecture or psychology, but most of us do not appreciate this fact since bonsai is not generally viewed to be as important as architecture or psychology.

Now, I don’t need to have studied architecture for years at a university in order to build a shed in my backyard and I don’t need to have a doctorate in psychology in order to understand when my 6-year old is trying to manipulate me. No, the tips I can get from friends or find in magazines will tell me most of what I need to know in order to undertake a small carpentry project. However, the tips and advice that I can come by in conversations with my friends and get from magazines will not arm me with the skill and understanding I’d need to design a beautiful, functional and structurally sound 12-story office complex.

When studying dance or when studying medicine or when studying engineering, we don’t believe for a moment that tips and advice will give us what we need to be skilled and knowledgeable in these endeavors. On the contrary, we understand that we’ll need to devote a few years of our lives in formal study (and a lot of monotonous effort) in order to acquire even basic competence in any of these endeavors. Of course, we often decide to undertake this kind of lengthy and arduous study because it usually results in our obtaining marketable skills and abilities. This is how we acquire necessary and lucrative careers.

Bonsai, however, is not the kind of field of endeavor that usually results in a lucrative career. Therefore, it makes less sense to go to the effort and expense of a formal education in order to obtain a high degree of skill and understanding of bonsai art and science. Most of us are just hobbyists and do just fine with tips and advice, thank you very much. We generally have no need for much more.


Idle hands are the devil’s workshop
(Hey, I went to that workshop, too!)

Sadly, I have noticed that more than a few of us tend to criticize artists who host workshops where the participants don’t leave as bonsai geniuses. I have actually heard enthusiasts complain after a 4-hour workshop with a top artist, saying that they don’t think they got their money’s worth. What? Just what is it that we expect from a workshop? What can an artist teach us in 4 hours? More to the point, what can we learn in 4 hours? Well, since workshops are set up in nearly every case to be a “here, fix this tree for me” sort of activity, what exactly is it that we’re supposed to come away with, beyond a “fixed” tree?

This does not even take into account the fact that many of us have the stupid habit of bringing the same tree to 2 or 3 or 6 different workshops, all hosted by different artists. Also, from what I hear after most workshops, the attendees have little regard for the “instruction” that was offered by the artist in the first place. And they’re to blame for our lack of progress and ability? I don’t’ think so.

Seriously, was it any 4-hour period of our formal education that made our respective professions possible? Does a couple or even a dozen 2 to 4 hour workshops make anyone competent any endeavor that matters? Would you let me function as your defense attorney in a trial after I had a couple of law workshops? Would you let me operate on your daughter after I took a few 4-hour workshops with a top surgeon? Would you hire me to design your clothing brand’s fall fashion line after a couple of 4-hour workshops with Isaac Misrahi? Would you let me build your house after a few carpentry workshops? Of course not!

Outside of bonsai, we understand that in nearly every case, competence in complicated and deep endeavors is gained only through formal education. In fact, some who have not successfully completed a formal education are legally or socially prevented from practicing their skills professionally – and we all know why. Just because formal education is hard to come by in bonsai does not mean that we should expect miraculous results from what is more easily available to us. We can lament the situation, but let's not lose our minds.


The school of talk

Online discussion forums are the most easily accessed “learning” resources available to most bonsai enthusiasts. The better ones are healthy environments where hundreds of enthusiasts trade advice and compliments, solicit and offer critique of their work, and debate trivial or weighty matters. For some, especially those just starting out in bonsai, this activity is helpful, but it bears little resemblance to real instruction - and for a few good reasons.

Part of what makes an online forum a poor venue for bonsai instruction is the fact that most believe that such forums are meant to provide positive reinforcement only. That’s a poor way to teach – to say only positive things about the efforts of students. Students need to know when they’re on the wrong track and they need to know when their efforts stink, and why, in order to learn. In other words, students who put forth a D or F effort need to be graded as such, rather than being given a B+ and encouraged so as not to hurt their feelings. That is a malevolent and irresponsible practice that destroys potential rather than builds it. But, giving an F grade to someone’s effort as exhibited in an online forum is a good way to get yourself criticized and/or ostracized by much of the community there.

