In my ongoing quest to improve my loosely-described 'training regimen', I'm soliciting some feedback from the CVTV community on what their learning procedure was, and which topics they feel contributed the most in bringing them from Class C strength to Class A strength. My goal is to break through the B class and reach a mid 1800s level tournament strength over the next 2 years. I realize things like this vary on an individual level, but I thought it would be an interesting experiment to get aggregate numbers since there are numerous strong players here. Select as many as you like:

for me:

tactics study, lots of blitz (a bit like tactics study if you have good opponents), reading How to Reassess Your Chess.

I checked annotating own games. I never really did this, but I do think it will make you a much better player!

Perhaps the most important: MAKE FRIENDS WITH BETTER PLAYERS!

Most of the options will help you improve, but I would and do concentrate on openings, planning and occasionally tactics. I tried annotating my games and it's insightful - but also really time-consuming.

I know some good players, who say that a coach is essential - maybe they're right.

I feel like I play at a low A player strength even though my slow rating only says i'm a B player (i don't play much at all)

calculations and tactics were big for me, but i annotated a ton of my own games at that time, i played as much slow chess as i could, and i played a ton of blitz too

i studied quite a bit of basic and complicated endgames as well, i feel like it helps me play confidently when i get into pawn up endings, comfortable that i can win it

I can't really answer this question, cause I was young when I made this jump. What I would think however, is the following:

Tactics: you should study tactics. I believe that they should increase in difficulty. I shouldn't be just make a knight-fork in two or mate in two etc. There are also tactical puzzles with knight forks that are like 5-6 moves deep. In the end you want to reach that level, I think. So, while basic tactical training is better than nothing, I seriously believe that this doesn't give that much better results. (therefore, I don't know about the tactical training sites...)
Suggested: I don't know... I've said more than once that the Dutch stepping stones method is #1, but outside that I don't know.

Also, I'd imagine that you want to learn which moves are normal in a given position. Let's be fair: if you always play 1. Nh3 and 2. Na3, you're probably not going to improve whatever you do. You need to know what's correct or normal to play.
For the opening: I'm NOT saying that you should study opening theory in detail! Learn 6 to 8 moves and then use basic opening ideas that continue from it. KID is typical for this: 1. d4, Nf6 2. c4, g6 3. Nc3, Bg7 4. e4, d6 5. Nf3, 0-0 6. Be2, Nc6 7. 0-0, e5 8. d5, Ne7. Finished. You don't need to worry about much more details than this. But you DO need to know basic ideas from then on. In the KID that's easy for black: kingside attack by pawn storm. OK, that's easy enough: then we should be playing ...f5, ...f4, ...g5, ...h5 (when you get stronger, you'll start to learn the nuance that ...h5 is not at all necessary most of the times), ...g4 and attack. Or sicilian dragon for white: 1. e4, c5 2. Nf3, d6 3. d4, cxd4 4. Nxd4, Nf6 5. Nc3, g6 6. Be3, Bg7 7. f3 and finished. From then on you need to know the basic patterns. White castles queenside, attacks on the h-file with h4-h5. Just looking at a few games from a strong player playing a weaker player, will tell you what the opening is about for the side of the stronger player. A big thing to know is where you should place your pieces!
Suggested: problematic. I personally began by reading and studying opening books. I used Nunn's Chess Openings for example and just learned some moves. That's one way, although I feel it's not the best way. I would suggest just looking up games between strong opponents and weaker once, like I said. But you need to have the explanations of the moves too, realistically. A lot of opening books = expensive though! Maybe you can borrow some from friends? Otherwise there is the modern option of downloading them. In that case you should get the 'books' from the Starting Out series.

Middlegame: If you see an open file, occupy it with rooks. If you have the open file, try to enter on the second rank. If you have an outpost, a knight wants to go there. A good middlegame strategybook will teach you these basic ideas. Just be aware of them and use them. Every time you play a normal move you give your opponent the opportunity to hang himself with some original play.
Suggested reading: a classic is: J. Nunn, Understanding chess move by move, Gambit Publications Ltd: 2001.

Endgame: for class C, I don't think you'll encounter a lot of endgames with even material. Therefore you should want to know how to win endgames one or two pawns up. Basic king and pawn endgames therefore. I would let rookendgames be, cause they are too difficult and your opponents will make massive mistakes anyway.. (I mean, even I make huge mistakes in them, why wouldn't a class B player make them?). Just get a good feel about what you should do when you're a piece up or otherwise a few pawns. A good knowledge about king and pawn endgames is absolutely vital though.
Suggested reading: I use: I. Snape, Chess endings made simple, Gambit Publications Ltd: 2003. That's actually much more than you need to know, but it does start from the basics, also with the king and pawn endgames. Otherwise, the Dutch stepping stones already gave me a big start, cause it does teach some stuff about the endgames too (especially king and pawn).

The point is that every time you play a normal move against a class C or class B player and your opponent does not, this most likely gives you a better position. They can't continue to play these kind of moves, or your position will become vastly superior. From these superior positions, tactics flow. If you have a good, deep tactical ability, you can finish games off. Most games in the class C-class A will be won by a tactical shot.

Asking questions about chess positions on this site is also a good idea for becomming stronger. Maybe that's the same as becomming friends with a lot of strong players .

Without a doubt tactics training comes first. From what I know to become a class A player, you don't really need to know much strategy, if they don't hang material and play reasonable moves most of the time it is easy to become class A. To get beyond class A, calculation ability and planning skills start to get important.

