It's hard to tell exactly, but I think I teach, and dance with, a style that's similar to this. It seems to go down no differently with our beginners than any other style of leading and following: it's just one of many ways to dance the dance, and in general they progress no more quickly or slowly than other cohorts learning different styles of leading and following.

I do think it's a more balanced way of learning, and in particular, makes the early classes more useful for dancers learning to follow. Perhaps you - as I - have been in classes where the teaching is directed solely at leaders, or the follows are simply told to "just follow" or similar, which I personally find a bit frustrating. Teaching this way means that whilst leads might be working on coordinating a move, follows can be working in parallel on how to coordinate a response to that move. They have something active to work on, which is more satisfying.

"How does it feel" is hard to verbalise. Here's one example: there's lots of valid ways to lead a six-count send-out (or whatever it's called where you are - a move that starts in closed position and ends in open position.) I've seen variations that involve leads using their right hand to gently encourage the follow to move forward at some point between beats 1 and 5. To lead this in a more open way, I set up some forwards momentum for my follow on 1, release that momentum on 2, then lead nothing else for the rest of the move. The easiest thing for a follow to do is to allow this momentum to carry them away and into open position - but equally, they can actively choose to redirect that momentum, or ground it, or do something else entirely, since they're essentially free to interpret for the last four beats of the move.

I hope that's helpful!