Paul of Fate was the first explaining me the merge and stuff. Interesting thing is that Paul was 14 at the time.
The trainers in TA (especially Ren) explained to me the E, angles, gunnery...
Found my way into DA with my squady Whatstis, where we hit into Estes and Sniper. These two thought us the finer points of A2A combat. They also recruited us and so we ended with the Muppets.
There I've learned from the guys like Wldthing, Estes, Sniper, Kappa, XtremeJ, Urchin, Fester, Dutchie, etc (all amazing guys in terms of skills).
Shortly after I joined Muppets they kinda fell apart, so I used to spend my time in TA and DA mostly. Ghosth recruited me for his new squad venture where I've met Wilbus. Learned from him as well.
Then I quit altogether, came back after several months and all I was doing was dueling in DA and occasionally helping the new players in TA.
Somehow in DA I was hitting into most of the top sticks (Redd, leviathn, Wadke, Furball, Nomak, Wax, TW9, Badboy, Morpheus, Stang, Flyboy, Bigmax and countless others) and each of those fights helped me in some way to improve.
Then, there was a new generation of talented players who started beating on me, like Creton, Dedalos, Batfink, Biggless, Skyrock, Superdud, Megadud, Platano, Schatzi, Hemp, Skychimp, Saskid, Catfish, Sonic, 39158 and many more. Some of those already made the fame, some will shortly...
They all were pushing my old bones to the limits and most often than not I couldn't keep up, but I always learned something.
So, lately I confined myself to TA again. Still learning from top trainers like Widewing, Murdr, Mace, TC, Schatzi and others, having fun at the same time.
It never ends, you learn as long as you fly.