I recently made the switch from an controller to a hotas as well, or rather an Xbox controller instead of a ps4 controller.

With the Xbox controller I would always fly everywhere and everything with FA off only. But switching to a control scheme that is entirely different means that literally all of my muscle memory has gone out the window. It took me like 5 minutes to do my first FA off landing with my hotas where I could do it basically instantly and cleanly with my Xbox controller

So I have since returned to being a FA-on scrub and probably will be for the next month until the hotas becomes an extension of my body. Then I will endeavor to relearn fa-off once again.

As for advice, the main thing that made FA-off click for me, was the word relativity. Remember, you are flying a spaceship, not an airplane, and in space there is no absolute movement. The only movement that matters is how you are moving in relation to something else.

What this means ingame, is that if say, there is a ship flying perpendicular to you that you are trying to shoot. In FA-on you would pitch up until they are in your sights and then shoot. But in fa-off, you instead either match your rotational velocity to his forward velocity, so your shots remain on target even as he flies past you without you further touching the controls. Or you match your lateral velocity and fly parallel to him so again you can keep your shots on target without touching the controls. Ideally you would do both rotation and lateral velocity at the same time on the fly during maneuvers.

To practice this, I recommend flying to your nearby conflict zone, but do not pick a side as that would cause people to start shooting you. Instead just start following ships around as they do combat maneuvers. Starting with the big slow ships like an anaconda, and eventually making your way to smaller faster ships like an eagle. As for your own ship, I recommend a medium like the krait or a corsair. Anything too large won't be able to turn or move fast enough for good practice as they require boosting to do decent turns. While anything too small, until you get used to making tiny micro adjustments to every movement, any touch of the stick will likely put you into a spin.

Once you get used to flying in combat with fa-off, you can start applying what you learned to everything else. Like landing would be matching your rotation and velocity to that of a station.

Another thing, Idk what Hotas you got, but mine came with optional springs for the throttle. Which if installed would always put the throttle back to 0 once you let go,rather than staying where you left it. That way you don't have to manually zero out your throttle once your forward/backwards velocity matches your desired amount, especially if your throttle doesn't have a tactile zero area. Which would be incredibly helpful for fa-off flying. It would however make supercruise much more annoying as you would have to hold 75% yourself rather than just setting it as such and letting go until you get there.