I agree with the concept of flying with discipline, and I've been teaching that to my students for a while. It's easy enough to fly around any which way, it's a lot harder to put the plane exactly where you want it exactly when you want it there. I find I tend to preach at two different points when teaching.

The first is really early on, when a guy is just getting the hang of flying, and wants to learn to land. But you can't possibly land until you can accurately position the plane. Before I let a student shoot approaches, I want to see them fly a nice, level, controll pattern, with the turns in the same places each time, and the plane passing down the runway on each pass, and I want it to look smooth.

Then later, when we are talking about acrobatics and emergency situations. Being in the mental habit of flying with discipline means to me that you are always in front of, and in control of the airplane, planning what you are doing before it happens. That means that when something like a deadstick situation develops, you're able to think about when you're going to need to do next, and make the proper decisions to either make the runway or ditch off-field safely.