Also, valuable instruction involves standards, required standards that students must meet or exceed in order to be allowed to continue their study. This is part of what makes formal instruction effective. No standards are necessary for discussion forum participation. And the mention of any sort of standard usually invites the ire of most forum participants anyway.

Furthermore, note that in a school or an effective teaching/learning environment that there are teachers and there are students. The distinctions are clear and inviolate. Online discussion forums have neither teachers nor students. Everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. That’s fine for tips and advice and debate, but is anathema to an effective teaching/learning environment. Really, any old idiot can post anything he or she wants to an online forum, and have multitudes believe them – misleading many. Correcting such idiotic posts is not so easy as it might seem. Doing so invites retorts of “So who made you God?” or “Hey, we’re just here to talk and have fun, not be governed by some know-it-all.” So, many are just led astray.

Most of us who participate in online forums claim to be students of bonsai, but we rarely act like students and we routinely resent being taught. We especially resent being taught by the most effective means. Instead, we insist on being spoon-fed information and we appreciate it most when such information matches what we already believe we know. This lazy practice ensures that very little can actually be learned.

Online forums are great for community building, entertainment, swapping tips and advice, but just plain awful for effective teaching and learning. So again, the fact that formal bonsai education is not usually available to us is no reason to bring unrealistic expectations to online discussion forums. The more knowledgeable participants who participate are not there to teach and the less knowledgeable participants there are not really there to be held to any sort of standard in learning – so it is unrealistic to expect to be taught in an online forum. Those who try quickly discover their folly.


We sleep in the bed we make

So what can we do? Can these readily available venues be turned into better teaching/learning environments? I’m not so sure that they can be, but I believe that we can work to improve how we use workshops and online media for bonsai instruction. Online means of communication and instruction will continue to evolve and there are as yet unexplored methods online. For workshops, however, we have to change how most such events are structured in order to turn them into effective teaching/learning venues. But we’d also have to change what we expect to do in workshops. There, too, we expect to be spoon-fed, we seldom expect to actually have to work and we certainly don’t expect to be graded. All of that would have to change.

I believe that most constructive change we can introduce is within ourselves. We need to modify our expectations and come to grips with the fact that a few workshops and a few hours of online discussion will not turn us into bonsai adepts. We need to come to grips with the fact that we’re not bonsai students if we don’t submit to formal instruction and the corresponding pressure of standards and evaluation. We also have to come to grips with the fact that those who help us and offer advice in workshops and online forums are not there to “teach” us – they’d be foolish to try. So, we have to not expect them to jump through our hoops.

Certainly, not all of us want to be actual students of the art and science of bonsai. We’re happy to be hobbyists, to get by with tips and advice in order to please ourselves. Let’s just not mistake tips and advice for instruction. And let’s not expect leaps of improvement in our ability and understanding as a result of mere tips and advice.

When we don’t show great improvement, it is not the fault of the artists who hold workshops and it’s not the fault of the experienced and skilled participants of online forums. For great improvement, we need to look to ourselves and discern just what we’re willing to do for improvement.

Opportunities are available to us. There are skilled, knowledgeable and caring teachers who offer real instruction programs – some can be found in the BTOJ Artist’s Listing. What they offer is expensive and requires great effort on our part, but then of course it is and of course it does! We can decide to take advantage of these sorts of opportunities or we can decide not to. In any event, it is our efforts and decisions that shape our education.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
zone 8, Texas

My, you do like to stir things up!

Your main point seems to be that tips and advice on line do not constitute "real instruction". I would submit that on-line give and take is real instruction if the "student" makes it so. I haven't been doing this for long, but I believe I can learn something from everyone with which I interact, personally or on line. Sometimes I may learn what not to do (perhaps ones purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others), but real instruction occurs if I gain something from the interaction. Maybe information on line is only valuable to relative beginners like me.

I do agree with your title - Great Expectations. One must approach each learning opportunity with some realistic expectations.

Brian

Okay, Andy, you lured me in....

From online sources I have learned a great deal. Not about styling, but about collection techniques, and horticultural matters.
Some of the advice is bad, or inappropriate for my zone, but that is relatively easy to distinguish, even without other folks jumping into the discussion.

