Mine was NDB too. My CFII was great but he had natural situational awareness when it came to NDB. You could knock him unconscious and have him awaken with nothing more than a compass and an ADF and tell him to intercept a random bearing and he's head right to it. Would even take a second to figure it out. Just head there. I was at the opposite end of the spectrum. You could put me on the final approach course of an NDB approach pointed in the right direction and I'd manage to screw it up.
So one night, he has me working on NDB tracking and interception. It was NOT going to happen. Finally, in frustration, I ripped off the hood, let go of the controls, folded my arms across my chest and said, "Your airplane!"
Andre took the controls. "You really worked hard. Let's call it a night. Take us home." I replied, "I guess you didn't hear me. YOUR CONTROLS!" I refused to touch them. Andre flew back to our home base.
Unlike you, it never became easy. Lucked out on my instrument practical. I finally taught myself a way to understand it while working on my CFII years later. For practice I ended up teaching the technique to a friend/Guinea pig who also had trouble with them. It worked. Now he could fly them great. I'd still screw them up. To my everlasting gratitude, the ADF effectively disappeared from US cockpits.
Funny thing though, On glass panels I love secondary nav bearing pointers. Go figure.
