...to all the advice you have here already. I, too, have "4 digit" experience in taildraggers (just - must be something like 1000 hours, between the Harmon Rocket, the Spezio Tuholer, and a little Citabria time) and have spent quite a bit of time flying with newbies in taildraggers. I must emphasise, though that I'm not an instructor....but, while I agree that the recommended books are really good, a fun read, educational and so on, I personally think the answer is:
"don't think too much, look out the window, relax, and KEEP IT STRAIGHT" !!
I don't mean to sound glib, it's just that the physics of what's going on in, say, a taildragger take off are quite multi-faceted. All that "gyroscopic precession when you lift the tail" stuff...and so on, and so on. I really think the key is, as Chuck alluded to, yaw control - which is a fancy way of saying KEEP IT STRAIGHT. So you nearly groundlooped? Don't overthink it - keep it straight, and you won't. Pitch control on the takeoff or landing roll? Look out the window!! Not at the foreground, but at something a long way away - and don't accept ANY deviation from perfectly straight down the middle of the runway, while you're learning anyway. Do that, and groundloops will be as likely as landing gear up in your Decathlon.
I'm pretty sure if you took a 200 hour nosewheel pilot, put them into a Decathlon, and could somehow get them to worry less, and just keep it straight, then they'd find it easier than rushing in with a head full of theory, and the old saw that "there's those who HAVE groundlooped, and those who will". (This is BS, BTW) Truth is, you'll never groundloop if you keep it straight. I know that when I did my tailwheel rating, 10 years ago now, I had too much going on in the brain, and not enough in the feet. In retrospect, having done lots of reading, I was quite intimidated, and I don't think that was ideal. I reckon being relaxed is probably the best way to prevent overcontrolling or PIO...
I would agree that it's best not to push hard forward on the stick straight away on the T/O roll. Perserving tailwheel heaviness gives you more chance of achieving the primary goal (did I mention? KEEP IT STRAIGHT
and then when you do bring the tail up you've got more airspeed, which will help to, you guessed it, keep it straight. Also, no reason not to bring the power in more gently on T/O, when you're learning, which will help you...keep it straight. OK, I'll stop now.
With a little practice, I agree with some here that the wheel landing is the better. You can land with more accuracy, you're not stalled, and then when you put her down you've got much better control. I would wheel land all taildraggers, all the time, except for very limited circumstances, ie 1. very low prop clearance, such as in the Pitts, where I'm told 3 pointers are better, 2. forced landings onto rough terrain, where you want to not flip over, and 2. VERY careful landings onto soft, eg muddy, terrain. Although you gotta be careful there, and you won't be doing any of that stuff yet. For all other reasons, including short landings, I'll do a wheel landing every time.
Hope that's useful. Do persist - once you can do it, it's hard to go back to aircraft with the little wheel at the boring end...it also brings a sense of accomplishment, as well as access to many very interesting aeroplanes, which would otherwise not be accessible. It's no accident, I think, that even now some of the most interesting high performance aircraft are taildraggers. Apart from everything else, they're just more fun...