I remember when I learned how to ski. It was something I had always wanted to do, since I was a little kid sitting on my dad’s lap, watching James Bond movies. To me, it seemed like a vital, “grown-up” skill one simply had to possess. After all, what else would one do if chased by enemy spies in the snow? Sneaking into 80’s sex comedies reaffirmed my secret suspicion that the older kids who could ski were definitely enjoying themselves a lot more than I was.

Learning to ski taught me how to tough it out, push through pain, to suffer for something I really wanted. My first day on the slopes, I must have fallen fifty times or more. I fell after every run. By the end of the day, my body was aching, and spotted with black and blue bruises. I looked like an albino cheetah.

The next morning, my friend woke me up, and said it was time to hit the slopes again. I would be lying if I said I was eager. I had never been as sore as I was that day. But I wanted to ski. I had to do it, and even more importantly, I knew I could do it. Even though my first day had gone so badly, I knew in my heart, I was supposed to be able to do this. It may sound corny, but that’s exactly how I felt.

As we rode the chair lift up, I mentally prepared myself for the beating I was about to inflict on my already battered body. But then a strange thing happened. As we reached the mountaintop, I slid off the lift, hit the snow, and went… and never looked back. I didn’t fall once that day. I rarely fell again. Later on that trip, I beat my friend and his entire family, all of whom had been skiing for years, in a race down the mountain. It was like a switch had been flipped. Yesterday I couldn’t ski. Today I could. It was one of the most reaffirming moments in my life. I had been right. I did have it in me, and I had only to endure the pain, ignore the fear and doubt, and I was rewarded with the almost Promethean gift of flight and speed across the ice.

Surfing, on the other hand, is taking a bit longer.

From all outside appearances, I’ve pretty much sucked since day one. But, if you increase the magnification, look a little closer, the improvements are there. Like an optical illusion, or trick of the light, you just need to take a few steps back to see them.

For instance, I used to get pounded because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The waves, if they had any size at all, would just crash over me. If they were smaller, they would just flow under me, no matter how hard I paddled. Now on the other hand, when I wipe out, it’s because I’ve caught a wave, but I’m not able to pop up in time, and it just closes out on me.

I was pretty bummed out the other day, after getting hammered over and over, and I left the beach without standing up on a single wave. But on the way home, I realized I was actually catching waves. I was choosing the wave, paddling my heart out, and getting it! A couple months ago, I would have killed to say that. That was actually a huge improvement, despite the vicious beating the ocean had inflicted on me! I just had to see it in a different light.

So surfing has not been a “light switch.” For me, it is an uphill climb, over a treacherous, constantly shifting mountain trail. And yet, the feeling of peace and accomplishment I get after a morning spent bobbing in the ocean has become addictive. Driving home from the beach with the sun shining, the radio blasting, no traffic in site, and knowing that I took those next few steps, has become an important, and immensely gratifying part of my life.

Skiing was amazing once I got good at it. Surfing is amazing now. And I can only imagine what it will feel like when I reach a new plateau, and I can look down the trail and see back to those tiny first waves, breaking on the distant shore below.