Episode Sixteen - A Learning Curve

The speaker is at a speech and debate tournament, specifically the Nationals. They have a guest on their podcast who is also competing. They discuss their nerves and how they cope with them. They reflect on their experience at this tournament, mentioning the larger scale and the pressure they feel. They talk about the positive and negative vibes they've had during the tournament. Overall, they discuss the challenges and emotions they face while competing. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Everything Showers. Sorry for not being super consistent. Summer's just started and so Sophia and I are very busy with different things. Right now I'm actually away. I'm out of town and I'm at a speech and debate tournament. I might have mentioned it, but I'm at Nationals, so the biggest tournament that there is for speech and debate. So it's kind of been hard to coordinate a time to do this podcast, but we're here and I actually have a guest on the podcast. She's actually my roommate for this tournament and she's going through the same process as me for getting ready, performing, competing, and going through the nerves, the excitement, the disappointment, all of it. So I thought what better way to talk about this journey and this lesson that I've kind of learned from this year's tournament with someone else who's going through right now. So with me right now is Nicole Hamm. She's a fellow student at Monte Vista, too. Hi everyone. She's really excited. She's like I'm coming on the podcast. She's the one that's been reminding me, oh didn't you want to do it? So we've had to sit down and do it, but now we're done competing. Not in the best of situations to be done competing, but we're done. So we're sitting down and going through it after some ups and downs. Like I mentioned, we're at nationals. I compete in dramatic interpretation, which a quick rundown is just an acting performance of ten minutes in a dramatic form essence of a published piece and you're trying to provide a message through an acting performance. I mean I'm not going to go into more depth than that, but that's really what I do. And Nicole, do you want to talk a little bit about what you do? Yeah, so I do informative speaking, which is basically just a research paper, but it's like entertaining and it could be about anything so I don't want to go too into depth either, but mine was about like gender and then you have to have like implications, like look at history and how it affects us now, stuff like that. Okay, so we both do that and so we started competing yesterday and today is Tuesday, June 18th and we're done. That wasn't supposed to be the plan. The competition lasts up to Friday technically, but for us it would be Thursday, meaning we did not make it past elimination rounds or pre- elimination rounds, whatever they call it. Yeah, prelims. We call them prelims. So yeah, so we're talking now from the aftermath of it, but before we go into the aftermath more, we kind of wanted to talk a little bit more about going into it and like the nerves and just talk about like ways we attempt to cope with some nerves we come up with and how we fail to do so too because at least on my end I struggle a lot with nerves and I think it's something that I think reflecting on it is good for me to learn and for other people to, I don't know, reflect on because I think self-awareness is a very big step towards, I don't know, working on tackling them because if you acknowledge that there's something really affecting you then that's the first step to getting better at it. I'll start off with Nicole though, so how do you find those nerves come up when you're practicing or when you're getting ready for a tournament? Where do you see it show up and how? Okay, so this season I really have focused on my nerves and they've really fluctuated like I've noticed that prominently throughout the season and especially when I'm preparing, I don't feel that nervous. I feel very calm and confident and I'm like okay, I'll just get through it, I can do it but I feel like not having that nervousness when I'm getting ready really made me procrastinate more in getting better because I wasn't stressed to make my piece better, I was like oh I'm fine, I could just get through it like I did okay before and I feel like that really contributed to this tournament because I didn't put in as much effort as I could have but that was just, yeah, in regards to nervousness before tournaments, yeah, I would say I don't have a lot and I feel like that isn't that great. So kind of for you you kind of, not that you wanted more but I think having some to some extent kind of implied urgency like implied kind of urgency to work and get better and I can understand that because I think that's how I feel but the thing is I'm kind of like the same way, I kind of feel like getting closer to a tournament but yeah, when I get closer to a tournament, I start panicking and overthinking and I think that kind of contributes to how I prepare because a lot of times, yeah, I procrastinate and so then I cram in a lot of work at the end and I think that's what amplifies my nerves and I just think that that's like yeah, I think a lot of my nerves are kind of how I, how little I prepare in advance and I think that's something that I'm trying to learn and get better on, it's just like how to space it out and maybe it's less about having nerves earlier, it's more