My experience is that once you understand the (high level) data structure you're manipulating by using git, you have already made 80% of the way there. I barely know basics of git's interface and have to use tools like `git gui` for anything more complex in my everyday workflow, yet I can manage just fine even when presented with complicated problems, since once I know from the data structure perspective what I want to do, finding a way to do that in git's interface by searching manpages and/or the Web is hardly ever a big issue.

The way to get „git“ is to think about version management as a concept i.e. starting top down. It’s the implementation details of git that many developers get confused about. But they don’t matter.

It’s similar to recursions: You don’t try to understand a recursive function by mentally evaluating it — instead you reflect on its desired return value and how to construct it in the base case.