First time having manual brakes, are mine bad?

Not normal. With the stock size master cylinder the pedal will be hard but you shouldn’t have to “stand on it” to come to a stop.

The “usual suspects” have already been recommended as far as troubleshooting goes. What year is your car? Are the disks original to it?

I prefer manual disks on these cars over the factory power systems. I switch them over to a 15/16” bore master cylinder (makes the pedal effort a little better). The pedal effort is nothing like a new car if you’re used to that, but it shouldn’t take anything extraordinary to make the car stop.

Hah, beat me by a minute.