Been on hiatus for a while, glad to be back. When I first started, my plan for "learn how to use them" was two fold (and it worked really well)
1) Read as much as I possibly could here on flyertalk and take notes.
2) Run experiments to solidify the learning.

Anyone who would like a head-start, you can go up to the search menu... select "Advanced Search" then in the Advanced Search form put my handle in "Search by User Name" put Experiment in "Search by Keyword" then scroll to the bottom and select "Show Results as" posts. Then, go out and experiment to see if my old experiments from that long ago still hold up.

This is a general pattern. there are lots of folk here who seem to know what they're doing. follow their posts. ;-)