Evo7,
I haven't read either the CRP or Thom books to which you refer so I am not able to comment on that. I agree that a simple demo by someone does present the problem that it tends to go in one ear and out the other ... far better to find some good notes and do a bunch of examples ... then the techniques tend to stick a little better ...
Maybe I should write a book on the whizz wheel and cover all the equations which go into both sides of it and make a video of how it works ... then again .. probably no-one would be interested anyway. Certainly, it always has irritated me to see some of the simplistic and paternalistic nonsense in a few of the user manuals around .. if you throw out the dross, the basics tend to reduce to quite simple notes.