so ive been flying my Mavic Mini for about 3 weeks now and i feel like im barely improving. i can take off and land fine and fly around in a straight line but anything more complex like rotating while moving or doing a nice smooth arc shot just looks terrible when i watch the footage back. my brother says it just takes time but i dont really know what "time" means here, like are we talking months or years before you can do anything that looks remotely professional

i guess what im asking is whether theres a faster way to learn or if its just one of those things you have to grind through. i fly maybe 2-3 times a week when the weather is ok

honestly 3 weeks is nothing, dont be too hard on yourself. the rotating while moving thing specifically takes a while because your brain has to stop thinking about each stick separately and start feeling them together as one movement. i flew for like 2 months before that started feeling natural and i was flying almost every day.

one thing that actually helped me a lot was setting a specific thing to practice each session instead of just flying around. like one day i'd just do circles, only circles, until they looked smooth. next session maybe figure 8s. it sounds boring but you improve way faster than just freestyling every time and hoping you get better somehow. also watch your footage back every time, even when its bad, because you notice things in the video you dont notice while flying.

the arc shots and cinematic stuff took me honestly close to 6 months to not be embarrassed by and i was pretty dedicated about it. but i also think some of it depends on the conditions you fly in, i learned mostly in open flat areas and then the first time i tried to do a reveal shot around a treeline it was like starting over

simulator time helps too if you havent tried that, theres a few free ones that work with the actual controller