This paper uses ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to trace the instructed development of a practical skill (the ‘mirror routine’) in a driving school in Sweden. Focusing the interaction between instructor and student, it applies a micro longitudinal perspective by examining five video excerpts from a total of ≈15 minutes of one driving lesson with a single constellation of student/instructor. Detailed analyses show how, by deploying different instructional resources, instructions are adapted to operate under a range of mobile and infrastructural contingencies, distinguishing between stationary and mobile instructions while considering the reflexive relation between the two. By and large, learning the mirror routine is a complex task in which the participants must deal with issues of instructions, temporality and practical multi‐activity at the same time.