I have done workshops with several masters, Ed Trout, Liporace, Suzuki, and Nick Lenz among them. I regularly do workshops and classes with Chase Rosade. I consider myself as doing well if I retain more than a couple of specific points from any one of these workshops. Yes, there's an occasional new way of dealing with a problem, but the most valuable things I have learned go right to the subject you addressed in your web book, consistency of design.

From Suzuki: Do you want this to be a young or old tree? It must be consistent. Is the tree affected by the wind? ditto. I was also impressed with his gentleness with the material.

Most of the time, there is little to be accomplished in one four hour workshop. If you get out with a few "nuggets" and a tree that's headed in the right direction, you are a winner. A complete education it will never be, but you can put these together and advance your ability.

Sometimes, they highlight your weaknesses to you. For example, I'm planning to scavenge some christmas tree tops after the holidays and work on the planning aspect of wiring. This is a need I discovered in a couple of workshops.

This, plus the opportunity to work with good material AND a master, makes workshops most worthwhile. At first, I didn't see the point in doing expensive workshops until I had learned all that Chase could teach me. Then I learned the value of hearing the same principles as understood by a different set of eyes.

I find some of these passages quite strange. Maybe you can elaborate as to "why" with some replys.



I think if I wanted to learn from say Walter Pall, and he had the desire to teach me, I could learn from him through the internet. Why not? It would definately not be as good as being there, but it sure is possible.


It's not. Why would anyone with an education think that someone could/should elevate bonsai to the same ranks as architecture or psychology? Now I think landscape design or ornamental horticulture could be thought of in the same league. This is like saying that cosmotology should be taught only at Harvard.( last time I checked you were required to have a license to cut hair too.) Do you propose that the only way bonsai should be practised in the world is after you have obtained the apropriate sheep skin in the chosen bonsai design. Your just not comparing apples and apples here.


Finally, what your advocating here is to take the fun out of bonsai for a lot of people. There are many that are in search of higher learning in bonsai. I just don't think learning bonsai in a college course is the way to do it. Then we would have fifty thousand bonsai graduates pumping gas or flipping burgers. Wow, that sounds sad.

While I advocate everything you stand for in bonsai, I think the education that you speak of is a little unnecessary. At least the way I read you. I would still like someone to name me three bonsai Master/ artists/Players that have a bonsai education from a higher place of learning that was taken for the express reason of doing better bonsai.
I still say that one must have the Talent to keep moving forward
The Access to the best material possible..
And the Means to aquire it.

Besides, who would teach these courses and how would they become accredited? I see this as another problem that already exists in the judgeing of bonsai at show type venues. Who do you trust? If they are already teaching, then why all the phooey. The people that can really teach are already out there aren't they? If anyone here on the forum wanted to be that good in bonsai the tools are already in place. Most of us just don't have the means or the time or the desire.

There are places like Boon and Suthin, Colin and Kenji. Kathy Shaner and Ernie Kuo. All great artists, and eager to teach. Andy you are preaching to the choir here on the forum, but untill this stuff is on a menu at the local drive thru, most of this is just unattainable to the average Joe. So why make us feel like a bunch of sad sacks?

We all know we need help, we will get it when the time is ripe. Untill then I will continue to get my education from Carl Bergstrom, he keeps me toeing the line!

La err... Al

I don't golf, but I don't imagine that the majority of those who do step onto the green with the idea of achieving greatness. I suspect the majority just want to go out, enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, the companionship of a couple close friends as they knock around a few. Maybe they watch the pros on TV, join a league, take a lesson or two and buy a new set of clubs every now and then. They subscribe to a golfing magazine or have a favorite professional that they follow when he competes. They admire a sweet swing and they enjoy a round (or two) after the game. They aren't Tiger Woods, and they accept that they're never going to be.

How might it look if someone comes along and tells them that their way of enjoying golf is not the way?: You gotta knuckle down and learn the fundamentals: You gotta find a teacher. You gotta continually strive to improve or your game will never get any better no matter how much you play?

Maybe it would look like this!

Great Expectations

Since most of us who enjoy golfing are not full-time (nor even part-time) students at any sort of academy, our learning opportunities are limited. We can, however, find learning opportunities of sorts within our community, through golf workshops, league play and hanging around the clubhouse. These venues are not ideal, but they are often readily available and the cost is quite low or nil.

