With the opening of the season’s first national circuit tournament two months away, extempers everywhere are spending their off-season relaxing, but should also be doing some preparation. Here are five quick suggestions for how to spend your summer so that you are prepared for the 2013-2014 season.
1. Review Your Season: When your season ended, whether it be in February, March, or after nationals in May or June, you should look back at the previous year and assess where you stand. If your coach gives you old ballots from tournaments look through them. What parts of your analysis and delivery did judges like? What parts did they pick on? You know the best judges in your circuit or region, so use that to weigh these criticisms. By becoming aware of your progress and where you came up short the previous year you can better prepare yourself for success in the next season.
2. Set Goals: It is very important to set goals for the next season. Goals are important because they give you something to look toward and can motivate you when you are feeling burned out. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down at least five goals for the coming season. These can range from as small as securing a first place rank in a preliminary round to winning a local tournament or even winning the state championship. Make sure that most of your goals are obtainable as well. If you didn’t make the state final the previous season, that might be a better place to establish your goal than saying you are going to win the state championship.
3. Identify Your Content Weaknesses: You can look through your old ballots to do this or you can reference the archives questions at Extemp Central from last season or year’s prior. Look through the domestic and/or international questions and assess which questions you would have been able to answer easily and which you would have had difficulty with. Use this to assess what areas you should read about this summer.
4. Read Wisely: You are never going to be able to read everything that’s out there. There are way too many sources and too little time. You will also get burned out quickly if you read too much in a short amount of time. Since the season is still two months away, concentrate your time reading op-ed pieces from the major newspapers and think tank publications and policy journals. These will provide you with more depth than regular news pieces and you will be able to get more mileage from them during the year.
5. Refine Your Speaking Skills: Just because you don’t have a tournament coming up or are not getting regular coaching, especially if you could not afford to go to a camp, that doesn’t mean you can’t practice your skills. Use the sample questions on this website, give yourself thirty minutes, and give a couple of speeches a week. You can do this in front of a mirror or anywhere. Malcolm Gladwell once noted that you need 10,000 hours of practice to be really good at something, so get that time in during the summer. You can also spend time working to get your outlines done in a faster amount of time if that gave you fits during the season.
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But that’s 416.6 days. I can’t fit that into my summer. 🙁