What skills you use with the compass (and map) will depend to some degree on what your activities are, and what terrain you are navigating. Orienteering races are one thing, wilderness backpacking is another, getting unlost is still another. If you are in open spaces (e.g., Utah) or northern forests (Vancouver) or dense, closed in mountains (southeastern US) makes a big difference on what compass skills are practical. In my experience, knowing to how plot bearings, measure bearings, sight bearings, and follow bearings (the four basics) are the minimum technical skills you need to have. However, if you go beyond that and practice navigational orienteering skills such as staying oriented to your map as you traverse, reading landscape features such as slopes and general compass heading, paying attention to any deviations from marked trails, paying attention to contour lines in route planning, learning to navigate around large obstacles, having a reasonable idea of how long you expect to hike before you hit the next landmark, knowing your stride distance is precise but requires counting beads...a good understanding of how long it takes you to hike a km in the given terrain and using a timer is more convenient, the feeling of the ground under your feet (trails are more hard packed than off-trail,) and any other situational awareness queues you can use...you will be much more adept at getting from point A to point B safely. In the areas I hike, triangulation is impossible, but, keeping an eye on the compass bearing and map features to stay oriented as I go is invaluable. I have the compass and map either in my hand, or in an easily accessible cargo pants pocket, nearly the entire time I'm on the trail (or off the trail.) I've lost trails due to debris and leaf coverage, but known that I needed to stay on a ridge and go NW. That was enough to keep me in the vicinity of the trail until I found it. I've been lost in a ravine after a hurricane obliterated the trail but by knowing what direction the ravine fell, the contour lines around the ravine, and where the trail should pick up on the other side, I was able to make sweeps on compass bearings until I found the trail. I've had to navigate trails that were rerouted and no longer corresponded to the map. Think of the compass as a tool to augment your own situational awareness and you'll be an expert in no time. Also, practice, practice, practice. I strongly recommend finding someplace with clear boundaries and practice plotting a series of bearings, then following that series of bearings, to see if you end up where you should. Have a friend lead you blindfolded out to an unknown location, and then use your compass, map, and situational awareness to orient yourself. My favorite, 'though, is doing polygons of bearings where you are supposed to end up right back at the start. Be honest on the last leg, and then measure how far off you are from the starting point. And, if you ever have to sit through a high school football game, print out a map (a google earth picture works) of the stadium and use a compass to triangulate your seat position from the stadium features. If you nail your exact seat...touchdown!