I'm new to mtb but came from road/gravel biking. There's of course just the fact that I need to get more hours behind my new fs mtb, and I
will naturally improve quite a bit. But there are also elements to mtb that I just never experienced on my road or gravel bikes, such as driving straight through a small or moderate gutter at speed, riding over medium-sized rocks, taking a jump, etc...
Basically, I am overwhelmed with the amount of different types of "features" and how to handle them all, and just watching hours and hours of YouTube videos on the subject only gets me so far, and often just makes me feel more overwhelmed (mostly with the weight distribution advice for various situations). This is probably a situation where I just need to get out there and gradually increase my skills, but even still, with mtb I've noticed that it's possible even on the "easier" stuff or even at slower speeds, to get into more sketchy situations even by accident than on flat surfaces.
That being said, are there any general tips you have when I'm going to ride over a feature that I frankly don't know "the proper way" to do so, that could help reduce my chances of losing control, flying off the bike, etc...? for example, I have no clue "the proper way" to ride over, say a rain gutter. It's not large enough of a feature for me to be shifting my weight way back, and then way forward, it will be ridden over and done with in a split second.. However, when I do hit them, sometimes it feels like I could have been in a better position; several times it's felt like I got thrown forwards which makes me wonder if trying to have weight towards the back was even a good idea. I think the issue is that on road, you dont typically have situations where there is a sharp slope down followed by a sharp slope back up 1-2 feet from one another, or a sharp dip down followed by another sharp dip up, etc... They don't typically build roads that way
A thought I had was lowering my dropper post and either bending my knees more (at higher speeds or larger features) or simply just sitting down lower to drop my center of gravity. Is this a solid strategy? Should I also be trying to hinge my upper body down lower similar to riding drops on a road bike?