One way that you can get into trouble is when scratching low..... I was at the Taylor training hill a few weeks back, flying a Falcon, and JohnM mentioned that he saw me moving around a lot in the control frame. The reason? I had turned left after launch, toward that solo tree, and then above and parallel to it, before cranking a right turn and landing.
So, what was going on? "Muscle memory".
Flying a topless on a day when you have to scratch low in the hopes of getting up can be very..... Exciting shall we say? You can easily find yourself in a situation where you are desperately climbing one of the downtubes, hoping/praying that the wing will respond in time to avoid a close encounter of the arboreal kind. You quickly learn that you have to pay very close attention to the wing. When I am down low and close to the trees, I find that I'm making near continuous inputs, in _anticipation_ of having to take that input all the way, to accomplish a quick turn away from the ridge.
That's so engrained now that if my brain sees 'tree', my body responds with 'scratching low' mode.
Hence what John observed.
Oh, and if you forget that you left your VG engaged at one of those 'exciting' moments? Yikes!
Don't get me wrong, it ain't rocket science, and it ain't like flying a topless is courting a crash. But you definitely have to respect the wing.
MarkC
