Everyone understands it's good to learn everything, the point of what everyone was saying is that they can learn manual driving, then once they're good enough to not be worried with learning when to / remembering to shift. Then once they've got simple accelerating down, they can move onto downshifting, which is reasonably more difficult than simply shifting up.
SRM is a welcome addition for anyone who is just in need of less work in traffic, or someone who is learning the very ropes of manual. I think the two hardest things to learn would be starts from a dead stop, and also doing it fast enough to avoid coasting downhill too much. Learning the perfect clutch engagement point for one car takes time, and once you've got one car mastered, you know the exact feel of when the clutch grabs. Then you can apply to other manual cars without much difficulty.
I'm still somewhat new to manual (did not learn in the Z, but did stall a few times when starting from a dead stop), and I just don't have all the time in the world to practice downshifting, and also the fact that there's no open, low traffic road to do it on. Downshifting for me will have to wait until I find a relatively open road, hopefully with no police trying to ticket me on "reckless driving" while trying to learn proper heel-toe or single clutch... damn this place, there's no open road! Oh, and I don't want to destroy my clutch, even if it is covered under warranty (and will still probably be replaced by a high pressure clutch in time).
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-Phil
"Since one of my brake light bulbs just went out, the forum told me that my piston rings are about to blow."
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