When students enter our studios, they usually arrive with some sort of baggage. Leftover and unprocessed feelings or emotions from the day, worries, stresses, fears. We often don’t see or hear about these issues, especially with students that are really good at “keeping it together”, but sometimes those feelings rear their heads during our weekly lessons with our students, causing a pause in our instructional time and begging for our attention. Here’s a recent account of one of these experiences with one of my college students: How we overcame the mental obstacles so he could perform beautifully, in spite of his anxiety.