Copywriting 101 - Is There a Correlation?

There is a certain belief in the copywriting community that the best way to learn great sales copywriting is to hand copy all the greatest sales letters. Some people swear by it, that they become so good because they hand wrote the best sales ladders in it just, you know, they reckon it opens up a certain part of their brain and lodges in there. Other people say that it's bologne. But from a cognitive perspective, that's not going to be a consistent way to get very good.