Based on what I’ve heard in the clubhouse, and have heard from my friends on the greens, however, many of us are misjudging the instructional value of these venues. Many of us are mistakenly equating the tips and advice freely offered at the pro shop, in the clubhouse and at workshops with real instruction. This is a mistake that can lead to unnecessary disappointment and cause us to level unwarranted criticism at those we believe to be teaching us.

Sipping a few beers in the clubhouse and attending golf workshops are fun, interesting and sometimes helpful, but they are by no means credible substitutes for real instruction. They’re actually quite poor places from which to get instruction.

A Matter of Degrees

Contrary to what many may believe, golf is complex and intricate. The art and science of the game of golf is as deep and complex as any other art or science. Golf is no easier to fully understand and practice than architecture or psychology, but most of us do not appreciate this fact since golf is not generally viewed to be as important as architecture or psychology.

Now, I don’t need to have studied music for years at a university in order to sing in my church choir, and I don’t need to have a doctorate in art history in order to understand what makes a Picasso special. The tips I can get from friends or find in magazines will tell me most of what I need to know in order to undertake a small carpentry project. However, the tips and advice that I can come by in conversations with my friends and get from magazines will not arm me with the skill and understanding I’d need to design a beautiful, functional and structurally sound 12-story office complex.

When studying dance or when studying medicine or when studying engineering, we don’t believe for a moment that tips and advice will give us what we need to be skilled and knowledgeable in these endeavors. On the contrary, we understand that we’ll need to devote a few years of our lives in formal study (and a lot of monotonous effort) in order to acquire even basic competence in any of these endeavors. Of course, we often decide to undertake this kind of lengthy and arduous study because it usually results in our obtaining marketable skills and abilities. This is how we acquire necessary and lucrative careers.

Golf, however, is not the kind of field of endeavor that usually results in a lucrative career. Therefore, it makes less sense to go to the effort and expense of a formal education in order to obtain a high degree of skill and understanding of golf art and science. Most of us are just hobbyists and do just fine with tips and advice, thank you very much. We generally have no need for much more.


Idle hands are the devil’s workshop
(Hey, I went to that workshop, too!)

Sadly, I have noticed that more than a few of us tend to criticize clubs who host workshops where the participants don’t leave as golf geniuses. I have actually heard enthusiasts complain after a 4-hour workshop with a top pro, saying that they don’t think they got their money’s worth. What? Just what is it that we expect from a workshop? What can an pro teach us in 4 hours? More to the point, what can we learn in 4 hours? Well, since workshops are set up in nearly every case to be a “here, fix this swing for me” sort of activity, what exactly is it that we’re supposed to come away with, beyond a “fixed” swing?

This does not even take into account the fact that many of us have the stupid habit of bringing the same tired clubs to 2 or 3 or 6 different workshops, all hosted by different pros. Also, from what I hear after most workshops, the attendees have little regard for the “instruction” that was offered by the pro in the first place. And they’re to blame for our lack of progress and ability? I don’t’ think so.

Seriously, was it any 4-hour period of our formal education that made our respective professions possible? Does a couple or even a dozen 2 to 4 hour workshops make anyone competent any endeavor that matters? Would you let me function as your defense attorney in a trial after I had a couple of law workshops? Would you let me operate on your daughter after I took a few 4-hour workshops with a top surgeon? Would you hire me to design your clothing brand’s fall fashion line after a couple of 4-hour workshops with Isaac Misrahi? Would you let me build your house after a few carpentry workshops? Of course not!

Outside of golf, we understand that in nearly every case, competence in complicated and deep endeavors is gained only through formal education. In fact, some who have not successfully completed a formal education are legally or socially prevented from practicing their skills professionally – and we all know why. Just because formal education is hard to come by in golf does not mean that we should expect miraculous results from what is more easily available to us. We can lament the situation, but let's not lose our minds.


The school of talk

Putting around on the greens and tossing back a few in the clubhouse are the most easily accessed “learning” resources available to most duffers. The better ones are healthy environments where enthusiasts trade advice and compliments, solicit and offer suggestions, and debate trivial or weighty matters. For some, especially those just starting out in golf, this activity is helpful, but it bears little resemblance to real instruction - and for a few good reasons.