about having that drive earlier because I think when you're nervous about something, that kind of reflects how much you care, the fact that you care because if I didn't care for what I was competing, you wouldn't feel any nerves to perform because you'd be like it is what it is versus I'm nervous and now I want this to go well. Yeah, I agree and I think the way that I coped because I hated the feeling of being anxious and nervous before a tournament, I hated it so much and the way that I coped with it was just not thinking about the tournament and I think that really kicked me in the butt because I didn't get as much work done as I could have and I was just ignoring it like I'm just not going to think about it, I have so much time when I should have been spacing out my practice times and looking at my boards and looking at past national videos of people in informative and taking notes from that and actually having the drive to be better because I didn't have a speech coach for like after I don't know, like the beginning of this year I just didn't have a speech coach at all so I didn't really have any structure, any organization of when something should be done so it was just kind of on me and that really affected my performance. And a lot of the times, I had a speech coach at the beginning of the year and I got my work done so in advance I had my piece done or my performance done like a month before the first tournament but then as soon as I lost the coach, I think I wasn't used to having it, well I had it all on me the year before but not to the same workload you know, last year I cut a piece quickly and I did the work I mean I'm trying to put it in terms that it's like relatable to other tasks I did kind of let's say the bare minimum versus this year after getting a coach and learning how to do things properly, I didn't put that work in that I could have afterwards and I think that's something that I want to take away from this tournament is that I want to learn how to turn that anxiety into drive and drive that comes earlier and sooner but in the moment, attempting to manage that anxiety honestly, I'm trying to think about how I try to manage it and I'm very bad at it so my advice here take it with a grain of salt. I think a big thing that I try to do is try to imagine the worst thing that can happen and then quantify what really that means so for example, if I'm in a situation and the worst thing I can do is blank and forget what I'm going to say which I actually did in one of my rounds will the worst kill me? And the answer is no. Obviously it doesn't completely take away all my anxiety in a round but it helps me get to the next step or get to the next point that's a big thing that I try to do. I also try to find what it is that's making me anxious and work on that and that's where I mean trying to turn that anxiety into drive it's like what can you do right now to minimize it what can you actually do to minimize those feelings there's some things that you can do to minimize it so more about we talked about how this tournament felt different and a lot of times when you're in an intimidating position or situation for anyone anxieties and stresses and nerves can kind of affect you in positive ways and negative ways I wanted to reflect how it affected us in this tournament because I think this tournament was very different for us both in terms of how we felt about it than in the past and so I wanted to talk about that because you mentioned it I'll let you go first about how you had positive vibes and negative vibes this tournament. Yeah so I totally agree with how this tournament was so different from the rest of them mainly because of just like the mental factor that this is a national tournament. There's so many people here. In my event I had like 260 people from all across the country and it's like you see people that you recognize from these final videos that are on the Speech and Debate website and it's like whoa I'm competing in the same event as these people right now. That was the biggest thing for me as well. I think that's what took my nerves to the next level is just realizing holy there's a lot bigger scale yeah and I feel like that definitely was a mental component but like I said before I just tried to I guess fake it until I make it and be like this is just like any other tournament just don't be nervous or else you're going to blank, you're going to mess up so in the beginning I felt the same as I did in every tournament. The first round was very nerve wracking like always. The first round is always the worst because you're not in the swing of things yet but after that it kind of got easier. So that was yesterday. All four rounds were okay. I came in today first round was fine. Second round it hit me. I was like this could be my last round and it was my last round ever for this piece and I was like it has to be my best one ever. Obviously it's my last one but that's when my anxiety really really kicked in. I was so stressed I haven't felt like that in round before I was going. I was like I'm not ready like how am I supposed to go up there right now and that's when I just tried to focus on myself, my breathing, just like trying to calm myself down. As the speakers were talking I was trying to look engaged in them speaking but also I was preparing myself. I was going over my script and sometimes I get in my head because I'm going over my script and everything gets jumbled up and