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This opposition to institutional forms of teaching was launched in the name of a universal principle - the mother-tongue approach - for the most beneficial nurturing of children. But the form Suzuki's method took, and indeed some of its basic principles, is culturally rooted in Japanese patterns of child-rearing. Foreign observers since the Meiji Period have frequently commented on the strength of the mother-child relationship in a Japanese "child-paradise." The Suzuki pedagogy too, creates an environment where the child is king and exploits this to reap the seeds of learning through traditional concepts of training.

Habit training by example and imitation, for example, struck one observer of the 40s and 50s as fundamental to child-rearing in Japan. Ruth Benedict observed that "it is the habit, rather than the rules, that are taught. Whether it is proper use of chopsticks in childhood or proper ways of entering a room, or is the tea ceremony or massage later in life, the movements are performed over and over literally under the hands of grown-ups until they are automatic." One of Suzuki's mottos was to repeat and repeat until the knowledge becomes part of ourselves. This repetition is intended to develop intuition (kan) which is not an inherent skill, but one which grows through training and endurance.

In the Suzuki Method, there is a proper way of playing the violin, a correct posture and correct tone, taught through the example of the teacher and recordings. In its care for accuracy in detail and precept of acquisition through imitation, it is rooted in shitsuke, the traditional concept of training children in appropriate behaviour by means of meticulous copy of the master's art or movement. One Suzuki teacher from France remarked that a culture that had composed the Way of the Sword for the training of the mind and body could easily find its way to the Way of the Bow.