my own inexperiences with ribbons is not good, i have not had any for more than ten years and when i did i never managed to stop them being very skittish, i think the problem was that they were always wild caught snakes, Shannon has her's eating out of her hand [literally] and her's are captive bred.
don't worry about being nervous handling the snakes your confidence will come with time, i still remember my first experiences with my grassnakes.