Oh, one more thing on it.
A lot of old-timers (or at least, the ones by me) say that you shouldn't use the clutch for anything other than starting or stopping in straight-cut gearboxes. Essentially, you slide the trans in and out of each gear, using the throttle to match the RPMs.
As far as more in depth, slide the transmission out of gear, into neutral. Bring the engine RPMs up to what you believe the next gear would be at the current road speed, then go a little bit past that point. Hold light pressure against the desired gear as the engine begins to decelerate, NOT as you are still accelerating. Once the road speed and engine RPM match, the trans should slide into gear. This is slightly easier to learn upshifting rather than downshifting, but the technique is relatively the same (though you needn't rev the engine as much when upshifting - if at all).
I can't say I would recommend learning to match speeds that way right off the bat, as it does require some sense of feel for it, but I personally found that it was easier to get the speeds matched without the clutch. On occasion, I may need to tap the clutch to help the gears get along (in my trans it always seems to be the 2-3 shift that needs the help), but that is perhaps only once every 20 shifts, be it up or down.
I am far from being able to call myself an expert by any means - I've only had them a little a year now :P - but the learning curve isn't horrible. And as it was said above, the transmissions were near bulletproof. They were made to be rode hard and put away wet. They can take the abuse
