During your fullsize instruction in the C172, you may have noticed the ball in the turn and slip indicator slide over to the inside of the turn direction (slide to the left in a left bank a fair amount and to the right in a right bank not as much) if you left your feet on the floor because the nose of the plane would be yawing away (a.k.a adverse) from the turn dragging the tail to the inside of the turn. The term "step on the ball" during a turn refers to using the rudder pedals to "step" on the side you see the ball sliding towards to control the adverse yaw and so on. Yes, most models don't "require" a lot of rudder to fly coordinated turns, but others (like a Cub) can really benefit from it. Leading the turn with the rudder refers to applying some pressure (not full deflection) on the rudder just before adding in the aileron input. Again, it's very obvious when you are inside the plane and you can feel it "in the seat of your pants" when the nose is swinging away from the turn direction, but it's pretty subtle from 50 to 100 feet away looking up from the ground.

The nose yaws away from the turn because the downward moving aileron on the outside of the turn produces more lift and more DRAG than the upward moving aileron on the inside of the turn. That drag way out on the end of the wing holds it back just a bit and the only way to counter it is to use the rudder to yaw the nose back towards the turn.

Anyone else want a turn on the soapbox?

Jaybird