I started learning to free mount beside tennis nets. The net being beside me helped me feel more confident. If I did need it for stability, I still had to work to balance since the net moved around and didn’t offer 100% support. It worked well for me, but I’m shorter. A tall person might be prone to flip over it.
It took me several weeks(5 to 6 weeks I think) to learn how to free-mount on a 24", and by this I mean the standard static mount. I learned to unicycle in November of 2015, and was already riding as much as 6 miles while still struggling with free-mounting. The first few weeks of learning to free-mount were very frustrating. I would go through dozens of failed attempts before a successful free-mount.
Learning to unicycle can often be a mysterious process; sometimes when you think you’re making no progress whatsoever or are even getting worse when it comes to a new skill, all of sudden you’ve got it and it just feels natural.
Learning to idle even for just a few cycles gave me a significant boost with free-mounting. I learned to idle for no more than 10 cycles and my free-mounting ability improved to somewhere around 95% on the first try shortly thereafter.
Almost 2 months ago I purchased a 29" Nimbus unicycle and it took just a week or 2 to be able to free-mount most of the time(60% to 75%). Over the past 2 weeks my free-mounting with the 29" has improved to about 95% on the first try, though I still struggle sometimes if I am very tired. I shocked myself last week when I was able to free-mount on my 29" going up a steep incline. Most of the time I can’t free-mount on this hill.
It took me months to learn to freemount consistently. Hang in there it comes with effort and everyone learns at a different rate!
Another question I have is do you hold the saddle as you freemount? It seems like the tutorial videos do not hold the saddle, but it feels quite a bit tougher staying “tucked”.
The curb seems to help drastically, but I’m going to first work on getting turning down and riding in different areas.
Cool video, impressive especially at 60!
Mostly yes - it depends on the mount. I usually hold the saddle when static mounting which is my preferred mount though I can static mount without holding the saddle, and learnt to mount that way without holding it. I don’t usually hold the saddle when doing a roll back mount, though I can if I want.
With a rolling mount it’s pretty much impossible to do without holding the saddle, and with a side mount I start off holding the saddle then let go part way through - I’m fairly sure I don’t hold the saddle for a kick up mount 
It took me maybe two weeks of learning to freemount, after it took 3 weeks to learn to unicycle. I started July 2015. First on a 20" then the 24". Now I freemount 9 out of 10 times on the 29", but I still have troubles with the 36". Also once I sit on the 36", I try to stay on as long as possible, so I don’t get to try so often during a trip. I mostly go for static mount, but with some tries a rolling mount works too. Still need more practice to get to 99% on the 36". I don’t care about 100%.
I learned to unicycle when I was 14.
It took me a few months until I could freemount.
However, a month or two after, I could freemount by putting the wheel on the kerb, so the wheel didn’t go flying backwards and I did it that way.
I have a video from when I was 8 days into learning how to ride in 2010 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbaNIwt2kVY). I practiced for two hours a day I think. It looks like I could free mount better than I could ride. Both my kids learned to free mount at the age of 8 without any instructions from me. It was much easier for them to learn how to free mount than to ride. Even though free mounting came pretty easy, I still can’t idle - it seems impossible.
Yes I forget you can also use a kerb. Pity though that there aren’t any kerbs when municycling in the forest 
Freemounting by holding the wheel just felt strange from the start. The idea of hanging over the front just gave me the feeling I’d tumble off. Maybe Im just too tall for it.
There may not be many kerbs in the forest but I found there is generally a rock, root or just a washed out ridge of gravel that works as a substitute!
Looking through the posts here, I may have been on the slow side with learning to free mount, but the thing is, I don’t care. I ride because I enjoy riding, not to compare myself to other riders. Also, I didn’t really practice mounting as such. I’d just ride, try to free mount when I upd’d and if it wasn’t working for me I’d find a tree, fence, lamppost or whatever to get me back on. Using this method I reckon it took maybe 6-8 weeks to get a reasonably reliable free mount.
Update
The curb trick helped me tremendously. After about a 30 minute session today I decided to try freemounting from my front stairs (there aren’t any curbs around). After 15 tries, it clicked and I could do it consistently. Strangely it clicked more than anything else I’ve done. Then I took out two stacks of 2x4’s and put them on top of each other. Once I got that, I removed a stack. Then I just had one small 2x4 flat on the ground and was consistently free-mounting with that. Only took me about 30 minutes to get that far, so next time out I’ll try replacing the 2x4 with a branch or rock and then hopefully be able to freemount with any assistance. I do have long legs and am on a 20" so that makes things quite a bit easier.
