The first duty in any student's Aikido career is to master the form as best as they can. There are two main reasons why you have to master the form first. The first reason why you have to master the form first is because there are hundreds of minutia that your mind cannot keep track of in order to make the techniques work. The second reason is that once you have mastered the form, the movement can enter the subconcious which is beginnings of the development of intuition or sixth sense. A long time ago my mom told me a story about a lady she met who had been studying Aikido for a long time. She told my mom this story about being in a car accident and how Aikido training saved her life. She said that she was sitting in front passenger seat during a head on collision. As the car struck another car she felt her body shift to the right and as she looked over her shoulder her friend who was sitting in the back was sailing by as she was ejected through the front windshield. She doesn't know why she shifted but felt that the ushiro waza (techniques from an attack from behind) in her Aikido training helped her to sense that something was coming from behind and to shift away from it without thinking.
In ushiro waza, I was taught to never look back in order to see which side the attacker was attacking or what attack was to come. If I waited too long, I got jammed and if I went too early I broke the connection and therefore I had to use my intuition to find the right timing for the right attack. However, I could only use my intuition if my form was correct.
From this story you can see how the "form" of the movement might have saved this lady's life and that is why I urge all of my students to concentrate on mastering the form of the movement first. After that you can develop speed, power and intuition.