Another story

Breath of life

So, I had always considered myself lucky because I had never gotten a teacher I can't communicate with and it's funny because I can a class where my classmates will ask me to ask the teacher because I can talk to the teacher. During 7th grade, both my band instructor and coach thought two separate lessons that I combined for almost 2 years before it became part of my persona. To begin with, we all breath. We do this all the time and while there is benefits that I never knew I would need until much later on. I played the French Horn during middle school. I was the worst one of the 5 we had but it wore the only ones who persisted through the lessons. My breaths were always short even now my breaths are short and unpaced. However, my instructor did not give up on me. I was one to ride bike to school because I enjoyed it at the time and would do so to get there early. During this specific week, the other 2 band directors needed to compose 3 bands in order to compete. I was on the lowest band, which didn't bother me, but my instructor wanted to place me on the middle band, and he believed that I had the potential as he viewed my early trainings as a form of dedication. He started coming earlier as well to teach me how to breath, play my instrument, sit correctly, how to read my notes, everything from zero. A week before competition, I sat down with all the band directors and had to play the song in front of them by myself. Before I could begin, I had to take a couple of seconds to breath and then we began. My hands were sweating, eyes were teary, I wanted to cough so hard, and my ears kept wanting to leave me in a deaf state. The whole thing lasted about 5 minutes and I had to keep pace with the instructor, not being able to take my eyes off him yet knowing that he was so close, yet it felt so far and isolated. Finish. I didn't survive. I passed with a good score and was allowed to go to the next band.