John and Richard,

I do remember my cross country skills improved greatly when I was mentored at home by W3. I quickly found that by following him around the course I stopped making my own decisions and I got nothing out of it. We then went to a system where we started together for fun, soon split off to follow our own decisions and raced around the course. Comparing my decisions to a seasoned pilot at the end of the day is very useful and much more gratifying.

I go to contests to do the same thing - put up my best effort against the other pilots at the contest and compare the results in the end. I enjoy this very much. I recommend flying your own flight to anyone who enjoys getting better.

XC