I'll appreciate any hints or advice that any of you can offer. Here's the situation. My wife attempted her certification course a year ago but pulled herself out during the second day of pool work. The mask removal was the final straw but she had considerable anxiety throughout, I think. Well just this last week, she went back with a very patient, understanding instructor who recommended lots more pool practice with lots of hints to get used to breathing without her mask. Everything went quite well and she finished part 1 successfully and very excited to continue. Then came the open water part. She felt anxious upon entering the lake but made it down to the 20 ft. training area. After watching the instructor do partial and full mask flooding with other students, she began to panic and went to the surface and spent the rest of the training session hanging onto the flag float. The group of students finished with a fun dive to shore and she went along, feeling good about her bouyancy and thought that it was fun. I think that her anxiety was due to the thought of performing the skills. I recommended to her that she pay attention to her breathing because the shallow, rapid breathing will serve to bring on the panic. She will return tomorrow and I'm confident the instructor will be good at calming her, but today she is concerned about learning anything she can about reducing her open water anxiety. Thanks in advance for sharing your wealth of experience.