Down Shifting

[Dave]

Ever since I started riding bikes, whenever I wanted to down shift I always had to let the clutch out a bit in between shifts. Yesterday while riding my Ultra I came to a stop while in 4th and while stopped I was able to down shift to 1st by just tapping the shift 3 times without letting out the clutch between shifts. I tried it at the next stop light and I was able to repeat this.

My question is, is this feature something new or has it been around for some time? I had always thought with sequential transmissions one has to let the clutch out between shifts.