I haven't quite got the skidding technique down. I can for a foot or two, but it's an uncomfortable feeling.

Any advice?

Advice is the following: it will always feel relatively uncomfortable or unnatural, you just have to do it. As for the ratio, I started at 42:16 which I found to be a good beginner gear and when I built up my new bike went to 49:17 (an increase of about 4-5 GI). I would never go back to my old ratio, but it worked out great to learn.

Unweight your rear wheel more.

I started riding fixed on ~70 gear inches (42:16) and got annoyed that I couldn't go as fast as I wanted to, so I geared up. Once I developed a better/faster spin I went back down to 70.

dude, what size were you running when you geared it up?

getting off topic, im thinking about getting a set of track rims, i have a set of campanoglo rims, but they are fee wheel, i found videos on you tube to change them to fixie, but they are such nice rims i don't want to mess with them. what are some good choices for clincher, or tubeless?

Deep V's are the prevailing rim of choice right now, for their durability and good looks.

im not rushing to adopt tubeless just yet.

I rode 48/18 yesterday - slow as snot! Flipped it back to 48/16 and feels right, now.