General Cycling Discussion - Advise and Descent

I ride in hilly Austin, Texas just about everyday and I love to climb, but my descending skills are scary bad. I was in a nasty bike/car accident (broken L fibula, cracked R tibia, cracked L clavicle, 2 separated shoulders) in early June, which has left me a little more cautious. Even so, I have never been a good descender.

Any advice would be much appeciated. Thanks.

Relax. Don't tense up. Easy to say I know, but a death grip on the bars makes it harder to take the corners smoothly.

Any local bike coaches?

Basics are:
1. As already said - relax
2. Inside pedal up, outside pedal down
3. Put weight on outside pedal without lifting backside of saddle
4. If there is room/visibility , try and cut the apex of the corner
5. If you can't do that fully, because of traffic, etc., cut the apex within your lane
6. Relax
7. Relax
8. find local club if there is one and ride with them - tell them about your descending problems and they'll probably be able to help/advise/demonstrate
Good luck and a swift full recovery

To recap. I will:

1) relax
2) inside pedal up
3) relax
4) shift weight to outside, and
5) relax

I will try these techniques on smaller hills to begin with and gradually build up to bigger stuff.

I appreciate the information.

And as a wise man once said, "The goal of life is not to increase its speed." You can go at a speed your comfortable with. If you want to pick up the pace at a later time, that's ok too.