I've only been towed, so I can't give direct info on what it feels like on the other end, but I assume its similar.
Yes, almost all gliders will fly at a lower airspeed than the towplane. One admonition of glider pilots is not to climb above the towplane's tail. Lifting the tail of the towplane on a taildragger is not good. Probably not so great on a nose wheel either.
Lift off and stay low in ground effect, as directly behind the towplane as you can. You have a lot of leverage on his/her tail at a speed they're not yet flying at. Towplane pilot has to see and immediately react to yaw and pitch changes if the glider does something bad back there.
From inside the glider the tow rope slack is taken up prior to power application by the towplane and done smoothly there's no jerking or banging around. Glider and/or wing walkers signal to the towplane when the glider pilot is ready to go (rudder wag by the glider, see hand signals and other signals in the SSA book... Most glider operations standardize on them, safety briefing always at any new club, competition, or airport!) and the towplane adds power smoothly for takeoff.
On a grass runway (common), both aircraft bump along a bit, and little moments of slack and recovery happen in the rope. Generally the pull is a pretty smooth acceleration to takeoff. Glider off the ground first, towplane next, and then glider plays tail chase in the simplest tows. Keep it right behind the towplane's tail.
Once high enough for pulling the tail of the towplane around a bit, a common training technique for learning the tailchase and how to stay there, is "boxing the tow" where the glider moves from above left, across to above right, down to below right, and then over to below left. (Or starting from any of those locations, really.) It has an effect on the tow aircraft, but briefed the tow pilot knows most students and instructors will do it. On tow, there's some issues with turns if caught on the "inside" ... tow rope can go slack if the glider cuts the corner. CFI-G will show how the rope gets slack and how to recover smoothly and when to simply release if it gets so out of hand the rope is headed into the glider's wing. The results of a slack allowed to get that out of control when the towplane hits the end of the travel, can be bad. Rope is equipped with an overstress device that will release but you really don't want to abuse the gear like that.
Various things can force a release for safety reasons, but if all goes well, the glider releases when they want to, and the aircraft go opposite directions in both direction and altitude at tow release. If the release happens under any significant strain, there's a good "pop" and a spring forward of the tow aircraft and rope... Not really good form. Glider should try to release under normal tow load, not on a rearward pull.
The SSA book and a good CFI-G can explain it all a lot better than a quick post.
The towplane returns to the airport with the tow rope, and that's something to keep in mind on landing... There's a rope back there, don't catch it on the airport fence.
Of course, like any other flying operation there are some critical times in the flight. Takeoff to 200' AGL or so is critical. Below that, if the towplane has to release the glider for an emergency, the glider isn't doing a return to the runway. Not all gliders can do it that low either, but that's a common altitude for Glider Commercial candidates to do air return on a simulated rope break if I remember correctly.
Turbulence can also get things out of hand during a tow.
One could even have a rope that refuses to release from BOTH ends, but that's rare and would be relatively entertaining... Formation landing on a suitable runway... Glider way above normal approach speed in some gliders...
A whole new list of interesting things to learn about how to operate safely.
If my glider stuff is rusty above, it's been a long time. I really should go do some soaring.
Double, Double Ditto