I knew going into it that it was going to be rough. But shit I stalled like 10 times out of the first 12 times trying to take off. After 15-20 minutes I was considerly better stall wise, but I was sort of lurching and still stalling a decent amount. I believe when I learned to drive originally in my Taurus after 20 minutes all I was fucking up on was over breaking and coming to a sudden rough stop. Probably 30 minutes driving felt like second nature. I found it odd how that initial take off's are giving me so much shit, but shifting after that is almost too easy. I think out of the whole 20 minutes I tried, I got off once where it felt smooth and natural.
I'm planning on buying a stick in a week or so, apparently I need a good deal more practice, at least I didn't grind the gears. Reverse seems surprisingly easy, either that or the 1 time I attempted it I just got stupidly lucky.
Congrats! I hated stick for a long time & avoided it like the plague, until my early 20's when all I had access to was a standard. It takes awhile to get the hang of it, but it's really fun once you get used to it...it gives you much more control over the car and you become more involved in the driving experience. 5 tips:
1. Master 1st gear, the rest are easy
2. Practice restarting the engine quickly
3. Practice uphill
4. Practice the shift point hold technique
5. Practice engine braking
1st gear is the hardest, if you can master that, then you're all set. Just go to an empty parking lot and tool around for awhile. Takes time - practice as often as you can, took me a week or two before I really got the hang of it. You'll get a feel for the engine in the other gears as well and you won't even have to watch the tach after awhile because you'll just know when to shift.
A good thing to do is to practice restarting the engine quickly. Mistakes happen and it's easy to stall your engine; it helps to have a procedure down pat for getting back in the game quickly, especially when you're sitting in traffic and the engine dies haha. As soon as the engine dies, I press the clutch down and put on the e-brake (especially useful on a hill, so I just made it habit to do that when I was learning). Then hit the ignition & gas pedal and start her up. Practice this a bunch of times until it's second-nature and then if you mess up and the car dies, it's a simple habit to get going again in seconds.
Practicing uphill is another excellent thing to do - learning how to control the roll backwards and not killing the engine. It's a little finesse trick. Just practice bobbing back & forth on the hill to see where your engine dies at, it takes the fear out of not knowing what your car's limits are. Sometimes you're stuck on a grade between two cars and you don't want to roll into the one behind you, so it's good to have this trick down. And there's always the e-brake if you get really nervous about rolling into someone...you can pull it up on the hill, then as you drive up from a stop in traffic or at a light or whatever, slide it down as you give it gas. I had to do that for awhile when I was learning because I'd get so nervous I'd stall the engine trying not to roll backwards lol.
One of the biggest secrets to driving stick smoothly is simply holding the shift point for just under a second - don't just smoothly shift into the next gear, instead hold the crossover point mid-way on the clutch when it's coming up. So as you go to shift into a higher gear, let the clutch come up halfway and hold it for a split-second while you the gas pedal keeps going down. This smooths out the transition and eliminates the "jerk" you get from shifting and sort of gives the gears a chance to catch up between shifts. So many drivers haven't mastered this little trick and are not fun to ride with in their stick-shift cars because every shift makes you fall forward in your seat.
Engine braking is another good trick to learn - it's where you down-shift and then let the clutch come up slowly to help your car slow down, instead of just using the brake. It's useful because it gives you more control over slowing down, which is great in traffic, and also if you need to make an emergency stop, you can use your regular foot brake as well as engine braking and stop a lot sooner. So practice doing both engine braking, and engine braking with the foot pedal brake for emergency stopping. It's saved me more than once! You don't want to use it to replace normal braking, but it's a handy trick to have up your sleeve.