Originally Posted by wstar

Some of this is a matter of adapting how and when you use the M-mode. If you need to drop 3 gears that fast, you were at low rpms to begin with. Start downshifting earlier and stay in the power band I find that when driving aggressively and keeping the revs up, shifting through corners is very natural for me with the 7AT. If you're in 6 or 7 coming into a tight corner, you may as well just have left it in "D"

Another interesting thing about technique with flipping between D and M is initial gear selection. If you've been cruising at any reasonable highway-ish speed, "D" will be in 7th gear at the time. However, if you flip the lever over to "M" at that point, it immediately downshifts to 5 before giving you control (on the assumption you're taking over to downshift into a corner I guess). In situations where you don't want that, simply click the upshift paddle first before flipping the shift knob to M, and you'll stay in 7 through the transition. In general, it's easiest to make the D-to-M transition by first using the paddles in D (which "temporarily" puts it in M-mode) and then flipping the shifter to M, as it avoids surprise gear changes.