Rough water doesn’t care how ready you feel. Train in the calm so the chop isn’t your first lesson.

Conditions do not wait until you feel confident. Difficulty arrives on its own schedule, and whatever you have practised by then is all you get to use, which means readiness is built in the easy weeks rather than found in the hard ones. A lot of what feels like bad luck is a first lesson showing up at a bad time.

Pick the thing you are quietly hoping will not be tested, and test it this week while nothing is at stake. Do the hard drill on a good day, sit the practice exam when it does not count. Being uncomfortable now is cheap next to being surprised later.