Mom,

my young son says,

it is easy. Hold your feet like this, hold your rope like this and go!

.

He is right. His form looks good and he is instructing me mildly not because he knows how to wakeboard but because he has watched me face-plant dozens of times.

I can do the small pond ok, but I have a developing fear of the big cable.

The process goes like this:
Strap into your boots
Sit on bench
Grab rope/handle
Watch as a cable hitch traveling at 20 miles an hour zipping toward the rope you have in your hands

The advice is good:
Flex on 3
Watch the rope not your legs
Pretend you are jumping off a bar stool (going 20 miles per hour)
Keep your legs slightly bent, also flexed
Arms and handle at your hip
Hold on tight.

I have gotten off the dock a half a dozen times or so.
When I do if is wonderful–scary, not in my control. Wonderful.

But my fear of the launch process is getting to me. I have to do it enough that I am as comfortable hurtling forward at 20 miles per hour as I am brushing my teeth or riding a bike.

The process requires humility and commitment. And the consistent intellectual decision not to quit. I have to fear failure more than getting pulled across water at 20 miles an hour.

Forgive me if it all reminds me of Jesus.