{"id":40879,"date":"2023-03-10T01:41:26","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T09:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=40879"},"modified":"2023-03-09T09:42:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T17:42:00","slug":"bnai-mitzvah-tutoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2023\/03\/10\/bnai-mitzvah-tutoring\/","title":{"rendered":"B\u2019nai mitzvah tutoring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sasha Kaye (photo from B\u2019nai Mitz-Van)<\/em><\/p>\n

Sasha Kaye recently launched\u00a0B\u2019nai Mitz-Van, a tutoring service that prepares b\u2019nai mitzvah students for their Torah and Haftarah readings. She also offers basic voice training, performance anxiety management and d\u2019var Torah writing support.<\/p>\n

Kaye completed a double major in voice performance and psychology for her bachelor\u2019s degree from the University of British Columbia, and she has a master\u2019s degree in performance science from the Royal College of Music in London, England. In her master\u2019s thesis, Kaye examined the experiences of musicians with moderate-to-severe performance anxiety in simulated performance environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came back to Vancouver in January 2023,\u201d Kaye told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cMost of my time so far has been spent unpacking and readjusting to life in Vancouver!\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaye grew up attending Congregation Har El, where she is a member. She has led services as a lay cantor. \u201cI performed at various holiday and milestone community events, and participated in extracurricular, Jewish-led activism with peers from King David High School,\u201d she said about her younger years.<\/p>\n

Kaye has performed with the University Singers choral ensemble, UBC Opera, the Vancouver Orchestra Club and Postmodern Camerata, among other groups. She performs as a solo recitalist and has almost 10 years of teaching experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came up with the idea for B\u2019nai Mitz-Van while I was still in London, and the idea was partially inspired by my master\u2019s thesis,\u201d she said of her latest venture. \u201cIn addition to struggling with an anxiety disorder, I had particularly vivid performance anxiety as a musician. The two collided pretty spectacularly for my own bat mitzvah. Despite being well-prepared for it, I was constantly ruminating on potential mishaps and catastrophizing the consequences.\u00a0What if I got so anxious that I forgot the trope for my Torah reading? What if I forgot the words? What if my voice cracked? What if I dropped the Torah? I would let my family down<\/em>.\u00a0These cognitive distortions are evident to my adult self, but the distress was very real to 12-year-old Sasha. When I told people I was anxious, they told me I had nothing to be anxious about. While I\u2019m sure they were trying to reassure me, this ultimately dismissed my feelings and made me feel much worse. I had zero tools to cope with or manage my anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaye said she has little recollection of the bat mitzvah itself. \u201cI was so anxious, I essentially blacked out,\u201d she said. \u201cBased on second-hand information, I did well enough on the day, but I was unable to enjoy the simchah \u2013 and that\u2019s ultimately what the day should have been about. B\u2019nai mitzvot should be joyous occasions for everyone, including the b\u2019nai mitzvah themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who knows how to chant Torah and Haftarah, and knowing what I know now about performance anxiety, my hope is that B\u2019nai Mitz-Van can both teach young adults what they need to know for their special day, and also give them the tools to manage feelings of nervousness or anxiety that they may have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaye has experience teaching b\u2019nai mitzvah-age kids from when she used to teach singing lessons, which she did for about three years, and she has five more years of experience teaching older students.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerformance anxiety is extremely common,\u201d said Kaye. \u201cWhile it may or may not necessarily impact the quality of your performance, that doesn\u2019t make it any less uncomfortable to deal with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience can manifest cognitively, meaning through the kinds of thoughts you have, like fixating on the possibility of making mistakes in performances and overestimating the consequences; physiologically, meaning through bodily sensations like racing heart, dry mouth, shaking or feeling restless; emotionally, like feelings of nervousness, dread or irritability; or behaviourally, like avoiding practising.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow to manage performance anxiety is the million-dollar question!\u201d she said. \u201cThere are a number of techniques and methods that have been researched, and different things may work for different people. Some things that can help pretty reliably,\u00a0if they are practised,\u00a0are feeling prepared in your material; breathing exercises, like box breathing; grounding exercises that focus your senses on the here and now; and examining your self-talk, that is, how you talk to yourself in your own mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetraining self-talk can take a long time and it can be very challenging,\u201d she acknowledged, \u201cbut it helps to start by noticing how you talk to yourself. Would you speak that way to a friend who was going through the same thing? If not, chances are your self-talk needs some adjusting from the harsh and self-defeating to the encouraging and self-supporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

About working with b\u2019nai mitzvah-aged kids, Kaye said they \u201care at a really fascinating stage in life. They\u2019re starting to come into their own sense of self, and they\u2019re able to start thinking critically about the world around them without the cynicism that can follow us as adults. There\u2019s an enthusiasm and idealism for tikkun olam that\u2019s really refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, given her years of experience as a tutor of academic writing, Kaye can help students organize their enthusiasm and their ideas into a clear and concise d\u2019var Torah. \u201cMore importantly,\u201d she said, \u201cI help them find their own way of relating to their parsha, so they can find the lesson they want to share with the congregation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaye offers both in-person and online lessons. She can be reached at\u00a0bnaimitzvan@gmail.com<\/a>\u00a0or 236-515-9469.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sasha Kaye (photo from B\u2019nai Mitz-Van) Sasha Kaye recently launched\u00a0B\u2019nai Mitz-Van, a tutoring service that prepares b\u2019nai mitzvah students for their Torah and Haftarah readings. She also offers basic voice training, performance anxiety management and d\u2019var Torah writing support. Kaye completed a double major in voice performance and psychology for her bachelor\u2019s degree from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22173,6603,3076,218,3036,22172,22174,7381],"class_list":["post-40879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-bnai-mitz-van","tag-bnai-mitzvah","tag-education","tag-judaism","tag-music","tag-sasha-kaye","tag-tutoring","tag-writing"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}