Random Advice for Judging Asian Parliamentary and Living Life.

みなさんこんにちは！今回は21期のネイティブ担当の美代にICUTについてのブログを書いてもらいました！全部英語で書かれているので、ネイティブならではの表現やジャッジとして大会に出てみてのアドバイスが読めると思います！

それではどうぞ！👇👇

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I was asked to write this blog literally 2months ago and just didn’t. Why? Because I’m a lazy person but also writing a blog about judging is kinda hard. Because it isn’t like I’m good enough to teach people about what to do when judging but also writing about what happened during the tournament is hard because there isn’t much to recollect on.

So if you’re here for like QUALITY blog reading I really DON’T recommend this one like read Tamura san’s blogs or Toshiya’s blog or anything but this one. If you’re just here for like “meh I’ve got a few minutes to kill, why not” THIS IS THE BLOG FOR YOU. This blog is just gonna give you random advice on judging and what to do before a tournament and that’s all. Will the random advice help you? I really don’t know.

So let’s get started.

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ICUT was at the end of Spring Break this year so thankfully I had time to actually practice judging. However because in the month of February I was in three tournaments, I essentially only had like 1 month to prepare.

Why is this advice important? I mean you really do want a lot of friends it does help you in life but not only that, you get to go to practices in different institutions.

There are two benefits in this

1. You get to practice more.

KDS has practices on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So when you have friends in WAD or UTDS you can go to their practice on Tuesday and Thursday. So essentially you get to practice judging 5 times a week! Going to practice a lot helps because just trying to be concentrated for a whole round is hard so it’s training your brain.

2. You can get help from an array of people.

At KDS I got help from Atsushi san and Kaito san and even though their advice was helpful, it doesn’t hurt to get help from others. When I went to WAD practices Goshiro san helped me a lot as well. You get a lot of different perspectives on the debate and different advice and you get to see different types of RFD. This is important because I think trying out different ways to present RFDs let’s you find the best way that fits you.

So anyways go to a lot of practices make a lot of friends and get a lot of help from people.

When I first started judging I SUCKED not like I don’t suck now, I’m still not good but I was way way worse. And people at KDS will let you know that you were not good. Not like it’s a bad thing, it is really important to get straightforward advice, but also your confidence level does go down A LOT. One thing that really helped me before ICUT was when I got complimented by Fujita san. I was the minor vote in the round and I was depressed because I felt like I wasn’t properly listening. But afterwards I heard from someone that Fujita san had said how I wasn’t wrong and I was giving correct reasoning. This literally shot my confidence level UP. Getting complimented is important no matter how old you get, it gives you confidence and helps you in the future. Because now whenever I feel depressed and sad that my judging wasn’t good or anything I just remember that ONE time I was complimented and try to keep my hopes up.

It doesn’t even have to be like a “Wow! You were good!” But even a small “Not that bad, you did well” can change the way people see themselves. And it’s something that people shouldn’t forget.

I have a lot of trouble with this because on one hand, I don’t want to be a burden on people and waste their time, but also wanting to get help and learn their trade. When it comes to debating and giving speeches there are so many sources to get help from. You can watch videos of debating reading files about debating but there isn’t MUCH on judging. I mean there is but not as equivalent.

So don’t be afraid to get help.

On that one time Fujita san complimented at the practice I went up to him and said I want to see how you took your notes and how you looked at the debate. He let me see his notes while explaining to me what each section that he wrote meant, and what he looks in a debate. And even though asking for help may not seem that hard but the first step is hard. However, the stuff that he taught me helped me so much in ICUT and if I hadn’t gotten that help I don’t think I would have been able to do so well.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help, people will never know to help you if you don’t ask for it.

This sounds so normal but speaking confidently really does help.  Because just seeming like you know what you’re doing will really be able to fool people.  Speaking in English for me makes me seem more confident and because ICUT is an international tournament I was allowed to do the RFD in English.  That’s just in my case, but if you just act and speak confidently people are gonna believe you.

Speak confidently and act like you know what you’re doing.

This is like a LEGIT advice man.  But I think this helped me the most in breaking as an adjudicator.  I was the panel for 5 of the 6 rounds during ICUT and this is the one thing that I worked hard on.  Because whenever I hear comments about other panels from my seniors they would always say how they were long and convoluted.  Honestly most of the time chairs like CARE about what you have to say but when its a vote it really doesn’t matter as much.  They usually want you to talk quickly and get it done so they can work on their own adjudication.  So what I did as a panel is try to keep my reasoning in 3 minutes at most and just state my vote, state which criteria I looked at them upon, and why I couldn’t have the losing team win. It’s really hard to do this but honestly it changes worlds of how you are seen.

Short and Simple is always the best way to go.

So this was my blog hopefully it was enough to make you waste a few minutes of your life.  I feel like KDS people make like really GOOD and LONG blogs that sometimes you just need a filler to get by.  That filler is this blog.  Hopefully, it entertained you for a quick second.

Thank you to all the people who helped me in breaking at ICUT not only to the people who helped me before like Goshiro san, Kaito san, Atsushi san, Shiho san, but also people who helped me during the tournament like Asano san, Reo san, and thank you to all the people at ICUT and the org comm members who worked day and night to have this tournament be a success.  You guys are the real MVP.

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Results of ICUT 2019

Pre Quarter Finalist(ベスト16): Hyper Vertical Blastoff (Takua Baba joint)

Best Adjudicators(ジャッジ賞):
3rd Best Adjudicator: Hikari Tamura
8th Best Adjudicator: Mashu Kobayashi
10th Best Adjudicator: Toshiya Ozawa

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ありがとうございました！強調したいことがストレートに伝わって要点がわかりやすい文章だったと思います✨

それではまた次回のブログでお会いしましょう👋