im assuming you dont shift to 1st cuz it help braking at all? and if you are at a stop in first gear with the clutch not depressed you will mell burning kelvar and maybe stall, right? thanks! the reason i have all these questions is cuz im 14 and no one in my family drives a stick

 

Yeah pretty much, by the time you're going slow enough to downshift to 1st the additional engine drag doesn't gain you anything.

Like I said, I typically only downshift one gear while braking in town, two gears when decelerating from freeway speeds. You have to let the clutch up gently otherwise you're gonna lurch like a drunken kangaroo, so by the time you're done, you're generally going too slow to make another downshift worthwhile - just break till stationary then shift to 1st.

You don't actually have to engine brake at all, downshift + light braking is just a nice, controlled way to slow down.

In fact if you're sliding or braking hard, downshifting is a bad thing - during the few seconds it takes you to shift, the clutch is fully depressed and you lose whatever engine resistance you had when in gear.

If you are in gear and you let the clutch up without bringing the the gas pedal down to meet it at the biting point, you will lurch and stall the engine.

'Biting point' is where your clutch is partway up, your gas pedal is partway down and you feel power reaching the drivetrain. How far up and down the pedals have to be varies from car to car and can be changed by clutch adjustment. It's something you just have to get a feel for (usually by getting it wrong a few times, with accompanying lurches and stalls).