The first time I run a chainsaw was topping out a small dead tree. I can't even remember what species. I come down all proud of myself and told my foreman, "That was my first time!" He said, "It showed."
Nearly all my saw learning was in the tree. And I learned all about tension and pressure after splitting out a number of big limbs and spars. "So that is what an undercut is all about, hey." On the ground I was only allowed to cut stumps and suckers. As my foreman did the actual fall jobs. He would never trust a rookie. Me!
However so, my first fall was a nice old growth Douglas fir. Though it took needling my foreman before he would allow me the chance. Ridge top trees. Only about 150' tall. There was quite a few of them to take down actually, and I was topping the trees out so they could be felled without taking out the power lines. When I come down out of the tree my foreman, Jim Nix, would fall the stubs. Mac 125 with a 60" bar.
One afternoon on that job I told Jim, "You know, Jim, I'll never get to learn how to fall a tree if you're the one doing it all the time." After much more needling he caved into my request. And with Jim over my shoulder I could hardly say I fell the tree, but he never touched the saw and I laid the fir between stumps right where he told me to put it. He said, "Beginners luck." He was never one to praise.
In those years I watch very keenly what every foremen did on the stump when they fell trees, and I had learned what the sights were all about and squaring up a hinge,, before I fell that fir. Though I must say handling that 125 was a bit more than the XL 12 I used up in the tree to top it out.
I maybe had two years in by that time.