"Make all the mistakes you can!"

Okay, when I say "bad habits" I'm not talking about things like clock usage (although that would be a bit pretentious to be teaching a beginner anyway). I'm talking about all that stuff they warn you not to do from the get-go. Like say, moving your queen around a lot early on.

Sure, everybody knows this is one of the many things you're definitely Not Supposed To Do. But if you just have some Genius telling you that and you decide (sensibly enough) to heed his advice and avoid such a "bad habit," you will never really learn why it's bad (other than that it "wastes time"). All you know is that it is (somehow) bad.

On the other hand, if you actually do run your queen around like some sort of bandit (as we no doubt all liked to do, once upon a time)--and try that against good players--you'll find yourself the victim of many a debacle soon enough. The point being that you will see first-hand the many drawbacks and pitfalls, and the vividness (even pain) of all these disasters often makes for a very compelling tutor indeed. ;)

No doubt there will always be teachers around to offer up their Secrets and Programs and Systems. But I suspect that most of us learn a lot of what we know about the game (at least when starting out) in more or less the same way, by a sort of subconscious absorption.

Here's an example which I imagine we all went through at some point or other (although the mists of time may make the memory a bit dim for some). :)

At first you didn't bother castling because somehow it seemed like a waste of time or too elaborate or something like that (or maybe you hadn't even heard about it yet!). But then you kept on getting clobbered every time your king sat in the center (and it was especially galling whenever you went up against those hotshots at the high school club).

So (maybe after somebody else tells you about the rule), you start to castle. Only now a brand-new disaster looms: you keep falling into all these #*@!@##*&!** backrank mates!

Eventually though over time you evolve a new stratagem: now right after castling you immediately play h3 (only in my day it was P-KR3). :) Thus giving your king what is known as "luft."

Of course, eventually you come to realize that weakening the kingside has its pitfalls as well. But that's getting a bit beyond the scope of this.

At any rate, I would be very surprised to find somebody who hasn't gone through all (or anyways most) of that "evolution" at some point or other. And I think the whole business--getting ambushed in the center, those damn sneaky backrankers, and yep, even losing (loosing?) to the hotshots!--is what serves to instill the whole business all the more powerfully in one's mind. It's direct experience (more so than the recycled experience contained in a textbook) that makes a lesson truly resonate. :)