May go without saying but this is a valuable skill to try before you actually need to access the water. I drain my water heater once a year at day light's savings for maintenance on the heater. I use the water hose that's connected outside the back door, and drain the heater into the yard.
Truly helps to have tried things out to know you really can do them when needed.
But I don't see the need to actually drain (if you mean to empty)the tank.
The drain valve is the low point so running 5 gallons out from the low point should get the sediment out. In the boiler/steam generator world this is known as a "bottom blow" and is a periodic maintenance item for powerplants and ship boilers. (yes, really)
I wouldn't give my old hoses away because some folks would just think of them as 'like-new' and would install them and blame me when the hoses failed later.
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