My personal 2ct: first understand how to solve "real" problems, then move on to the abstract theory. I cannot understand the theoretical mathematics behind a concept if I don't have at least one non-trivial example in my head which I understand completely.
I 100% agree with you. I struggled with math through school. I remember wondering what the heck the point of matrices was when I was first learning about them in 10th grade. I got to grad school and I had a professor who explained everything as a problem we were trying to solve and then gave us the tools and then finally the theory. Math went from a constant fight to a fun experience. Now I run the data science department at a corporation (turns out matrices are really important).
My personal 2ct: first understand how to solve "real" problems, then move on to the abstract theory. I cannot understand the theoretical mathematics behind a concept if I don't have at least one non-trivial example in my head which I understand completely.