Great question and thread, with lots of useful especially insights and perspectives. Just returned from 5 days playing in fast moving water. For the first four days, I felt rusty. For a variety of reasons this was this first time this season I had the opportunity to play in current and in conditions. I just didn't feel quite on top of my game and less confident in my abilities. On day 5, a few of us were given the challenge of chasing each other down the current, capturing boats, rescuing each other, swimming our boats to the eddy, and self-rescues. Paradoxically, this relieved the anxiety I was feeling about the conditions and restored my confidence. As soon as I had to focus on assisting my fellow paddlers (the first task) it took my focus off of the environment. So one thing I plan to play around with is the idea of giving someone a specific task to focus on. Note, I am by no means suggesting asking a nervous paddler to throw themselves over in the biggest conditions, etc... On,y this idea of focusing on a task...