Yep. Gotcha.
Still can’t ride
just practice, practice and practice. also, as soon as you get comfortable riding near the wall, begin to stay out of the wall. believe me because it happened to me, i learned to depend on the wall. that maybe the reason why it took me so long to learn. as soon as i realize it, i started riding away from the wall from then on it was just like magic, suddenly my body learned how to balance.
Free mounting
I have been riding for a few years and still struggle with free mounting anything larger than a 20" … the solution is to fit a brake to my larger unicycles (24,29 and 36). To all intense purposes I do a suicide mount while holding the brake. Once on I can ride for miles 
It is of course just a knack. Practise with a 25mm board behind the wheel and you will soon find the it’s just a simple spring with no weight on the ‘pedal foot’. I am currently learning to free mount with my right foot on the pedal,(I usually have my left foot on the pedal) it feels very strange but doing this one session a week for the last two weeks (about 10mins) shows it not to be too difficult. I was landing them last week without the backing board, but then tiredness set in and I stopped landing them completely…at least I didn’t do any face plants! See what happens tomorrow.
Cheers
+1 on the board.
I spent an arfternoon trying to get it, with a very rare one working. Then my daughter passed on the tip about a wooden block she got from the legendary Reg Bolton. In ten minutes, top, I had it nailed.
Just make it short so that you are not stepping off it. Similarly stepping off a curb is not as good ether.Find that block of wood.
btw my daughter had not ever tried a freemount herself, she just had the right advice - it really is something you can learn yourself.