I’m thinking my next Thick Skull Mountain Bike Skills instructional series should be about unweighting/unloading, paying most attention to rear wheel unweighting and rear wheel lifts.
Many intermediate/advanced riders I see rely only on their suspension for small-to-medium obstacles and don’t seem to realize the problems that this causes, eg, loss of traction, fatigue, etc. And then they also miss out on some of the fun that a gnarly section of trail or a technical obstacle can provide.
Here’s a 15-second video clip from last October when I was experimenting with some parking lot drills on my hardtail, first showing rear wheel unweighting over some small firewood and then a rear wheel lift up a curb (no front wheel braking):