I’ve talked about Hard Things in this space before, and this is the time of year (about 3/4 of the way through the term) when such themes frequently re-surface. Students are preparing for performances, doing culminating assignments, feeling the fatigue of (and maybe not just a little bit of apathy about?) all they’re learning, and they feel sapped of energy, inspiration and ideas. It’s easy at times like these to give in to default settings of “fixed mindset” (“this is the way I am and I cannot change it”), and cower in fear.
I get it. I frequently feel the same. And each year when it rears its YET head again, I have to remind myself that this is a cycle, that we can move through it, that it will pass, and we will all be the stronger and wiser for it. Nonetheless, when that doubting voice emerges for the umpteenth time, we are tempted to succumb to its siren song. We want to bury our heads in the sand, run away, hide until it’s over. But again and again, I bear witness to the power and resilience of us all when we are able to step back, patiently untangle the knot together, and come up with a plan for action.
I was reminded of this acutely when one of my students came in early this week, sure that they were on track for disaster. This coming weekend is the NATS Ontario Vocal Showcase, and this student was registered in both classical and music theatre categories. We always have to anticipate where we are going to get to by the time this event rolls around, but we had miscalculated slightly on one of the numbers we had elected to do, and now the student was in a bind: it was clear that not enough time had been invested in some of the tricky rhythmic sections of one piece and fear showed up Big Time.
We sat together and tried to troubleshoot. The first point was: There are still 6 days until the performance. That’s a lot of time. I asked: do you think you can commit 10-15 minutes of each day until the performance to work in a focused way on the difficult sections? They nodded. I then asked them to identify the specific bits that were tripping them up. We pulled them apart and found techniques for practice that allowed them to feel confident and secure one small section at a time. Even within our short session, they began to feel more sovereign.
Fast forward two days later to their performance in our studio class: lo and behold, they had done the work and the results bore that out. I asked them to walk the rest of the class through the steps, the entire journey from self-doubt and almost-abdication to honest self-assessment, action and execution. It was a profound learning for the entire class, and a validation of process for both me and the student.
The picture that illustrates this post was taken this past summer in the Yukon, on beautiful Kathleen Lake in Kluane National Park–surely one of the most beautiful places on earth. Along the shores of this mountain lake, the rocky shoreline can seem at first glance to be austere, but it is teeming with life. As I sat quietly observing, this butterfly sunned itself on the rocks, and I captured it as it took flight. That was what I felt this week in witnessing my student rebound from what seemed like a bleak time. They took time to replenish their spirit in the work, and then rose from the hard things to soar among the clouds.