First mount learned helps\hinders development of other skills?

[roberts]

When I learned to unicycle, I learned a reverse free mount first, without using any support, and only ever tried riding forwards off a successful free-mount.

My friend learned a forward mount without the half turn backwards (i.e. mount and continue forwards), and concentrated a little more on riding forwards from a supported mount before he could free mount consistently.

Now that we have 7 months experience we are about an untested level 3.5, but I tend to find things like idling and going backwards easier than my mate. I put this down to the fact that right from the beginning I had to develop my stationary balance and changing direction far more than my mate, who's focus was on moving forwards.

So, I have two questions:

1) What was your first mount? Forwards and continue forwards, or reverse \ forwards with half turn backwards, and do you feel this helped or impeded your progress onto idling \ going backwards. I would be interested to hear comparisons made with friends who learned different mounts.

2) I can ride backwards in a figure of eight, which is a level 6 skill, but my general level is 3.5ish. The skill levels seem to place riding backwards at a far higher level than I would expect. At the moment I could only dream of being able to ride one footed in a figure eight (level 5). Anyone else agree, or do I just have ok backwards skill and poor everything else ?