Practicing aggressive braking will improve your confidence on the bike. Grabbing a handful of brake quickly to avoid a crash can have the opposite effect so knowing your limits and stopping distances will improve your ability to brake more progressively. You need to balance the braking force between the front and rear wheel, remembering that your bodyweight adds traction to the rear.
1. Start from the standing strong position keeping your bodyweight low, central and through your feet.
2. Cover your brake levers with your index fingers - it's good practice to ride like this everywhere.
3. Squeeze both brakes equally and move your hips back and down towards the rear of the bike.
4. Drive your weight down through your feet to the tires as you squeeze the brakes harder.
5. Keeping your head up and looking forwards keeps you in the right position, and ready for action.
6. Return to the stand strong position to maintain control once you've slowed to the desires speed.
Skills Course:
You can build a mini skills course with just a few rocks and sticks. Once you've dialed in front and rear wheel lifts, practice getting over square-edged rocks, gradually increasing your speed to improve your timing. To manual or bunny hop further, use two sticks as guides and move them further apart.
Top Tip:
Practice braking on different surfaces and gradients. The key is to shift your weight in relation to the force applied to the brakes.