Good for you, Dave. That's a really good way to start familiarizing yourself with such an unfamiliar tuning. One of the things that I liked about playing in that tuning when I first started fooling around in it was that I felt like it forced me to be more intuitive, since nothing lived where I was accustomed to it being. I've played quite a lot in that tuning now, and I've found it to be exceptionally good for thumb lead playing. It also really lends itself to close-voiced harmonically complex, piano-ish sorts of chord voicings, since unlike all other commonly used open tunings, there is no place in the tuning where it is a perfect fifth between consecutive strings, requiring you to go to the seventh fret to get a unison with the next higher open string. It makes the left hand very compact. Plus, I just like the sound of the open chord. I've never tried it, but I think it would work well for slack-key type Hawaiian tunes, too.
All best,
John
