While I was learning to shoot using pocket strobe, I was under the impression, as most people are, that more means better. Although, I knew about the concept of chiaroscuro (use of shadow and light in an art, used since the Renaissance period), this seemingly simple concept took a while to sink in.
A photographer should learn to play with shadow and light as well, it gives dimension to a picture. The best part is, you just need one pocket strobe to learn lighting techniques. In fact, I would suggest learning how to shoot with no modifiers.
During the learning phase you don’t need to add the complexity of modifiers, like a soft box or an umbrella. Below examples are shoot using a single LumoPro LP180R. The back light is from the sun.
Strobist
diagram: One light setup: LumoPro LP180R bare, camera right