I was self taught, without a Sim, without instruction of any kind, with a 2m Spirit sailplane. Lotsa' Monocote patches, a few crashes, a few major repairs. I'd never even saw a RC plane before I built mine.

I went pretty much like this:

Large open field with no obstructions
Flight #1-10 Throw and fly perfectly straight, land soft.
Flight #11-20 Throw and bank slightly, straighten out and land soft.
Flight #21-30 Complete turn and land somewhere in my vicinity so I didn't have to walk all over the field.
Flight #31-?? HIGH START! Loops, inverted, etc, etc.

Then 12 years later I bought a .40 glow trainer. The first flight it kinda' come back to me, but I had an experienced pilot standing beside me, J.I.C.