Ive been takin weekly classes for about 4 months now.  What impresses me about my teacher is several things:
1. he doesnt realy look at the clock and quitas at exactly the hour.
2. he demeonstrates a passion for guitarist and will argue that the guitar is the best and most complex of all instruments.  He says, " its like have 6 pianos together."
3.  he is accessiable via email, cell phone and answeres his emails promptly.
4. wants to envite me over to his studio which makes me feel as though i have a potential friend.
5 when i bought my electric guitar he practically gave an amp, delivered over to my house

Im sure i can find more, needless to say, a pretty kool guy!  Now my complaints, but i do want to note that because im posting these on this forum means i am willing to re-examine my position on these matters.  I have grown to trust the "core fellas" on this site and am interested in their views.

When i first started (4 months ago) i didnt know the difference between a chord and  a scale.  I knew nothing... but can remember Andreas (my guy) starting things off by sayin, " A chord is made of a perfect 5th major 3rd" and proceeded to show me this on a map.  By the third session he had me practicing vibratos, bending, etc etc.  My point? maybe he's goin too fast?  I told him last week that when he leaves my house aftyer our session i feel "small" his response was that is a good thing.  Pretty strong personnality, i think i like that quality but am struggling to find the words to tell him to possibly to slow down.  What you guys think?  or maybe , should I bring it up a notch (ie more practice)?

What has been your experience?  What  would you do?

firstly yes bring it up a notch if you can i am sure he wants you too.
secondly, i think the pace is hectic at first for most peoplle it is an overwhelming instrument at fisrt but hang in there don't get discouraged and remember rome wasn't built in a day.
that being said soak up as much as you can one pearl of wisdom i have to offer is things i learned long ago have proven to be worth a revisit from time to time that is when i see my largest improvements is when i take old techniques and reapply them with what is going on today
in other words i see my picking and fingers finding their mark alot more often or my bends more accurate or little things like that maybe a new pattern to run on that same old scale or a new strumming technique on the first chord i ever learned.

If you have the time, more practice is always better. That's a nice thing your teacher keeping you with extra things to work on always. My teacher was a dumbass and it got real boring playing the opening riff to Smoke on the Water over and over and over. I very nearly had given it up, except I managed to meet a couple of guys who were able to show me a few other things to do to make playing interesting again. During my 1st 3 or 4 years of learning guitar, I made almost no progress. Then Mel Bay chord books were starting to get replaced by things like StarLicks videos. Then I began to actually learn to play finally. Yea my 1st guitar teacher taught me little more than nothing. Man I'm glad I wasn't paying that clown any money for his lessons.

Hello chancho, well my first thought is of myself back when the lessons were coming in hot and fast....from my point of view anyway. I wanted to move along as fast as i could but noticed retention wasn't as good as i wanted it to be. Instead of rushing along i began asking more and more questions about the material, this especially if i wasn't totally clear on what was being presented.

My lessons became more interesting and i began absorbing more of the matl. I became fascinated with theory and at the same time would practice hours per day...i'd become used to practicing as much as 6, sometimes even 8 hours a day so beginning theory became something of a respite from extended practices and yet at the same time, i was able to apply theory in practice sessions.

Too fast....well no, because i was allowed and able to retrace the lesson by asking all the questions i needed to until i had an understanding. In your case i suppose you could ask your instructor to slow down, but i think if it were me i'd ask questions about that which made me feel like he's moving too fast for you. I could go on and on about this but i think you get the idea chancho. Any questions though, just let us know. Oh, and it might be helpful if we knew about where you're at in your studies.....

GuitarZen

mmm

i've had 3 guitar teachers.

the first 2 weren't around long enough to get to know them properly.

and then the last one was pretty good. i had the opposite problem to you though.  i wanted him to teach me faster.
every week he'd teach me something i'd go home n practise till i'd got it perfect. and then the next week i'd ask him to teach me another technique, another scale etc, and them practise that for that week and so on.
he was koooool.
taught me loads of kool stuff.

Everyone learns guitar at their own pace, some want to eat and gobble it up, others want to chew on it a while. I find learning the guitar can be like  taking a drink out of a fire hydrant. Some can swallow and digest that amount, I have to take little sips. Thats just me. However, pushing yourself to do and learn more is always a good thing. I would try to keep up to an aggressive teacher if you are grasping most of what he is teaching. If your not getting any of what he is selling, then change teachers.