You usually don't practice gliding when learning how to fly a small aircraft, they simply don't glide very well. What you of course do are power-off landings –

You usually don't practice gliding when learning how to fly a small aircraft, they simply don't glide very well. What you of course do are power-off landings – on airfields, for example from the downwind, and simulated, i.e., you make a go-around just before landing, outside an airfield. Sometimes, it works, sometimes, it doesn't, there are many factors … that's why you actually fly with power idle and not with power off. There're still a few incidents, i.e., somehow the practice becomes tool real! All in all, power-off landings and other emergency training are an important part of becoming a pilot but you don't spend that much time for them. Other things are much more time-consuming in a typical 45-hour syllabus.