Round Robin! (Yum!)

Last Thursday our speech club held its first Round Robin. For those who don't know what a Round Robin is (or am I the only one?) it's like a regular speech competition--judges, postings, suits, ballots etc.--except only for practice.

This Round Robin was only for our club. We had about fourteen community judges, all invited by the parents. Some of them had years of experience judging speeches, others had never been to a speech tournament at all.

The round started at 2:15. Until then, my friends and I waited outside. It was somewhat comical to see two friends performing a humorous interp together on one side of the courtyard, while another friend silently practiced her dramatic interp facing the opposite wall. As for myself, I was far to nervous to do anything but twist my hands and pace up and down.

I delivered two speeches, two times each. That was a total of four times getting up in front of people. My old self could not have handled that much pressure. Yet with all this practice, public speaking is getting easier and easier. I was positive I was going to regret signing that piece of paper that let me into the speech club, but strange to say, I don't.

I love combining words--after all, I want to be an author one day--but I always hate having other people read them. Whenever I hand an essay or a story to someone to read, my heart is hammering at about 100 miles per hour. I'm never sure whether to stick around and wait for them to comment, or back off and let them critique without the added pressure of me staring them down. When I give a speech, on the other hand, I am in control. I decide how fast to go and where the emphasis belongs and can gauge their reactions.

It was sooo tempting, while giving my interp, to look at the judges and see how it was affecting them. Unfortunately, that is one of the few types of speeches where you're not allowed to make eye contact. However, after the Round Robin two of my judges came up to me and said my interp got them so angry at one of the characters, they wanted to jump out of their seats. On the outside I smiled and thanked them--on the inside I was like Yesss!!!

The Round Robin opened up my eyes to a lot of things that need work, such as speaking with more passion on my expos and exaggerating the characters' movements on my interp. I'm looking forward to the next RR, at the end of November, which will be in combination with several other clubs. Until then I have a lot of work to do.

Proverbs 14:23 "All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty."

Speech versus Writing: Which do you prefer? Why?