I expect some snarkiness, but some of the tips helped me tremendously (see my post one above). It saved me a bunch of time so I’m happy I asked
People learn unicycling in many different ways. I can now do 5 different free mounts, most on either side, but the technique of grabbing the tire by hand has never worked for me, even though it’s what some people start with as their very first free mount! This forum is a good place to learn and discuss the obscure sport of unicycling, but obviously whatever works for you in the real world should take precedence.
Incidentally, it’s too bad I never learned the tire-grab mount, as a guy showed up one day with a 43" uni, and tire grabbing was reportedly the only feasible way to get on that thing…
43" that sounds like the size I have for the geared 29" uni. You can still try that, then you don’t have to jump so high. But wouldn’t it work to use a kerb mount with a 43"… and a trampoline. 
Static mounting is really quite difficult. It’s like doing a momentary one-footed still-stand while getting on the unicycle…which means momentarily balancing between your butt and one foot, while swinging your other leg…that’s pretty hard.
A “zero gravity” method of putting almost zero weight on the first pedal…then hopping onto the second pedal…has been discussed on the forum, and Terry “Unigeezer” Peterson has at least one nice video on this method. I never had much affinity for this method (partly because I didn’t spend much time practicing it), because jumping with one foot…while the other foot is awkwardly placed on a pedal…seemed wonky.
Instead, I adopted, early in my practice, a jump mount, which I practiced on soft grass. I relied on the tire grab mount for a while, on pavement. When I started more traditional free mounting, my initial foot was in the 6:00 position, which was not ideal, but which acted as a stepping stone to a more textbook-like static mount. Slowly I started applying more pressure on the seat (it helped to raise my seat for free mounting), and the starting position of the pedals began to approach parallel.
Keep experimenting!
Yeah, I never understood why some people learn that one first. I learned the static mount right away, but only after a year of riding. For a long time, it was all rollback mounts for me. Actually, 95% of the time it still is.
The jump mount is indeed much easier than it seems, though I was only able to learn it after acquiring some seat-in-front riding skills. Somebody a bit less cautious than I could learn it much sooner, though. Bank5 says he used a stack of 2x4s to help with freemounting; well I braced my pedals on blocks of wood to overcome my fear of the jump mount. Once I got it, I felt ridiculous for having been so frightened of the jump mount previously, but after landing about 100 or so of them, I did screw one up and got a nasty pedal bite that took a couple of weeks to heal.
I never wear my shinguards, but I’m starting to see that there is a realm that requires them. The jump mount is the entry level of that realm. It has also occurred to me that it might be nice to have some softer, spike-free pedals (such as Electra Barefoot) for working on this set of skills.
I just spent another 20 minutes practicing free mounting. I’m amazed (and psyched) at how quickly I’m learning it. I used the small 2x4 for a couple times, then switched to a big crescent wrench, then did a couple with just a crack in the road. The great thing is that the technique compared to a stair /curb and using nothing is the same so once I got the hang of one, it’s been easy to transfer down to something smaller.
Maybe I’m just at the right time to learn it (I’m just getting the hang of turning and going up and down small hills) but for anyone who wants to learn, I definitely recommend the curb/stair trick (on a 20") and then working your way down to smaller objects.
As a beginner I bought a small book. I think it was called “A ‘Crash’ Course in Unicycling”. Anyway, the author subscribed to your method. Seems like the best way to work incrementally toward a static mount. Sounds like your practicing is paying off, bank5!
That is the way I learned to ride so I was learning free-mounting at the same time. That is also the way I have taught people to ride over the years. I never had any success with them using a wall or fence.
To me the static mount works best. It was the first thing I learned after 3 weeks of just learning to ride more than 100 metres. I’ve also tried using the brake to mount, but that just doesn’t cut it. The wheel needs to roll back just a few centimetres, to get my bearing. Occasionally I try a rolling mount, which I can do, but not as often as a static mount. Then again I tried static mounting a Schlumpf gear on 29" KH and that just doesn’t work. Still need to put in more time in getting used to that. I even prefer static mount to holding a tree or lampost.