[jrh]

I've had mostly good instructors over the years.

The one guy who I had mixed feelings about was a high time, experienced, professional, sharp CFI. He had a lot going for him, but we never clicked as well as I would have liked.

He had a very "type A" personality. Very perfectionistic and set in his ways, and kind of condescending the way he would say things to me. To be fair, he knew his stuff and made me a better pilot, but it wasn't much fun in the process. His attitude always came across as though my flying was never quite good enough no matter what I did. A lot of negative criticisms without much positive reinforcement to balance it out. He'd say things like, "Come on, you *are* a licensed pilot, aren't you? You need to start acting like one. Do it better." It made me tense up and I think my performance suffered as a result.

Some people learn better when under pressure, but I'm not one of them. I left most lessons thinking to myself, "I can do this, right? I can hack it...right?" and not, "Sweet, I made progress today! What comes next?"

Then, to top it off, he was very much a "stick and rudder" kind of guy and I'm very much an "academic" kind of guy. I can do the stick and rudder thing if I have a good understanding of why I'm doing it, what forces are involved, what's happening to the angle of attack, the center of gravity, etc., but this instructor was all about "Come on, feel it, just feel it! Can't you feel that?" I'd ask him to explain what was happening, step by step, when I'd make a mistake, and he simply couldn't. He told me I was over-analyzing things and to just do it.

So, like I said, the content of what the guy taught was mostly solid. I can't say he was ever straight out wrong with anything he ever taught me. His teaching style and my learning style just never lined up.