I was taught this way: I had barely medium thermal skills and a new to me 44:1 ship. Our group usually picks an airport 20-40 miles away and flies there, and then the next and so on. I could never keep up. On my first flight in my new ship, a (older, uglier) friend in a 50:1 ship followed me to the first TP giving advice from my 6:00. He'd say "deviate to that xxx cloud at 1:30, but don't circle, just do slow "S" turns in the lift (because we were still high). Later he'd say "veer to the the dark cloud at 11:00 and if the lift is 3 knots or greater, circle there, otherwise keep going". When I was 75% of the way to the first turn point, he told me to turn to the next TP early (the rest of the guys were ahead of us by several miles). He went to TP1 and abandoned me for awhile. The gang caught up to me 1/2 way to TP2, passed me and I never saw any of them again, but I had learned enough to get around a couple more TPs and get home. I went from helpless to mediocre in about 25 miles on the way to TP1. The comments on thermal skills are probably the most important skill any newbie needs. If new pilot has thermal skills (finding and circling technique), he/she can fly XC. Thanks to F1 for feeding my addiction.