Also getting help from strong players isn't a bad idea, a couple of 2300's on FICS helped me become 2100+

Good suggestions above, so i will list a few psychological and non-chess factors that i find to be vastly under-rated. My personal experience is that I scored 15.5/19.0 in one stretch, crushing a few immigrants from former USSR and other experts that i had never beaten before. I gained over 200 points in these 19 games, and after analyzing all my games with Rybka i found out that i rarely played a "bad" move in those games. I attribute most of my results to nonchess factors like concentration, discipline, and confidence. So, in addition to gaining skills or "chess knowledge" as others have noted, you can also maximize your competitive edge with non-chess factors so you make the most of your actual chess ability. Here is something i wrote in a blog post i after my 15.5/19.0 streak:

# Concentration and focus. I become completely immersed in the possibilities during each game and never leave the board. At the end, I can't even recall who was sitting next to me. Also, showering and changing into gym clothes before the game makes a big difference. I even got in the habit of listening to the same song, Incubus's Drive, while traveling to the club each week.
# Confidence and mental toughness. I always believed I could/would win; even when my position was not that great, I found the most challenging moves. I think this relentless mindset also puts psychological pressure on the opponent.
# Objective calculation. I look for the best moves/continuations for both sides, and calculate as far as possible (usually about 5-6 moves). Many times I refrained from the move I wanted to play because I couldn't justify it.
# Time management. I spend up to 15 minutes at "critical moments," and generally 3-4 minutes per move otherwise. In games I won, I reached a decisive advantage with about 10 minutes still on my clock-- enough to win comfortably.
# No blunders. This is more of a by-product of the previous four. I virtually eliminated "accidents" in my last two tournaments.

Go to the gym and watch your diet. IMO if you are confident/healthy in other areas of life, career and relationships, you will be confident in chess too. This is my personal experience, ymmv.

I agree. I think this is underrated. Tournament chess is grueling.

COnfidence and Mental toughness was big for me, I was at one point SCARED to lose rating points, once I believed that I was better than those A rated patzers I started beating them

hmm yeah confidence and mental toughness is especially important at lower levels. Below 2000, players make all sorts of mistakes and there are hardly any clean wins. By never giving up, you can expect a lot of swindles

Awesome advice I'm going to take to heart. I really appreciate the time you guys spent on this.

One thing that I know works really well from my CC games is that you will win an amazing amount of the time (up to a point) if you just don't make serious mistakes. Don't drop material. Don't piddle around without a plan (even a mediocre one). Don't fail to develop your pieces. Don't do anything that's positionally really stupid. And you'll win because sooner or later your opponent (at the club level) will do one of those things with fatal consequences. Once you get up to about expert level, the players are good enough they don't make really dumb unforced errors either -- and then you'd better find another dimension to your game or that's as far as you'll get.

I'll go ahead and muddy the waters by adding a couple contrasting opinions:

1) Endings - I agree that K+P are the most important - get as good as you possibly can at these - but I disagree with what was posted earlier about Rook endings. If K+P endings are #1 in importance, I think these should be "1a" - with all others a distant second. My rationale for this is twofold:

a. My understanding is that Rook + Pawn endings arise with a very high frequency, the highest frequency of all endgames. So if you know you are going to be seeing a lot of these, it only makes sense to focus more on them. In other words, if out of 100 games you knew that 70 of them were going to boil down to Rook endings (I'm not saying that is the actual figure, just using for illustrative purposes), then you should focus 70% of your endgame study time on them. This point is mute if I am incorrect about the frequency of Rook endings, I read that somewhere (probably an endgame book) once and took it as fact, I'd be curious to see the figures if anyone can find them.

b. Rook endings are so simple and complex at the same time. I believe if you understand the concepts well, you can outplay - or at least hold your own - against an opponent who is rated one class or more higher than you. Especially so (obviously) if they don't have a good grasp of the ending. Of course, maximizing the activity of your Rook (or capitalizing on the inactivity of your opponents) is key, along w/ creating counter chances (i.e. down a pawn but both have passed pawns). Studying and understanding the Lucena and Philidor positions is not that difficult, and if you've mastered those, along w/ the previous keys, you can pretty much play these kinds of endings at a high level.

2) Tactics - Don't get me wrong here, I'm not disagreeing and saying that tactics study is NOT important. And I certainly don't disagree that most non-Master games are decided by a tactic of some kind. But I DO think they get overemphasized. I suspect that a great deal of tactical errors occur when one side does not have a clear plan or is lacking positional understanding. I think a by-product of working on those things will reduce the number of losses I might incur due to tactics.

Just my .02 worth and I'm open to the possibility that I could be wrong about something there.........

I disagree wholeheartly to your suggestions on rook endgames, studentofchess. Point 1a is far away from the truth at club level. It's true on 2700 level for sure though. I can count the rook endgames I played on one hand though when I was C, B or A level. It's like Wildman says, the players are much too prone to blunder away material.

The reason why I suggest K+P endgames is not that it will happen all the time, it's just that you need to know what'll happen if you trade everything off. For rook endgames that's not relevant, cause, like I said before, the opponents make massive mistakes, for example a defender that trades the rooks off. Due to making these huuuuge mistakes and due to the fact that both players possibly blunder a few times per game, stuff like the Lucena position is just a waste of time. At c and b-level it will almost never boil down to a rook endgame where one side is just one pawn ahead. It just won't happen enough that it'll be profitable for you to put so much work in. Not to say though that it would hurt if you saw a video on this site for example about the Philidor Defense in the endgame...

Agreed on the tactics bit. The winning strategy would be like Wildman says: make reasonable moves that don't blunder any of your own pieces and punish mistakes by your opponent.

Tactical machines like andrewrun get up to 2300 mainly on just tactics... (throw a little endgame skill too) so why not study tactics? #1 for sure