"understand it thoroughly" is key. I deal with a lot of programmers who are new to git, and the first thing I always do is to take them through the material in

"understand it thoroughly" is key. I deal with a lot of programmers who are new to git, and the first thing I always do is to take them through the material in sections 10.1-10.3 of this book. Once a person has those fundamentals (which are not complicated at all), they're most of the way there. A great deal of the confusion around more advanced tasks (rebasing, etc) is removed when working from those first principles of the system.