different sections of my speeches just start blending and then I get even more nervous. I don't know. That second round today, the last one, was just really hard for me but I don't know if in AP world you were taught to look up at the ceiling and take breaths. That's what I tried doing. It opens up your lungs or whatever. So I tried doing that and I guess it kind of helped. I performed okay but that was the most stressed I was. See how, not ironic, but how weird that is the fact that you had gone five rounds not stressed and then your last one after you've done it five times was the most stressed and then you almost sold that round. I mean that's how I felt going into the tournament too. I've had this reoccurring issue that if I change this part that's called the introduction where you're acting obviously but there's this one point where you're actually speaking to your audience as yourself in my event and I've just always had this anxiety that I've changed it so soon to the tournament that I'm going to blank and so as soon as I get in my head in the round while I'm performing my mind will go blank and it happened to me. It threw the whole tournament off because after that round I got in my head and then I looked around and I saw other competitors that I recognized and I immediately thought, I don't belong here. So I think so quickly your nerves can turn against you. It heightens your senses, it heightens your ability to be focused but then it so quickly goes over the edge because I think it just takes a little bit too much to switch your whole perspective on the tournament because a couple months ago Nicole and I were at state and we both did really well. We both did really well and I think my mentality there was I was here last year this is my state, I'm comfortable with these people, I belong I kind of had that more sense of I had more control over the situation I still had my nerves because I still had the expectation to get as far as possible but with nationals I think there was just a little lack of control and so those nerves just went into overdrive and I think the mental game is so fundamental in every aspect of your life like sports, any activity because as soon as your mental capacity isn't there you're done. And I totally agree. I had a similar issue with my speech where I changed things very last minute before going in and I just didn't feel prepared so then I had to make sure that I was going over those lines making sure that I knew the order, where they were in my speech and that when I got up there and I kind of went into this autopilot mode I was able to say those lines. I was able to still think and I think that it's really important in those moments where you think you're about to mess up to really just slow down and actually think about it and we talked about this in between rounds where when you feel like you're going to forget the next line slow down, just take a breath and just calm down because it really isn't the end of the world because you know that you know it you know how to do this because we've been doing this for so long and we wouldn't go into it without knowing these lines it's not like autopilot yet so it was really just like reinforcing that throughout the whole tournament which made it so much harder to think about it all the time and then when you're up there that just tightens your nerves because you're like what if I blank the feeling of blanking is terrible. It was terrible. I remember last night after our first night of competition I was just panicking at the thought of blanking and so much so that I manifested it into existence. I manifested it happening by being that stressed because the next round I was like you know what I'm going to do my best while I'm up there and not overthink it right now I did better. I think I mean there were still a couple rounds where I had to kind of ad-lib my way through the intro but it got better and I think yeah it's just being in tune with your brain. I remember I just watched Inside Out 2 which Nicole wants to watch and so maybe we'll go together again but I remember the whole premise of it is that anxiety is starting to run the brain and I'm not going to try to spoil it but there's a point where she's doing something like Riley the girl that anxiety is trying to control she's trying to do something and then the anxiety root tries to help her and it ends up making her have a harder time or makes her need to work harder to do it well or whether it was hockey or something and I was like it just really struck me as like wow it really is so prevalent the way you think about something and how complex of a thing you make because I think honestly as much as we wanted to do good and as much as we showed we cared with our nerves I think if we didn't have those nerves at least on my part I feel like I could have done loads better in what I did this week not week past two days. Yeah. I think the anxiety just came from caring about the time it really did and also not wanting to embarrass myself a little bit. I think there was so much expectation riding on this but it was weird because I had expectations but I also didn't and you mentioned this and we might talk about it later but it's kind of like you have expectations to do well but it's also inside you feel like you're not going to get there anyway so you're conflicting that inside of being like I should be there but am I ready to be there and it's just like daunting so