Judging Update

I judged the type of event I participated in in high school, and did reasonably well at then. So I had seen, however many years ago, children of the same age do this much better than what I was seeing in front of me this morning.  At the time I was judging in the morning I had a fairly clear idea what the difference was, and could relate it back to the last time I judged, even though those events, Persuasive and Impromptu, were somewhat different from Open Interpretive and Biblical Thematic that I saw today. I had the mechanics of judging down, I had an idea I thought solid, and I discussed it with some experienced judges and coaches over lunch. They were in agreement, and thought that only a percentage of students would get what I was driving at, and those mostly older and more experienced. One coach told me that he had a boy a few years ago who had learned it by junior year, and had won at nationals two years in a row, clearly better than all the competition.

So for whatever reason (perhaps related to increased abstract reasoning somehow?) only some will get it, but they thought if I wanted to hit that idea hard in my judging comments it would be a good thing. So I did. I worked some or all of the following into every ballot I filled out this afternoon.

It's not a race. If you watch a movie, or a standup comedian, you will see that they use the pauses and hesitations as much as the words to get their character and story across. You should be pausing in the middle of some sentences, and the end of others, and when you get really good, even have some planned "false starts" where you begin a sentence again after a word or two - just as it happens in real speech. If you have gone three straight sentences without a serious pause or a hesitation anywhere, you have probably done something wrong. You should change expression in the pauses as new thoughts appear to occur to you, or sigh deeply, or shake your head.  It should take twice as long as just reading the words.

I did not write, because there was not the time, but to expand here: Consider the story of the woman taken in adultery in the Bible. When we read it aloud, it rattles right along. But to act it as a scene, there is a long pause between the question to Jesus the question changed and repeated a few times, and his answer; a painfully long pause while he draws in the dirt; a long pause between his question to the woman and her answer.  She has been weeping and is not nearly recovered.  She came up to the edge of a painful death. She still isn't sure what happened to her or who this man is. Her crying should not be wailing or shrieking, but soft, and she should have a hard time saying anything.  Then Jesus pauses again, and may even pause between "Go now...and?" and she looks at him puzzled, not knowing what to answer. When he says "Sin no more" that should take her a while to absorb as well, before she nods and walks away. It takes a minute to read verses 4-11 out loud.  It should take four minutes to act it out. Don't do that for performance at a competition - unless you have been doing this pausing for effect for a few years - but do it for practice.

Or in the chapter "The Rashness of the King" in CS Lewis's The Last Battle, the scene between Tirian and Jewel the Unicorn leading up to "...we must go on and take the adventure that comes to us."  Thirty seconds read aloud. Twice that when acted, or more. These are the most important moments of their lives you are enacting.  They aren't rushing, they are absorbing moment by moment.