First off, I'd say I am moderate. I am not winning tournaments or putting on exhibitions, but I am not placing last either. I'm sure everyone at EBP will tell you I actually suck. So don't take my advice...but do...because I wasted 15 minutes writing this. This is just what I've noticed analyzing the game:

Play skill in this genre is made up of three components: ball control, rules knowledge, shot success rate.

BALL CONTROL you can't just watch a DVD, walk away and master. The DVD helps for sure, but if you're a complete beginner you have to put in time on a machine you can play constantly to get the techniques down. If you're beyond the point of "just bat the ball away and keep it alive" with your ball control, you already know the importance of cradling and are ready to level up.

When I was at that stage I practiced and learned post pass first. It taught me to not fear having the ball bouncing around near the flippers while getting a feel for legitimately controlling the ball. Legitimate ball control as in, I was purposely flipping to make the ball *do something I wanted it to do* and regain control.

To make ball control even more difficult to learn, each major manufacturer has different feeling flippers. People can claim there are no differences, but at least take this one thing from my boring ass post, there are. You'll eventually find that you need to alter your techniques that worked well on B/W flippers for 90's Gottliebs...then modern Sterns...etc. Then there is rubber color and "freshness" altering how the ball reacts! Once you feel confident on one era/manufacturer, prepare to feel like you don't have a clue on another when you could swear "they all seemed the same" and you could "nail that post pass all day long on TAF but for some reason Tron isn't post pass friendly to me...it's the machine's fault I am sure!".

RULES This one is short and sweet. You can have the best ball control in the world, but if you know absolutely nothing about how to build a scoring strategy...let alone just the old "what do I shoot next?"...you're screwed. PAPA blog will become your best friend for this issue.

SHOT ACCURACY Probably my biggest problem area (besides tilting). You can have ball control and be an encyclopedia for pinball rules...but if you constantly brick your shots: you aren't going to win much of anything. I can't tell you how many times I've competed against someone, had ball control going my way, my strategy is set up so I need just that one easy shot to stack a bunch of crazy shit...and brick...

...regain control...
BRICK
...regain control...
BRICK
...regain control...
BRICK
...regain control...
BRICK
...regain control...
BRICK
...regain control...and...TILT

This one I have no idea how to fix outside of just playing a lot. Obviously every machine is going to have different shot positions on the flipper, but I just have no idea how to make my shot accuracy better. All I know is that it is pretty damned crucial to getting better.

So the short answer to your question is: flail a lot.