I agree with birdnest. For flying in basic circles, you probalbly won't use the rudder much. However, try doing a stall turn or hammerhead without the rudder. More importantly, the rudder is ESSENTIAL when landing with a crosswind to keep the plane tracking straight. Alot of aerobatic manuevers need to have rudder. I just soloed last fall and really didn't use my rudder a lot until I had to land in a cross wind (without my instuctor there) I ended up getting my plane on the ground but I missed the runway by about 10 feet and landed in tall grass. My landing gear got bent up pretty good. From that point on, I always spend at least a couple of minutes each flight doing turns by using the rudder. It's an essential skill in my opinion.