Hi Holly. Welcome to the group! You are beginning the most exciting, life-changing, challenging journey in your life. At times you might feel discouraged, but don't give up! As you read thru posts here you'll be able to follow the progress of other members, such as myself. I took my intro flight on December 1, soloed on June 17, took my Written on Sept. 7, and now my checkride is right around the corner. Feel free to ask any questions.

Steve, I don't know the answer to that, but here's a thought I have. Supposed you do get the CFII without having a CFI, and you apply for a job at a flight school. I would imagine the school be more likely to hire someone else who has both ratings because they could assign that instructor to more of their students. The school would be able to get more use out of that person. Also, the students themselves might want to keep the same instructor as they progress through each rating. I know for example at the school I attend, a student can have the same instructor for his discovery flight, his PPL, Instrument, Commercial, CFI, and so on, even for Tailwheel, Multiengine, etc.

John, welcome to the group. How did your intro flight go? I took my intro flight on December 1, and I will be taking my checkride within the next 10 days or so. It's a wonderful, life-changing journey.

CONGRATULATIONS JOHNNY!
I am very happy for you! I can't help but feel the excitement; I guess it's something all pilots relate to. There is nothing in life that can compare to it. From this point on, things will move more quickly in your training. Soon you'll do your solo cross country, and night flying. Then the written test, then the checkride...
Please keep posting about your progress. Thanks.

Hi Meagan. Welcome to the group. That Diamond is a real nice plane! I got to fly one with a friend recently although I am training in a Skyhawk.
I was having A LOT of trouble with soft field and short field landings. One thing I finally realized is that I was waiting too late to get slow enough. Also I was somewhat afraid of being too low on final for the soft field landing. Both of these things were causing me to come in too high and/or too fast.
So I started getting slower earlier, on downwind and when starting base. That made a big difference. And for soft field landings I started coming in a little lower then I was used to seeing. That helped too.
But what steps actually helped me to get used to flyer slower, and coming in lower? Slow flight, and power off descents.

There were a lot of things I kept forgetting to do during specific maneuvers, so I started the habit of saying each step out loud as I did things. Maybe you can do this to remind yourself when to use the rudders.

To illustrate, when taxiing onto the runway I was using the brakes to help get exactly on the centerline, before adding full power. That is OK...but then I kept forgetting to slide my feet down off the brakes and onto the rudders. So I started this routine of saying each step out loud. It would go sort of like this: "Center line. Straighten nosewheel. Feet on the FLOOR. Add power. Check gauges." Then during the takeoff roll as I reached Vr I'd say "Rotate. Right Rudder." to remind myself to apply more right rudder upon rotation. Saying these things out loud became a sort of checklist for me. Then when I became a solo student I continuted saying these things out loud, even when I did my cross country flights.
I also did this for steep turns. You know, once you reach 30 degrees of bank you need even more back pressure, then you continue banking to 45 degrees of bank. So I would say out loud, as the airplane banked into the turn, "10. 20. 30. Back pressure. 45. Neutralize."
So maybe you can develop a similar routine.
Eventually you can stop saying it out loud, but you will still follow the steps mentally. Repetition helps to embed things in our memory.
I too use the Kings Schools materials. On the DVD where John demonstrates crosswind landings, he says to use just enough rudder to keep the nose centered, and just enough aileron to counter the crosswind. To this day, when I do a crosswind landing I can almost hear John's voice, saying "just enough rudder.." And can still almost see Martha standing near the runway threshold pointing out the correct sight picture.
I hope these mental images stick with me for a long time.

Good information! Yes that first impression is important. I speak from experience...when you first contact a school, either by phone, email, or in person, if they do not get back to you in a reasonable amount of time or if they seem too busy to talk with you, that should raise a red flag. Observe the employees - the person at the desk, the instructors, the linemen...if they seem stressed or unhappy with their jobs, maybe there is something going on there (cash flow problems? bad management?), and they are not able to meet your needs. They should be professional, confident, organized, yet casual enough that you would feel relaxed. Have at least some of the instructors been there a long time? If they are ALL pretty new that could mean the school cannot keep instructors and have to keep hiring new ones. That means the instructor you get may not stick with you for the duration.
Are some of their former students still there, pursing their higher ratings (commerical, multi, CFI, etc.)?  Or do they have a high rate of students quitting and going elsewhere? Will the school allow you to talk to other current/previous students for a reference?
 I have been to several different schools before finding the right one. At my current school, I see students continue on for their other ratings (Instrument, Commercial, etc.) with the same instructor. At times prospective students have asked me and other students for a reference. I see on the bulletin board how many students are soloing, and how many are passing their checkrides. The day I soloed, my instructor soloed 2 other students, and had one or two others pass their checkrides that same week.
These are all things to look for.

