LEARNING TO CARVE

The essence of practising, anything, is learning through repetition - dull as this may sound. Most beginners do not realise the amount of practice, perseverance and hard work needed to carve competently, let alone expertly.

Sharpening a gouge; making a slicing cut; running a line with a V tool; carving a letter, a face - practice means doing it again and again until you get it right, get it perfect. Commonly students only do one of something - so all their mistakes are in with their hopes.
Do it three times - and throw the first two away!

 
This is part of long lengths of a "guilloche" moulding.

Tedious, perhaps, but the sheer dint of repetition has improved my carving skills tremendously.

Going back to how you learned to drive your car: think of the amount of repetition that you needed to convert conscious knowledge into automatic body responses and memory.
This is no different to what you should aim at in carving.

You must get as quickly as you can to a point where the tools are not what you notice, but what you are carving. From there you improve and develope your manual dexterity; increase your experience; grow a sense of three dimensionality and 'thinking backwards'. Control and mastery will naturally come with enough practice; losing yourself in the satisfaction of carving itself.

But you can only do what you can, depending on what time and opportunities you have available, and your life's priorities.
That's the way it is - without question.
But realise too that the most common reason a student feels they are not getting very far is because they are not putting in the hands-on repetition practice time, whether it is in projects or exercises.

As to what to practice, this will depend on your interests.
Rather than just taking it as it comes, develop your strengths systematically by setting yourself progressive tasks.

Let's add all this up.