It's tough, I know what you mean. While there is a lot of reference material, there is less about how to apply it in practice. Or at least, that information is scattered about in a million different blog posts.
Some great, although not free, teaching material can be found at these sites: http://peepcode.com/ http://thinkvitamin.com/ http://www.lynda.com/ A friend of mine just started this educational site. If enough people request Web2py, I have a hunch Massimo would be willing to lead a course: http://codelesson.com/courses/view_list
