Might as well take the chance to go slightly off-topic: anyone here a skill acquisition nerd? What methods do you utilize to gain more "I know Kung Fu" moments in life? :)
I'm kind of an interested dabbler in such brain hacking... one principle I try to follow is to use multiple parts of (that conglomerate called) my mind to learn things. So for example, take programming techniques. Using data-directed programming techniques lets me use the visual parts of my mind more directly... so in Lisp or Javascript, you'd make a pretty datastructure which you'd code plumbing to interpret. Same with drawing pictures to help visualize, such as graphs. (The old _Data and Reality_ mentions we frequently use graphs in representing concepts on the computer, as opposed to in data processing.)
And using a REPL is very interactive, and uses my kinesthetic parts. (Some emacs chords may have that effect too, like paredit's alt-shift-(, which surrounds the next form in a parenthesis bubble.)
Alan Kay mentions the study of like 50 mathematicians, how they thought. Surprisingly few thought in terms of symbols. Most were primarily visual thinkers. Some were also kinesthetic. (To lend credibility, people always mention Einstein was in this last kinesthetic group.)
Another is critical learning. So you try to question why something Is The Way It Is, why someone believes what they believe... (Being confused is a very good sign; explore the confusion. Confusion over very simple things led to revolutions in our knowledge.) This takes you from the role of passive learner to co-creator. (Of course, time is limited, and taking this to its logical extreme would mean you'd do multiple ten-year research projects... Might be great for humanity's knowledge, but few of us have this luxury.)
