I am not arguing whether an experienced instructor can instruct better than a junior instructor. I agree with you; a more experienced instructor should have more ability than a junior. My point is that some education does not need to be of such a complex level. If you require the assistance of a high-ranking instructor to learn the basics of a fall, you are in for a long and expensive aikido career. That is not to say that tips, pointers, advanced education and the like does not refine our learning. It is to say that we start somewhere and that somewhere is no where near the level we want those high ranking, skilled instructors teaching. As a larger observation, I am saying that we (as adults) don't like playing in the kiddie pool. We want the best, even if we don't have a damned clue what the best is talking about.

As the thread is bowing back around, I think at some point we need to evaluate what teaching is important to us. We're in a race to get the goods and we need to evaluate the best way to get the goods (and what, exactly are the goods). I think this is, at its heart, a very hard and serious question and I think sometimes our answer is not the the one we think it is. Heck, you can't get 2 aikido people on Aikiweb to agree about what is aiki - if you don't know what goods you are looking to get, how do you have any idea how to get them? If you don't have any idea how to get something you can't recognize, how can you pick the best teaching method? You can't.

Traditional systems have the distinct advantage of surviving the test of time. I think we sometimes make choices to address our current issues without the the consideration of future consequences. Traditional systems help keep those choices in check and they [supposedly] lay a foundation for the path we tread to help keep us going in the right direction. I think discussing whether that path is pointed in the right direction was a component of some of the earlier splits in aikido.