I took a 2 day motorcycle safety course and now looking to get out into the neighborhood. Baby steps
well 2 day in the right direction is a good start. If there are more days of classes available, do that please. If not, I would say do the following...
If you get a new or used bike go find a big empty parking lot and practice starting off from stopped and stopping from 5, 10, 15, 20mph max. start off with only 1 light finger on front break and avoid any gravel areas. The front brake is your friend and enemy. it does the best at stopping and if the front wheel locks and slides you usually crash. On my new CTX I never use more than 2 fingers.
practice slow turns with feet on pegs. practice big figure 8's to get a sense of balance between you and the bike. After a few hours of this maybe rest and try it again the next day. Move on to low traffic areas to get a feeling of town driving. Expand on that.