Am I ruining my clutch?

the clutch is a wear item. unless you smell burning it's probably fine.

man I had my first legit hill start the other day and I am new to driving manual. I fucked up the first time and stalled it. had to brake immediately to catch myself from rolling back. revved that bitch up to 2.5k and just dropped it and took off flawlessly

I doubt it

OP this might help you if you're still here... I had no idea I could use the regular foot brake while doing hill starts for the longest time until someone suggested.

You can practice this yourself, especially if you're just slipping to set off instead of gassing... should be easy. You hold the brake firm and let off the clutch until you feel a shake, hold the clutch foot and drop the brake slowly. This will usually mean you either hold steady or roll forward a bit. Keep practicing until this is the case (sometimes you will roll back means obv you need to clutch out a bit more). I use this a lot in drive-thrus since people are right up on your ass and you don't want to risk any roll back.

I've been driving stick for 5 months too! It's fun, isn't it?

this will only work if you're driving a non-shit box. my mx-5 doesn't make enough torque idling to slip the clutch like that and make any meaningful difference

>foot on brake
>release clutch to just under the bite point or if its a really big hill most of the way into the bite point
>get on the gas right away but only enough to get rid of the shake

Just make that transition as smooth as possible. Stop giving a shit about the people behind you, as long as you don't roll into them who cares. I mean this probably is a lot more difficult for cars with absolutely no torque. My shitbox 07 mazda 3 made 155ftlbs off the line. Don't know what it makes now.

There are Zero(0) hills where i live, I encounter maybe one every 6 months if im lucky. so im really not surprised he woudlnt encounter any hills if he lives in a flat area