Yeah with Rachel everything has to go smoothly. Dropping a combo hurts more since you spend your really important resources doing it. Wind makes combos possible. Wind makes zoning more effective. Wind makes your movement stupidly good. The only problem is that it's limited so you have to learn how to use it.
I went 0 - 2 at TXSD but they were all down to the final round. Speaking from experience, I always get discouraged when I drop stuff so the rest of my game suffers. I think the best way to learn Rachel is to learn what to do when things go wrong rather than assuming things will always go right (as in, oh I'll never drop this combo, etc.).