speaking of that and those expectations results of the tournament so we talked about the fact that we didn't advance and we were really bummed about it but granted we talked about it in each of our events we had what 260 entries and the advancing entries went down to 60 which is a big difference I mean 200 people didn't advance so we were taking it with a grain of salt but at the same time it was hard. You come all the way here and then you're just done after prelims you don't get any award or recognition that you got this far I mean you get like pieces of paper but you don't get what does the paper say it says Nicole Hamm representing San Fran Bay District Monta Vista High School. That's what you get you get a piece of paper Yay. Yay. Yeah. And we were talking about this with one of our teammates that also didn't advance he was really bummed out too I mean he advanced once but that was it and we were like if you don't get first you're going to get disappointed even if we get if we broke and then we get dropped it's just like you put in all that effort and then it's just gone I think the way he worded it is that you're always going to be disappointed unless you win win like you get first so yeah We got the lowest end of the stick but we're starting to be okay with it but the biggest thing that I'm trying to learn from this is I actually come with a lot of things that I learned about myself and kind of how weirdly enough how insecure I still feel because I thought after state that I felt pretty confident in my abilities to control a room have them listen to me speak my voice all of this and then I came here and I felt so small and why you know I had this abilities instinct and now I just I just lost it all and I felt I felt deep down in me that I was not going to advance in this tournament when I very well had the ability to and I know you did too. Yeah and I definitely agree with that I think you could have I'm surprised you didn't advance which is what makes it so more confusing because obviously it's amazing that we got here and then you look around at like other competitors and you're like are they the same level as me like some are lower some are higher and it's like where do I stand if I didn't even break and I don't know like with my piece it's very controversial it really depends on the judge and their beliefs and we're in the midwest so it's like gender and fluidity and stuff like that is very controversial so that could have impacted my scores and really it's just we've been saying this the whole tournament it's so subjective and it really isn't about our performance it's just like the luck that you get the judges you get the round you get it's just so many things go into it that go beyond how prepared you are because it's like beyond your control and so then it kind of gets you thinking like well what am I doing that's wrong or what is someone else doing that's right and I think that is a key point that we have to take away from this is that a lot of things in life a lot of activities in life including speech and debate which is what we do is subjective and so as much as we try to hone in on the fact that hey Nicole you didn't work hard enough or you didn't do this you worked hard we're not going to deny that maybe there's some things that you could have done better I could have done better but we both worked really hard there's nothing that you contributed that was like wrong or less than someone else like art is subjective theater is subjective performances are subjective you're not giving something to the table that's not worth it or good enough and I think that's the one thing that I like I hate about this activity though I love it but it's like the fact that you're putting everything that you love into what you do especially with prepared speech which is info where she gets to present what she wants to present it's not a debate topic that was given to her she's bringing this to the table I'm bringing this to the table it's hard to say that something is right or wrong or better or worse and not have that personally affect you and so that's like a learning point that we're trying to take away is that like sure maybe based on what this tournament resulted as sure maybe we're it looks like we're not good enough but that is nowhere near the case because I've watched her and she's watched me and I'm not going to lie we both deserve and we both yeah we both deserve everything and I mean that's the next lesson is that you're not going to get everything that you think you deserve or think you want I mean as much as I think we deserved it things go haywire and you kind of have to accept it and it's a bummer and that's why I think it's really good that we're recording this when we're in the middle of dealing with that bummer we're still riding the wave out yeah I went in the shower and I listened to music and she's outside and she's like oh I almost cried and she went in the shower and listened to music and I was like oh I almost cried listening to her music so that's kind of how we're feeling we're just like if you leave us alone for a little too long we're like we start thinking and we're like oh this is not good yeah and I think to most people just like the concept of speech and debate they're like oh it's just people that go and speak but it's like you actually put your soul into this you have to be passionate about it to do well to advance and I think for my topic I loved it I thought