A bad day

Yesterday I had my first lesson on how to perform a circuit at Goodyear. It was by far the worst performance I have put in so far, nothing on the flight went well. As I taxi'd out I went to perform rudder checks, but was still in range of the ramadas - I didn't hit anything but it's a big no-no. I then carried out my power checks in the run-up area, then called Goodyear Ground for clearance to taxi to runway - but had completely missed out my pre take-off checklist.
When I finally got up in the sky, I just could not get comfortable at the controls at all. We were just doing touch and go's, and although I was getting the take-off and the pattern ok, I couldn't get the approach and landing right. Such a disappointment after doing well the other day.
Things started to fall into place after 3 hard landings and 2 go-arounds, when Gilbert said to increase speed on approach I should increase engine power. The training books we have all seem to imply that you set power at 1700rpm and leave it, but when I tried a landing with the power at 1900rpm, I maintained the glideslope much easier, and the landing was much better. I've uploaded a video of my full-stop landing on my website
Here's a great pic of Gilbert looking back at Mal after I nose-dived for the ground:



I have another lesson at 11am today, let's just hope I don't make the same mistakes...