I have nothing bad to say about his skills in bonsai or horticulture, his artistry, nor his eye for good material.
I can't even say whether I think he's a good teacher for in-person workshops.
What I can say is that the videos that are available for free, which I assume are intended as a sample of the quality of the paid content, are badly edited (if at all), unfocused, rambly, and hard for me to watch. The free videos make him seem like a smart and skilled guy who is a terrible teacher. Hence my question -- are the paid ones better?
Maybe someday, I'll have absorbed all the knowledge that I can get from resources like Bonsai Iligan (RIP), Nigel Saunders, or even Colin Lewis' Craftsy class, and I'll need to turn to Mirai to learn that which I don't yet know. But right now, it seems like learning from him demands more (in my time, and my mental energy) than learning from others.
I haven't subscribed yet (but plan to when I have time to watch the videos), but I have watched a number of Ryan's free videos and at least a stream or two. Yes, he might ramble a little bit , but so do most other good bonsai people I know. And as he's talking, there's a constant stream of bonsai wisdom coming out of his mouth. There are things he just casually rattles off as a side note that took me a decade to arrive at on my own.
I find this entire thread kind of surreal. We're talking about something that costs $15-25/month for wisdom that some guy spent many years and probably tens of thousands of dollars acquiring. I probably spend more in a week on coffee than this costs for a month of access. And every time he's on camera, you get to watch him work while he annotates what he's doing and why. How is this anything but a bargain? There's incredible value in watching somebody who really knows what they're doing work on something and have them explain it to you.
I was out in Seattle a couple weekends ago and got to help Dan Robinson re-pot a very old mountain hemlock (yes, Dan really does re-pot his trees!). Along the way, I got to watch him do some carving. I probably learned more in 30 minutes of watching him carve a trunk than I would have learned in a year or two of reading and experimenting on my own.
So sure, there are other ways to acquire the knowledge that Ryan is charging for, but it's not going to be all conveniently laid out for you in one place. I think the Internet has taught people some bad habits and set some incredible mis-expectations about the value of things. This is how Ryan makes a living, and he seems to be charging pretty reasonable prices for what he's offering, especially considering he's one of the top bonsai artists in the country.
Reminds me of an old joke: A guy has a squeaky floor that he has spent countless hours trying to trouble-shoot, and he finally breaks down and asks a master carpenter over to check it out. Carpenter takes off his shoes, walks around on the floor for a few minutes, identifies the squeaky spot, moves around a bit more to pin point it, then takes out a single nail and hammers it into the floor. Squeak gone.
He then turns to the homeowner and says "that will be $500 please".
The homeowner, flabbergasted, exclaims "$500? For a nail? I'd like you to itemize that please."
So the carpenter takes out a piece of paper and writes the following:
Floor repair:
1 Large Nail - 50 cents
Knowing where to put the nail - $499.50.
Total: $500.
At the end of the day, even at $300 a year, this isn't all that much money if it can potentially shave years off of your learning curve.
