Practise
A useful thread which has prompted me to think "when was the last time I practised this" so mental note to go out and do....
Last time I recall was climbing out of Wolverhampton, somewhere around 600' agl and my instructor closed the throttle.... in my mental "panic" I instantly looked for and found the perfect landing spot almost dead ahead only to discover I had omitted to push the yoke forward and experiencing the resultant egg on my face as he reapplied the power about 5Kt from a stall!
I know from this and other experiences that some kind of mental "drill" is necessary so one "knows" what to do in the event of a sudden event with the inevitable brain scramble and that it is useful to practise it frequently enough to be able to carry out the drill when something happens and one has to do it for real.
Thanks for an interesting debate - helpful!