The Decathlon is one of my favorite airplanes I've ever flown. Land it straight.
Like all tailwheel aircraft, when you make corrections you always want to "stab" corrections, and almost never will you want to "hold" them. Don't be afraid to go all the way to the stop if you need to, but remember.. impulses, not push-and-hold. Don't overuse the brakes, but don't be afraid of them.. they work great.
Unless otherwise instructed, I suggest keeping your patterns tight, turning base before you would in a Cessna, and learning to slip that baby in with power idle. Tight patterns with slipping final (Even slipping base!) are very addictive, because you have an incredible amount of control over where the aircraft touches down, but you can fly the entire approach at idle and always be within easy gliding distance of the runway. Remember, though, "Unless otherwise instructed"... but it's excellent practice. The Decathlon has much more rudder authority than most planes, so you can slip a LOT more than you might expect. Flaps? Who needs flaps!
I personally like to hold 80mph from downwind until short final, then slowly decay to the landing point, but ymmv -- that's probably more of a "me" thing.
If you do wheel landings, you may want to start with soft-fields--tail low wheel landings. I found that when I was learning, I had a natural propensity to stop flaring and drop the last few inches... with predictable results: bounce and goes. It's definitely not the easiest airplane to wheel-land, but I wouldn't say it's hard ... just requires a certain amount of finesse at the very end that most people have to build. As 22L says, don't go crazy trying to "stick it" on with forward stick. It's just a "knuckle" forward, and just enough to keep the tailwheel from dropping.
I dunno... writing about tailwheel flying seems silly. It's so much of a "do" thing that I'm tempted to just say "Go have fun, you'll figure the rest out."
Go have fun. You'll figure the rest out!
-Fox
