[LilNinja77]

Alan, you're completely right about it being good to cover the controls, and I don't think any experienced rider will argue about that. I'm not claiming to be an experienced rider, having only ridden for a little over 1 year, I'm just saying. Especially in traffic, covering the controls can reduce reaction time dramatically. The reason the MSF instructors (I'm told) try to keep people from doing it, is because they don't want a complete novice to be covering the brake, panic, and then lock the brakes up and potentially harm another student.

It CAN happen, in my course one student locked the brakes and went down right in front of me while staging, and I swerved hard enough to scrape pegs to avoid running over him. The same student was covering the brakes while doing the slalom, and made the mistake of looking down at a cone as he passed it. When he started to lose control, I guess he did what many people do in a car........grip the controls as hard as humanly possible.....well the brake lever was in his grip so obviously things got entertaining at this point. He didn't drop the bike but came damn close. Yet again I was following him and got to play "dodge the sitting duck". The next day he T-boned another student while staging.....I was on the opposite side of the parking lot safe and sound. BTW, he failed the course :tongue:

It's an incredibly good idea to regularly practice basic skills in an empty parking lot. Straight line braking, braking while turning, swerving, U-turns.......all are essential to practice. Don't worry too much about making a perfect figure-8, they just do the 8 to make you do a U turn in both directions quickly. Practicing the U turns one at a time is fine, I can't think of any realistic situation on the road that would require you to pull a figure 8, unless you're just trying to make the other drivers dizzy as you dance around them :2tup: Good luck with your practice!
Ride safe