Hi, Scott. You wrote: 1.  "if sometimes i ask those seemingly basic questions, forgive me kind sirs, i will strive to tip the balance to the more doing side from hereon." Yeah, right.  Scott, despite any positive sense you have of the wisdom, intentions, and knowledge possessed by both Mr. Ballentine, and Dr. Grinder, consider this forum a teacher-student environment. In a teacher-student environment, you might have to experience: 2. peer pressure, 3. competitive fellow students, 4. jealous teachers, 5. rituals of compliance with the status quo, including practice of the statement of appreciation for the written response "Do, don't ask." 6. teacher-student lessons that vaguely or innacurately teach what you believe they teach. Suppose that: 7. during your experience of (2) through (6), you find that you are still learning something worth learning. If proposition (7) holds, then you're doing alright in the environment. But if all you're getting is cowed..., then check your own interests to decide whether you want to be moooing. You wrote: 8.  "however i will still come up with some posts about modeling in the future if that is fine." Please do, Scott.  Address some more posts to Dr. Grinder, and also other people, hopefully you'll get some long answers, like Mr. Ballentine provided you. It could be that EFFECTIVE modelers, such as Dr. Grinder (and whomever else), really do avoid experiences like (2) through (6) , by simply not entering into such situations AS A STUDENT.  Dr. Grinder serves himself by gauranteeing himself a good modeling experience, in that case, but he opts out of being a student, and probably ignores the interests of his source model, the unwitting target of his knowledge-acquisition intentions.  Perhaps, as an ostensible student in another's learning environment, Dr. Grinder would be less able to learn from his source model, the ostensible teacher.  Maybe he'd innappropriately attend to his experience of (2) through (6).  Of course, if that were so, that would be his personal limitation, rather than any indicator of how you should decide whether to be an ostensible (overt) student and (covert) modeler. None of the experiences (2) through (6) are unlikely outcomes of being a student in a student-teacher environment.  Can you hold the interests of your source model as important, while you learn from her?  Letting her consider you a student is one way to hold your teacher's interests important.  It's more ethical than being a nonstudent, covert modeler.  And, as an overt, ostensible student, you can ask your teacher all the questions you need to ask.  Unless you don't want to bother her ever. Dr. Grinder is the founder of this forum, and as one of its most important contributors, Dr. Grinder is a teacher in your online learning environment.  His opportunities to teach you the art of modeling, through his posts, are many.  Robert Ballentine also taught you some good stuff, as a helpful fellow student. I also have something to teach you, and its not about being a good sport, or going along with what other people want from you.  It's this: 9.  Source models want to be appreciated, recognized, respected, and, sometimes, renumerated.  No one wants to be an unwitting target of a knowledge acquisition effort, particularly in a competitive environment where that knowledge is important to the source model's survival. So I guess you can be glad that Robert and Dr. Grinder and others (including myself) are all out to help you with our posts, because you'd LIKE that help for your possible upcoming teacher-student, no, make that, modeler-source_model, learning contexts.  Right? -nj