When a teacher shows a student a new sequence, there is some learning that happens, but it is easily forgotten. When a student follows the teacher there is some learning that happens, but mostly it is just following. When a teacher explains something to a student there is some learning that happens, but it is easily misunderstood.
When a student practices and they have an opportunity to integrate what was shown, followed and explained, that is when deeper learning happens.

Clever Versus Intelligent
Environmental educator David Orr warns that a danger of education is that we end up clever rather than intelligent. We can memorize concepts, perform tasks, repeat back information without once grappling with their implications or meaning.
I have met people with years of mediation or qigong practice, who have been unable to benefit from this at times when they really needed to - they had become clever in their practice. To approach the internal arts intelligently, I think, means to accept the tradition, practice it carefully and allow it to change you. Reflection is different from questioning in the same way that intelligent is different from clever.