Part of what makes drinking in the clubhouse a poor venue for golf instruction is the fact that most believe that such camaradarie is meant to provide positive reinforcement only. That’s a poor way to teach – to say only positive things about the efforts of students. Students need to know when they’re on the wrong track and they need to know when their efforts stink, and why, in order to learn. In other words, students who put forth a D or F effort need to be graded as such, rather than being given a B+ and encouraged so as not to hurt their feelings. That is a malevolent and irresponsible practice that destroys potential rather than builds it. But, giving an F grade to someone’s effort as exhibited in an online forum is a good way to get yourself criticized and/or ostracized by much of the community there.

Also, valuable instruction involves standards, required standards that students must meet or exceed in order to be allowed to continue their study. This is part of what makes formal instruction effective. No standards are necessary for discussion forum participation. And the mention of any sort of standard usually invites the ire of most forum participants anyway.

Furthermore, note that in a school or an effective teaching/learning environment that there are teachers and there are students. The distinctions are clear and inviolate. Clubhouse bars have neither teachers nor students. Everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. That’s fine for tips and advice and debate, but is anathema to an effective teaching/learning environment. Really, any old idiot can say anything he or she wants over a pint of ale, and have multitudes believe them – misleading many. Correcting such idiotic ramblings is not so easy as it might seem. Doing so invites retorts of “So who made you God?” or “Hey, we’re just here to talk and have fun, not be governed by some know-it-all.” So, many are just led astray.

Most of us who participate in clubhouse shenanigans claim to be students of golf, but we rarely act like students and we routinely resent being taught. We especially resent being taught by the most effective means. Instead, we insist on being spoon-fed information and we appreciate it most when such information matches what we already believe we know. This lazy practice ensures that very little can actually be learned.

Clubhouses are great for community building, entertainment, swapping tips and advice, but just plain awful for effective teaching and learning. So again, the fact that formal golf education is not usually available to us is no reason to bring unrealistic expectations to online discussion forums. The more knowledgeable participants who participate are not there to teach and the less knowledgeable participants there are not really there to be held to any sort of standard in learning – so it is unrealistic to expect to be taught in an online forum. Those who try quickly discover their folly.

We sleep in the bed we make

So what can we do? Can these readily available venues be turned into better teaching/learning environments? I’m not so sure that they can be, but I believe that we can work to improve how we use workshops and online media for golf instruction. Peer communication and instruction will continue to evolve and there are as yet unexplored methods online. For workshops, however, we have to change how most such events are structured in order to turn them into effective teaching/learning venues. But we’d also have to change what we expect to do in workshops. There, too, we expect to be spoon-fed, we seldom expect to actually have to work and we certainly don’t expect to be graded. All of that would have to change.

I believe that most constructive change we can introduce is within ourselves. We need to modify our expectations and come to grips with the fact that a few workshops and a few hours of drinking at the 19th Hole will not turn us into Tiger Woods. We need to come to grips (no pun intended) with the fact that we’re not golf students if we don’t submit to formal instruction and the corresponding pressure of standards and evaluation. We also have to come to grips with the fact that those who help us and offer advice in workshops and online forums are not there to “teach” us – they’d be foolish to try. So, we have to not expect them to jump through our hoops.

Certainly, not all of us want to be actual students of the art and science of golf. We’re happy to be duffers, to get by with tips and advice in order to please ourselves. Let’s just not mistake tips and advice for instruction. And let’s not expect leaps of improvement in our ability and understanding as a result of mere tips and advice.

When we don’t show great improvement, it is not the fault of the professionals who hold workshops and it’s not the fault of the experienced and skilled participants at the clubhouse. For great improvement, we need to look to ourselves and discern just what we’re willing to do for improvement.

Opportunities are available to us. There are skilled, knowledgeable and caring teachers who offer real instruction programs – some can be found in your club's PGA Listing. What they offer is expensive and requires great effort on our part, but then of course it is and of course it does! We can decide to take advantage of these sorts of opportunities or we can decide not to. In any event, it is our efforts and decisions that shape our education.

