When I bought the Long-EZ in 2000, I was already reasonably well-prepared, having already accumulated backseat passenger time in a Vari-EZE and Long-EZ, and front right seat time in a Cozy III.
However, I still had to negotiate the initial transition to My New Plane. Here is the Shevlin-Huerta Long-EZ Transition Program (patent not applied for):

Ground School 1.5 hours
POH familiarization
weight and balance calculation
plane checklists/walkaround, preparation
Initial Familiarization 1.0 hours (back seat)
commentated takeoffs + landings
backseat flight (fast, slow, maneouvering, canard stall)
Ground handling 2.0 hours
entry/exit
taxiing/ground maneouvering
moving plane on ground, fuelling
Taxi testing 1.0 hours
slow taxi
high-speed taxi (lifting nose after cutting power)
Pattern work 1.5 hours
takeoff (yes!!!)
pattern circulation
landings/touch and goes
pattern entry/exit
local maneouvering (as for
Initial Familiarization from front)
Stretching Out 2.5 hours
takeoff
fly to other airports (2 or 3)
pattern entry/touch and goes
return to home field
The naked EZ 1.5 hours
removal of cowlings, panels
wheel pants removal
preventitive maintenance items

This all worked rather well...I think that I only gave Jesse a couple of moments. The first was during high-speed taxi testing when I lifted the nose way too high (this is the Spam Can Overcontrol Tendency). The second one was when we were on final during initial pattern work and Jesse asked "what's your speed". I thought he said "watch your speed" so I responded "OK" twice before Jesse raised his voice to the point where I finally realized what he was really asking...
The main difference that takes the most getting used to is landing. You cannot make full-stall landings in a Long-EZ, so landing is the application of a modified night landing; you set up an appropriate sink rate, bleed off speed down final and aim to touch down about 5-10 knots above canard stall speed. Oh, one thing you will learn...flaring like you're flying a Cessna usually results in an amusing nose-up drift down the runway, with no sign of an imminent touch-down, until the back seat commander suggests that a go-around might be good unless you want to land in the field next door...
I also obtained some excellent off-field maintenance training when the left
side brake failed while on a cross country flight leaving Marco Island. When I started up and went to taxi off, there was no left brake whatsoever, and I ended up performing a right 360 on the ramp back to exactly the spot the aircraft had been parked. The O-ring had failed on the brake caliper - no big deal in terms of repair effort. However, Murphy's Law was operative - this happened on a holiday weekend when the airport FBO had no crew to speak of. We ended up renting a car, driving back to Tampa and driving back to Marco Island the following day to fix the problem after retreiving the appropriate tools and supplies. The local NAPA happened to have the correct O-ring for the brake caliper and after only a few hours, we were winging our way back to Tampa, only a little the worse for the wear.
If you don't have much experience with the maintainance side of aviation, I
highly recommend you get some experience with the aircraft early on in the
process. Experimentals will malfunction and occasionally break, and certified mechanics will sometimes not be helpful due to liability and other concerns.