Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - hello all.. new to fixed gear

hey guys. cool forum. i just got a fixed gear built for me, and i've been having a blast for the past 3 days.

i've been a student in boston for the past 4 years and i've been a very avid rider, but just on my sister's hand-me-down trek 820.

finally i found a guy who could build me one for a price i liked (i'm no gear-head. though now that i'm graduating, I will probably spend some time learning more about bicycle mechanics). he did a great job.

it really is a ton of fun, and such a good work out. i have a quick question.

i've read a lot about people skidding to stop quickly. i've been trying it, and it feels like it's impossible. it just pushes me up out of the saddle. i have pretty strong legs from playing soccer and doing plenty of riding beforehand.. so am i doing something wrong? am i just to scared of the resistance? do i need to do something with my arms on the bar? i also read some stuff on sheldon brown's site, and he suggests using the break anyway, because that's what it's there for. but my front break doesn't seem like it can stop on a dime.. should it be able to? i inspected them, and they're striking the rim correctly.

all in all, it's been great. hills, both up and down, are a great challenge. my knees are a little sore after the past 3 days, but i think that's just from not applying even pressure to slow down at first (i'm still learning)...not to mention the few times i caught myself instinctively coasting, only to have my leg shoved up into my hip.

I have always heard it called Leg Locking. It's really not that hard to do but it does take some time to learn. One thing is that you kind of have to stand up to do it. I would say that you should go downtown and watch the messengers. I would be happy to show you a little about it as well, just PM me sometime.

Not to nitpick, but it's a brake, not break. Just one of those things.
Three things about skidding: First, stand up and put a bunch of weight on your handlebars. You're trying to shift you weight forward leaving less on your rear wheel. Now it will take less force to lock the rear wheel. Practice this on grass where you have even less friction than on pavement, good way to learn and if you fall over it hurts less. :)
Second, you need to be able to pull up with one leg and push down with the other to really effectively skid, at least to learn how. So if you don't have clips and straps or clipless pedals they'll help a lot. In fact the switch from clips and straps to clipless actually makes skidding quite a bit easier (it did for me).
Last but not least, the taller the gearing, the more difficult it will be to skid.

I learned on wet pavement. Grass would cause alot of grab IMO.