There is a wrong way, and it can be damaging. I assume you are seeing a pelvic floor therapist? If not, you should consider doing it.

A couple ways to describe proper engagement of BOTH front and back muscles:
- "Nuts to guts" - when you engage you should feel your testicles pull in towards your belly button and if you do this when standing, say over a toilet, you should actually see your penis and testicles pull in (front pelvic muscles)

- "Stopping the stream" - this is the most common analogy for front pelvic floor work, but it takes a very tiny amount of effort to actually do this. The above method is far better. You will use the lighter method as you mature in your exercises as this smaller method is what is used to stop the flow. This "Stopping the stream" method is not what you should focus on until you master "Nuts to guts".

- "Pinch a loaf" / "Stop a fart" - This engages the rear pelvic floor. Your butt should NOT move or clinch during this, put your hands back there to verify. It will SEEM like your butt is clinching but really it should only be pulling your anus in towards your stomach, feeling that your cheeks don't clinch is how you know you've done it properly.

Releasing is also massively important. If you fail to learn how to properly release you can actually cause more problems. You should always release for the same amount of time you engage - and you should never engage more than 15-20 seconds ever. To guarantee a release, take a long slow deep belly breath in, this forces the pelvic floor to relax, then let it stay relaxed for at least as long as you engaged it.

You should be able to work BOTH front and back simultaneously and effortlessly. Don't focus on just the one you think is more important, you want ALL of your floor healthy, not just part of it. One way to start getting muscle memory is engage front and back each time you stand and each time you sit - the more you do this the more you learn to auto engage for other things like lifting.

While there are varying studies on what is too few or too many of these, the generally accepted practice is to do do 10-12 quick engagements (1-2 seconds), followed by 3-5 long engagements (10-15 seconds). Think of the first as a pulse and the second as a hold. This set of 10 + 3 (or 12 + 5) done 3-5 times throughout the day should improve your pelvic floor health.