That is it precisely. It was a matter of ejecting the pipette contents at the right moment while removing the pipette from the medium at the correct speed (I e

That is it precisely. It was a matter of ejecting the pipette contents at the right moment while removing the pipette from the medium at the correct speed (I exaggerated my ignorance a little bit for rhetorical effect.) But there was no way to verbally teach the right "feel" for it - you just had to do it over and over until you learnt how pipetting "right" felt. You could (and I did) observe my PI do it the "right" way, but you can only get so close to hitting a baseball by watching a pro - at some point, you pick up the bat and learn by swinging.