I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. You are correct. Learning is made up of two processes: encoding and retrieval. Encoding dominates retrieval in that the better your memory is encoded the shallower your forgetting curve is such that you need less repetitions or possibly none at all.
Combining both: better memory encoding techniques and spaced retrieval is the holy grail. People who employ both feel like superhuman. For example, you can encode knowledge of a book with a mind map following specific principles and then schedule either a spaced cued recall with image occlusion or a spaced free recall or a mixture of cued/free by occluding large portions of the mind map.
In my experience though, I rarely need spaced repetition for knowledge I’ve encoded with a mind map. I have almost perfect recall of the map and an understanding of what it represents many weeks later with no repetition.
most things you have to rehearse or practice, or you'll forget them. only a few things (foods that make you vomit, for example, or neighborhoods where you get mugged) can be learned from a single exposure with no later mental rehearsal. better encoding helps a lot, but it's not a panacea