it was so complex and it really just brought a new conversation to the table and it's really disappointing I felt this thought in my last round today I was like this is the last time anyone's going to hear this I don't want to present it if it's not for a tournament like what's the point maybe I can go further with this issue somewhere but I don't know it's just hard I mean it is hard it's just so exciting to see that you can do so much on this stage and in this activity and just see that you're not getting that light that you feel you deserve and it's hard but then again I think you mentioned this I think another big thing I talked about the insecurity that I had but lastly it's kind of the expectation we have for ourselves I said I deserve breaking you deserved breaking but then again we also talked about the fact that deep down we had a feeling and we kind of told ourselves we weren't going to and I think that bubbled to the surface because as soon as you have those lack of expectations I'm going to say the effort starts to go down and I agree with that and I think that it totally affects your motivation and effort in the activity but the other thing is that throughout my whole entire season I had zero expectations for myself I came into the season I got a coach we worked on a topic I got my speech together my posters and I was like okay I have this I'm going to go compete and I did good like I don't want to gloat or anything but surprisingly I did good I was like okay I did good in the league tournaments and then I went to state I did okay there there were things I could have worked on then but my expectations through this all was nothing and then I was doing well and I was like whoa maybe having no expectations is the way to go and then at this tournament I just went in like I said I try not to think about it like no expectations and then that did affect my performance and I was like I didn't think that would happen because before I was doing well and I think that I was only doing well because I had such a demanding coach for me to start off well and have this good base that it just didn't carry me all the way through and I also think that a lot of the tournaments we went to were challenging but nothing to this level I think at this level it's a tournament that demanded expectations and if you have none those are bad expectations almost kind of and I think that's a point that everyone gets to and if you're not ready you're kind of going to what's the word I mean you're not going to succeed or advance or what not and so yeah I mean I think it's about having confidence I mean obviously you can be anxious but I think I'm trying to learn to let that anxiety fuel me rather than cower me really it's just about the dedication there's thunder and lightning going on outside yeah that was scary but I think it's really just the dedication most kids that do well at nationals they put in hours right when state was over they got their feedback they went to their speeches they fixed things they made their posters better whatever event it is they started right from the get go me I was like okay state's over I'm resting final stressful time I'm not even focusing on speech and it's just that balance of how much you actually do care how much effort you want to put in and I think that's why I'm disappointed because I know that the topic I had was so I could have done so much better with it like it was great I loved it yeah and other people also have amazing topics I may not have been the greatest of the great because there were so many rounds and I wish I could that's why I want to go watch the finals and that's another thing we're going to watch and learn from others exactly and I don't know what I want to do next year I'm definitely not going to do as much as I did this year because that was a lot of weekends and hours put into this and that's why I felt like I couldn't do more because I was so burnt out and there was just so much happening in junior year we have so many other things to think about that it was like this wasn't on the top of the priorities and I think on that note to just kind of close it off focus on putting in the work and dedication but not letting your anxieties or your not necessarily failures but like obstacles stop you from pursuing that because as much as we talk about all this I still love the event the event the activity sorry I still love the activity and I still want to work at it but I also know now that I have to not let myself get in my own head and I have to dedicate myself to it 110% but the good thing is is that I did have fun and the rest of the tournament we are going to have fun by learning from others watching rounds that are fun because good people doing the activity really well and I've had fun with Nicole here and so right now we're learning and we're kind of like dumping what we've learned and what we've reflected on and hopefully this is like a coping session we're not going to come out of here and cry I really hope so yeah is there anything you want to like summarize or no not really so I think that was everything yeah it was good to kind of get it all out and hopefully you can take something out of this and just know not to be too hard on yourself you're not going to win everything but you're not going to lose all of them I mean put the work and you're going to see the results thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time on everything showers bye