[campbell]

now is this bad for the car or is it okay to do? thanks.

Its not bad as long as you are rev matching when you down shift!

 

[campbell]

Translation => You shouldn't feel the shift, just the deceleration afterwards.

If you are running about 3K RPMs in 3rd and want to downshift to 2nd when you approaching a light, you would want to perform the following steps:
1. Depress clutch, pull shifter to neutral
2. Release clutch, 'blip' throttle (read as give it enough gas to raise the RPMs about 1K.)
3. Depress clutch, slide shifter into 2nd.
4. Finally release clutch about 1K RPMs higher then what they were in 3rd.

This should give you an idea of how to go about it. Don't take it as scripture, just get an idea...Good luck. It makes for much smoother shifts. Feels much nicer than letting the clutch pull the engine up to speed!