Woody Driver
zone 7, Pebble Beach

Mmmmmmm... I think some people are taking bonsai waaaaay to seriously, or maybe I'm not taking it seriously enough, geeez I just don't know any more, I'm so confused about bonsai now, I don't know wether I'm coming or going, I think I will go and have a lie down and contemplate this further

Andy is, as usual, interesting and articulate. Not sure I'm in total agreement with him on his current hypothesis, however.

From what I've seen of life, education can take place in alot of different ways and many different "mental models" have developed for it in different settings. I have a powerful mental model of how education should take place that was developed, for the most part, from my years in Computer System Development. Altghough it has many limitations and is certainly not applicable to all situations, I think it is highly applicable to Bonsai.

My mental model for education comes from an environment in which alot of fellow professionals of greatly differing levels of talent and experience are learning how to exploit a new and rapidly developing technology that is really new to everybody involved in the venture. As quickly as a degree of understanding of one facit of the technology is understood and applied effectively, exciting new avenues of development and applilication are revealed. Also, greatly differing approaches are constantly competing for acceptance and even the top experts in the field are in disagreement as to the correct way to do many things.

It is hard to argue with the assertion that this model has worked, despite its apparent "messiness" extraordinarilly well in this realm of human activity and has achieved astonishing progress over the past 40 or so years.

To me, there are obvious parallels between this and the state of Bonsai Cultivation today. And, I see lots of parallels between the arguments I was constantly involved in back in my many years in developing computer systems, the workshops I attended and presented, the constant turmoil from which it seemed a miracle that working systems actually emerged, and what I see in the world of bonsai.

I came to really like the concept of a "Learning Community" in which groups of colleagues of greatly varying levels of talent and experience could learn together, treating each other pretty much as peers. I don't think this is the model Andy is working with. It has its flaws, but I think it is a much more powerful model than Andy realizes.

Regards, Fred

Treenut, I'm with you... pfffff

I know that I will never be a professional bonsai artist, and I don't have an expectation that I will ever create professional level work. I do have the expectation, that through repeated attempts, trial and error, and with a community of people that also are doing this to offer their criticisms, and methods of sucess, I can achieve reasonable bonsai at some point. Reasonable, being that other people who look at my work, can recognize them as bonsai, and are somewhat impressed by them. I see people at my club that are able to perform to this level that have not gone to "Bonsai U.", but have followed a method simliar to what I mention above. I will continue to proceed with the expectation that I will only get out of bonsai, what I am willing to put into it.

For what it's worth.

In my opinion, forums such as this (and four hour workshops for that matter) are providers of raw information. This information is useless to some and invaluble to others, but in all cases has to be treated as unsubstantiated until proven.

Also, what happens on this forum and others like it has little to do with teaching or learning, but is all about discussion and debate. It's one persons opinion (or knowledege, or artistry, or talent) against another ones conviction(or knowledege, or artistry, or talent), as is borne out in the various threads of this kind.
So what chance has a beginner in to this fantastic hobby (lifestyle, art, worldview, addiction, etc......) got if even the most renowned (learned, outspoken, loudest, selfconfident, selfstyled, narcistic, etc.) figures within this community cannot agree on anything more than the most basic principles?

IMHO, converting the raw information gathered from any source in to useable knowledge is a journey that takes a lot of trial and error as well as determination to be the best you can. It also takes time and effort and some degree of selfishness. Whats the use of a four hour workshop if you don't ask YOUR questions to the "master"and get him to spend as much of his time with you, as you can.
No one can tell you exactly what to do with your tree or predict what it may look like in the years to come, BUT.......a good teacher can plant ideas, give advise on care and horticultural needs of the species and teach, hopefully one on one, the techniques required to turn ideas in to reality. From there on its your own artistic expression and talent, practise, boring routine, more pratice and a good deal of luck, with the ultimate pre requiste of good material to start with.

On the subject of teaching, dont knock the power of routine and repetition. Having spent my first five years in a german school, I still do all my multipications and divisions in german even though I hardly speak it now. Why? We learned by repetition (one times two is two, two times two is four, etc.), reciting the times tables many times every week and this has stuck with me until today, 35 years on. It makes sense and the answer comes automatically when I say Two times Two.

Make of this what you will. As i said raw information.

Mike