Originally Posted by Hiro11

OP appears to have abandoned this thread and hasn't responded the the many questions here.

Still, I'll comment:
The main rule is do not brake while cornering. If you find yourself braking while cornering, you entered the corner too fast for your ability. If the route is unknown and you find yourself braking through corners, you need to slow down. I don't mean to "told ya so" the OP in saying this. Proper technique is to brake fully before the corner, enter the corner at the proper speed that allows you to safely navigate without changing speed and then accelerate out of corners. Braking while cornering throws off your balance and introduces all sorts of difficult to control forces on your tires and bike.

Something that worked for me: if you really want to learn this well, borrow a cross bike or mountain bike and do some flat cornering drills on grass. Navigating through flat corners offroad really teaches you how to sense the limits of grip, how to best execute bike/body separation to lean the bike and how to brake properly. Also as the speeds are much lower in this type of drill, the consequences are much lower. Get some cones, find a field and give it a try.