[_puk]

To what level?

Being able to waterstart, turn and stay upwind is akin to being able to order an evening meal in a foreign language.

That may be enough to say box ticked, I've learnt that, but in reality your not going to be throwing down megaloops or back mobes; that's ridiculously hard.

Not trying to knock you personally, fantastic that you've taken it up; Maybe I'm just bitter that after well over 10 years at this I still get shown up by the local kids :)

[peterbraden]

How much of that is about the difficulty of the skill and how much of that is the potential for injury? I disagree that learning those skills is harder with age, but healing is undeniably slower for older people, so you tend to become injury averse.