Johnny, my school's runway is 14/32, so we aways have a crosswind too. On short final you catch all the moving air that burbles and eddys around the airport buildings. Just have your feet ready to dance on the rudders and you'll be fine. First, during your approach, crab into the wind. Then on short final step on the rudder to get the nose centered on the runway and at the same time turn the ailerons a little more into the wind. My CFI had me landing a Skyhawk in 15 knot, 90 degree crosswind using this method. You can practice it at altitude, using a long road as the "runway". First, crab to hold your ground track. Then Slip (step on rudder away from wind while turning aileron into the wind) to go straight down the road. Then get out of the slip and back into the crab. Then go back and forth, slowly, from crab to slip,  crab, slip, crab, slip....as you follow the road. It's a good exercise.

OK....I'll tell you...I had 40 hours when I soloed. Most people solo before 20 hours.

Johnny, I had much more than 10 hours when I soloed.... I'm almost embarrassed to tell you how many hours I had. But there is not set number of hours to solo. Your instructor will know when you're ready. You'll know it too. If he's having you do mostly touch and go's then you're just about there. By now you're probably flying stabilized patterns, and you're just smoothing out your landings.
Once you solo, things will move more quickly. You'll be doing cross country flights which are a lot of fun. I did my first one today, a little over 100nm round trip. Flew thru Class B, C, and D, airspace. Part of the flight was over water. I saw many beautiful sights.
Be sure to post and let us know when you solo!

Yeah, the more you immerse yourself in anything having to do with flying - whether it's a website, hanging around pilots, or reading - you're bound to pick up more information.

Thank you Gary.
Only one person replied to my post. So I went out and soloed again. This will give all you lurkers another opportunity to post.  LOL just kidding 
I had so much fun soloing...for anyone who is reading this, I have to tell you about my very first flight. I was nervous and scared. The plane seemed to have HUNDREDS of gauges and dials and buttons and knobs and switches. I felt overwhelmed. I even told the instructor I wasn't coming back because there was no way I would ever be able to learn to fly. A few months later I went back.
I have proven to myself that it CAN be done. And you can do it too. Those of you who are just thinking about it but haven't started, my advice is to commit to, say, 6 lessons or better yet 10. No matter how nervous or overwhelmed you might feel, do not stop until you have done the 6 or 10 hours, whichever you've committed to. (Maybe write it down first, date and sign it, and put it on your refrigertor or something, that you have decided to take X numbers of hours of flight training.) After that, if you don't want to continue, well you've still accomplished something that most people never get to try. But chances are, after those first few hours, you will be hooked. Just like I am.

Yes, I finally did it! I soloed yesterday! To those of you reading the messages on this board, if you browse though the postings you'll see where I posted that I had 7 hours, then 12 hours, and so on. You can follow the progress of myself and of other student pilots. If you are just beginning, or even just thinking of beginning, browse through the postings and you'll see that YOU can do it too! It may seem overwhelming at first but in time you will be soloing just as I did yesterday.

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to bump it up because of its importance. I have found that stalls are nothing to be afraid of, just as the original poster said. At first I felt very uncomfortable during slow flight; therefore my instructor and I made sure to do some slow flight during every lesson so I could get used to it. The more comfortable you become with slow flight and stall recovery, the better you'll do with flaring and landing. I found with stall recoveries I was always afraid of doing something wrong and going into a spin. So I asked my instructor to go ahead and cover spins with me. He did. Trust me, spins are not as scarey as you might think. In fact they are pretty exciting and fascinating. Almost unreal. Well maybe for the first one you'll be scared. But then afterward, when doing stalls, you will not be afraid of spinning because it will not be some unknown mystery to you.
Also, as was mentioned in this thread, get the book STICK AND RUDDER, by Wolfgang Langewiesche. That book helped save my life already, because it helped me train my reflex NOT to pitch up when I messed up on an approach. His son William wrote a book INSIDE THE SKY which I plan to read also.
Getting back to the original topic....yes, you might feel uncomfortable or even afraid of stalls, slow flight, and spins, at first. But, trust me, once you do them you will find they are no big deal. And practicing them will help you with flaring and landing. Once you do stalls and slow flight, the rest of our training will progress much faster.

Hi Sherry. Welcome to the group. Sounds like your husband already has A LOT of valuable experience. I would imagine he has quite a bit of hours logged, too. Since he has an instructor rating that means he already has a commercial rating too. All this is to his advantage.
I am not an expert - in fact I am "only" a student pilot - but I'm pretty sure his first step would be to go to a flight school to get "refreshed". He may need only one lesson, I don't really know. But of course he'd need to do 3 takeoffs and landings in those types of aircraft to be current again. If that goes well then maybe he can go right ahead and apply for commercial pilot jobs. If while doing the "refresher" he finds he has become a little rusty in his skills, well, he can bring himself back up to par, perhaps working as a flight instructor for a short while...this way he'd be getting paid to fly and build hours. And that could give him leads to other jobs.

By the way, my flight instructor is in his late 50's, maybe 60. My previous instructor was 64.