"Hire experience or..."
That experience had to be gained, somewhere.
And then kept in reasonable practice, too.
It is not " Just something that I did as a beginner and have been able (or forced) to forget ever since."
I had a F/O who allowed the aircraft to drift down towards
the opposing traffic flow, following an A/P failure. He appeared to have forgotten that the ordinary manual controls worked at cruising level, too !
He was able to practice, all the way home.