I bought my first really good machine (Janome 8200) about 18 months ago, and I bought it from a dealer. The sales demonstration was so thorough, that when I came back for the training class, there was only one new thing I learned that wasn't covered in the sales demo. I would highly recommend going to a dealer if at all possible. I bought the machine, then played with it for a couple of weeks before going back for training so I had specific "how to" questions that were specific to my practices.