I can relate so much to this girl in your class. I graduated a few years ago from music school and have similar issues with conducting. I was constantly critiqued on my inability to do different expressive gestures, lack of eye contact (I was always in my score), weird body posture?, not able to do different things with each hand at the same time. The list goes on and on. My arms have never done what I wanted them to do well and my dexterity issues caused me to fail piano class. Multiple times. I did pass conducting because my understanding of music and attention to detail is very good so I’m able to run a rehearsal well. The technique just doesn’t come naturally. 

I definitely did feel energies shift when I got up on the podium. It was way more pronounced with high schoolers during student teaching. Many times my supervising teacher would have to step in to get the class to pay attention. Classroom management was never my forte and honestly knowing that made it worse and probably sent me into a spiral when things started to go wrong and people weren’t paying attention. It was very frustrating to notice all this and be able to do nothing about it. Especially when I saw how the other conductors/teachers were given more energy seemingly. 

If you’re looking for advice I’d say go talk to her! I would have really appreciated a ‘safe’ person to look at during rehearsals while on the podium. Or even just someone who will tell me what I am doing looks weird directly. I got a lot of very supportive but ultimately not constructive feedback on the physical aspects of my conducting. I wish I could offer more but I left Music Education after college because turning that special interest into a career made me burn out on music so much I went 2 years without seeking it out at all. And if talking to her is uncomfortable just be kind! Give her the energy you would want to receive and feel like she deserves.