When I passed my IMCR in 1991. I had learned mostly in my own aircraft and started using it immediately. If the cloud is 1000ft AAL then dropping down and doing a visual join / land is not too hard. If you work at it you will soon be climbing into cloud at 1000ft, hand flying for two hours and then doing an approach at the far end. This is not actually that hard provided nothing goes wrong.
For the first few years I pushed the IMCR to its legal limit – and this was pre GPS. What did I learn? That I was a very lucky chap! Best part of 20 years and over 1000 hours later I would advise you use the rating as a get out of jail free card. Keep practising; keep current and assuming you fly single engine keep out of cloud unless the base is above your limit to stand a chance of a successful forced landing. If you go for 1000 ft then in many aircraft you are looking at 30sec max to pick a field, set it up and get it down!
Rod1