Jim,

With practice you will learn to see where to start and stop a maneuver. IMAC will make all your other flying much more precise and smooth. I watched a friend of mine go from a good 3D people that was always a bit on the edge of losing control to now being able to put his plane exactly where he wants it.

All maneuvers look best when entered and exited at the same altitude but it is not required. The lines you see on those maneuvers are extended so that the sequence does not look so cluttered on paper. I like to start about 100 feet out from me and no lower than 50 feet. I try to get no higher than a 45 degree angle, it's hard to tell you the altitude but using a degree you can limit how far up the judges need to look.

On some things you may be exiting a little higher from where you started. In basic, you usually do not have to worry about that but in sportsman, you do have an inverted figure 9 after a 1.5 turn spin followed by an inverted 180 degree turn so you definitely want to come out a little higher than where you started. Certain maneuvers are designed to get you up high and setup for the next one such as the half square loop which takes you up and is followed by the 1.5 turn spin

You are not scored on where you come out in certain maneuvers but some such as the loop and the 360 turn it is important to start and stop in the same place for the best score. On some things like humpys and hammers, the radius of the pull should be equal. On loops and the 360 turn you definitely want to end exactly where you started.

The flow of the sequence is what you really want to strive for. A good sequence looks fluid and smooth. Since there is no "box" anymore you can make things as big or small as you want. A nice big sequence looks graceful and smooth but gives you more chances to make mistakes. A tight fast sequence looks rushed (at least to me) and even though you have a somewhat less chance to make mistakes, you can easily start over-rotating on the rolls.

There are maneuvers that just look better centered as well as ones that look better at the ends. As I mentioned there is no box but it is not uncommon to have to flight lines running so for balance, consider yourself to be the center. You should be standing in front of the judges during the actual scored flight and you definitely want them to see what you see, both good and bad.

One other thing, when you actually fly for the judges you will do the sequence two times, this is called a round. You take of and fly all 10 maneuvers, the caller calls you out of the box, you get you plane back into position to start again and call in the box then do all 10 maneuvers again. There are approved turn around maneuvers, these are simple humpy bumps, half cuban 8's or a 180 level turn and I think there is one more but I cannot remember it right now, no other aerobatics are allowed other than those and the 10 maneuvers during and after the sequences. Anything else will get you a zero for that round

In basic there is no unknowns but most contests actually have a unknown round for basic, you will simply fly the known sequence once time instead of twice. This helps you to get used to flying in the higher classes