I hear you Dave..............there really isn't such a thing as "practicing" forwards. You either commit or you don't. If you do commit in the type of local conditions we get there's a 99.99% chance that you'll fully rotate into the water start position with the sail still flying. Landing them planing does take a little more experience for sure. If you don't commit there's a long list of what can happen, none of them particularly pleasant unfortunately.
I damn near beat myself and gear to death in my early twenties with half assed forward attempts until I finally said eff' it one day and pulled the boom into my chest on a broad reach at warp speed. I ended up fully rotating to waterstart position with the sail still flying on the first real attempt. I was super stoked but kind of mad at the same time there wasn't any special skills involved. I swear forwards in small conditions are 100% mental.
Backies on the other hand, IMHO, are way more graceful and take way more skill to pull off clean. The ramp size, rotation speed and technique are much harder to learn. They are also so much more fun to me as your brain isn't scrambled on the end of the wheel of destruction. You can actually look around at the apex and pick your landing versus water, sky, water, smack in 0.3 seconds when your doing a speed loop.
I find now in my forties the big floaty jumps, backies and the occasional forward off a perfect ramp are more than enough in my aerial bag of tricks to keep me grinning from ear to ear. I'm enjoying and appreciating riding waves occasionally in DTL conditions far more now than I ever did 25 years ago when I started. I love the Continent 7 videos AG, Mike and Tony always post but my poor brain can't even figure out where to start on those spinning things
Thanks for posting Chris. I quit enjoyed reading that - both backs and forwards! 
