The FIRST thing that anyone can do to improve their game is go to an Optometrist and get your eyes checked and fixed. You can't fly pattern if you can't see. For years my old man used to tell me how he had to give up hustling pool table in his youth because he could no longer see the edges of the balls. After I turned 30 I realised what he was going on about because I couldn't see the edges of my Airplane and was slightly rocking the wings to find horizontal.

My eysight isn't bad, I'm -0.5 in the right eye and -0.25 in the left and while I can fly all day and never lose orientation without my contact lenses, I can't see the edges of my plane without them. Yes, my optometrist though I was a big whinger but it was the best couple of hundred I ever spent. If I never flew airplanes or road raced motorbikes I would never have picked up that my eyesight wasn't spot on, and it makes a huge difference.

Second point is trimming. Forget about flying pattern until your plane is trimmed properly or trimmed as close as you can get it. Your plane should be able to fly the full length of the field upright without touching anything, fly the full length of the field upside down with just a touch of down elevator, fly an upline without rolling, yawing left or right or pitching, and fly downlines the same. You should also be able to do 1/4, 1/2 and full rolls on uplines (and downlines) without it deviating from vertical.

Once you have your eyes right and your plane flying straight a top hat with half rolls becomes a very simple, power on, pull, pause, half roll,pause, pull, touch of down, power mid, longe pause, power off, pull, pause, half roll, pause, pull, power mid. Just imagine how much more fun it is if you have to make corrections after and during each step, your workload can double or triple.......