Have you ever had the moment when your teacher (including myself) explains steps and teacher's explanation made you even more confused or what teacher is explaining makes sense yet things aren't still clear. However, you do not wish (me neither!) to look fool, therefore you just pretend or make yourself believe that we got to the bottom of the question/topic then move on. Myself, as a teacher and practitioner I experience this every time for both when I take my own lesson and when I teach lessons, and there are several elements why this problem occurs:
Nobody wishes to look like a fool by showing the sign of confusion, this is for both learner and teacher
Time consuming, as everyone has different level of understanding and we only have limited amount of time
Misunderstanding/miscommunication: teacher often misunderstand the meaning of the question, therefore gets to the wrong answer
Teacher do not know the answer but teacher do not want to admit it, hence teacher reverse it to fool them
Teacher just explain the result, but not the process or how or why
Myself as a practitioner, I have recently experienced this at my own training. I was having a discussion with my teacher/coach about "How not to sink into the floor when I land and to plie to start next barrel turn", as I have noticed the difference in the way I do barrel turn and Cuban dancers' barrel turns. This means the step is almost different by approaching the same movement differently. When I expressed my opinion to my coach then he described the movement as a sound, he told me "More like ta, taaaan." But I just did not get the "Ta, Taaaan" rhythm. However, I was focusing of the speed and timing of bringing the second leg on the other day and I accidentally archived the "Ta, Taaan" rhythm. Then, I realised it was all about getting correct take off.
Through this experience, I have learned as a teacher I must explain the beginning, process and result. What my coach/teacher explained me was the result, by doing correct take off, I have managed not to sink in to plie between barrel turns and the movement gain the rhythm of "ta, taaaan" as a result. If I was keep on focusing on getting the right rhythm, I probably still be confused as the sound is a just result.
I need to explain what we need to to do archive what we want to archive, how we need to approach to gain the result we want and why we need to follow what we follow.
Another lesson learned.
Time consuming