Hey everyone. I joined awhile ago but this is my first post. I failed my MSF about 3 months ago. I failed on the u-turn and the weave, everything else was just fine. I was determined to improve, got my own bike (Honda SCL500), was super nervous, tried and failed at a u-turn and damaged my left wrist. I misjudged the space I needed, rode into a curb at about 2mph, fell over, smacked my wrist on the asphalt. And then in my adrenaline I basically dead lifted up my bike with an already hurt wrist. Bad idea. As of this past week I was cleared to ride again. My core issue is definitely throttle control. I failed on the MSF because the bike kept lunging around seemingly at random whenever I would put any throttle on it. It's awful hard to do a u-turn or a weave when your bike is kicking you in the butt unexpectedly every 2 seconds. I THOUGHT I was being smooth on it, but clearly I am not. Dan's video about "Learn without the MSF" kind jumps right from Friction Zone, to Friction Zone + Front Break, to doing parking lot exercises. There's not a lot of information about how to build smooth throttle movement that I could find. Today I went out on the bike with the simple goal of riding up my street and back a few times, and then riding around the block and seeing if I could figure out what was going on. I did it successfully. And was able to focus a bit more on what was going on. First, I'm super anxious in general. This is a new skill. I have not had great times with riding leading up to now (my MSF was un-fun), so I just wanted to take a day to have fun with it without someone watching and end on a positive note. Second, I don't think I'm gripping the bike enough with my legs. Because of that, I'm leaning on the handlebars, which means anything I do with the throttle is being done while I've got my bodyweight on my arm. Once the weight was off, I felt a little bit smoother. I tried following the advice that I've seen about trying to hold the throttle like an ice cream cone, but that position feels really uncomfortable.

Hi Everyone, I am writing here since I feel embarrassed to say anything to my friends or family. I got my first bike about 5 days ago. I took the MSF course in January of 2026. I rode the bike around my neighborhood for the past 5 nights, watching DanDans intro videos + MotoJitsu. I am aware of how dangerous it is and take it very seriously. I was practicing figure 8's, U-turn's, etc. Today I was planning to go to a parking lot across the street to work on more drills. Instead I made a turn and ran into a parked car. I tried to grab the front brake but of course hit the gas as I tried to do so. I lost control and dumped the bike. My leg is a little banged up but otherwise so injuries. The radiator is definitely damaged and the headlight is bent. Feeling pretty embarrassed and frustrated by this since I was on my way to practice. Brand new bike too.

So my husband kindly let me know I was not shifting correctly off road. After watching a video I realized he’s absolutely correct. So today I went around the property trying out up shifting at certain points and standing up at others. The video is here, I’m still not sure I’ll keep the camera there, I managed to hit it a couple of times when standing. All my mistakes are in the video, @Daniel Tolomei , and everyone else, if you watch let me know what you think I can improve on. I hope you enjoy the tour lol PS: No, I was not wearing full gear because I’m going slow and I’m in our property and it’s too damned hot here. We’ve had several 104+ days in a row so it was just leggings and an spf shirt plus helmet, boots (I’m saving up for proper off road boots these will not do) and gloves.

anyone in the Phoenix area that practices often ?

Wore full gear and managed to go through this with just some pain and a few scratches