Confessions of a Newbie Rider

[Lawrence]

The reason though is that as DeadEye said in a sequential gearbox you need to make sure the gears all mesh on the way up and down the box - the only way you can do that is to let the clutch out a bit (not neccessarily all the way, just enough for you to know that the gear has engaged) before you then drop another gear.  By all means block shift if you don't fancy replacing your clutch plates a bit sooner, but be warned that a set of clutch plates is both a hell of a lot quicker and easier to replace in a bike than stripped gears!

As long as you're moving you shouldn't have any problems dropping loads of gears (even 6th->1st) in one go.  It's when you're stationary that it quite often won't go in, even after just one shift.

I quite often drop 3 gears in one go (usually 6th->3rd) and have not once had a problem with it not engaging.  I virtually always get it while stationary though, although I try to stop in 1st/neutral.