Wake Boarding Woes

Living on Lake Templene in Sturgis, MI (the Mexican capital of the United States), I have recently taken up the watersport wake boarding. For those of you that aren't familiar-it's basically snowboarding but on water. Since I'm not a snowboarder, it's taken a while to get the hang of things. But I'm not one to take things slowly; when I think I want to try something, I'm going all out-no half-ass. In many areas of my life this strategy deems successful, but in wake boarding...well, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Day 1-I got up easily (no Viagra necessary), and started exploring the wake, moving from one side to the other. My friend, being the motivator he is, kindly challenged me to try jumping the wake ("Come on, pussy!"). That was enough of a dare for me. I glided out to the right side of the wake, and then tried to jump it when I came back in. According to my buddies, I got an inch of air before wiping out, but it felt like a foot to me. We came up with the theory-one inch of air feels like one foot to the rider, two inches feels like two feet, etc.

Day 2-Day 2 was a big one for me. I started progressing rather quickly with my bravery and my ability. With ability comes air and fun; with bravery comes either gaining of ability or painful wipeouts. Today, I leaned more towards the painful wipeouts side of the spectrum. After hitting a few jumps and getting actually a couple feet of air each time, I quickly gained bravery. I was hooting and hollering like a little schoolgirl on Christmas morning. So, I went back out to the right side of that wake and I was going to attempt a flip. As I came back, approaching the wake, I bent my knees and pushed off of that muddy, weedy lake water and launched into the air (a whopping 3 or4 feet). Since I had no experience doing any type of flip or trick on a board, let alone my own feet, I didn't know what to do once I was in the air. Take a look for yourself at what came of my idiotic (but awesome) bravery:

As you can see, the flip quickly turned into me being parallel with the water, face down of course. It is obvious that I immediately realized I would not be landing this "flip," as I let go of the rope in the first picture.

Note to self: don't attempt to brace fall with hands. I must have forgotten the physical characteristics of water; it is easily penetrable.

Note to self: bracing fall with face isn't much better. This wipe out happened this past Saturday, and I still have a stiff neck (I thought I said above I didn't need Viagra?).

Laugh all you want-this was very painful. Now, I get to challenge all you pussies to go do the same thing!