Hey guys! How are y'all? I hope you're having a FANTASTIC week! This week marks the date last year, when we officially moved out of our house back in Texas! I can't believe it's already been a year! And, to tell you the truth, it's been one of the best years of my life. Yes, there was some of hard stuff I had to work through, what with leaving old friends, having to make new ones, and everything else that comes with being a Christian Sophomore. But it's just been an awesome time of discovery in the Lord, growing into who I think I'm supposed to be - and all I can say is thank you Jesus! But enough of that now :P Lets get into this awesome topic today! Throughout my three years of quizzing with SNU and one year with NNU, I've found that there's some misconceptions about making a Regional team, and what it's like to compete on one. And I know that a lot of you guys have already made a regional team (because y'all are just that awesome), and I know a good amount of people who are aiming for the very top in this next season - but I am also aware of the newer quizzers among us. So I'm going to take the time today to go through and tell you a little bit about what I've learned from being on two regional teams, and from competing at two national tournaments. First things first...
Kind of like your first year quizzing, your first time at nationals is most likely going to be a time of figuring out how it actually works, rather than focusing on making first place. Nationals, competing only against the top eighty quizzers in the country, is an entirely new level of the sport - and I'll talk a little more about that later on, in another post. But in general, pushing yourself even harder, when you're already at that high level of competition, becomes much easier once you have a vague idea of what's going on, and what it's like :P 2. Taking chances is the only way to succeed. At nationals, almost every question you jump on will be a toss-up because the pre-jumps are so crazy (given, that the harder you study, the luckier you get on these because your instincts are being honed to perfection ;)), and that means that you have to take a lot of chances. Think of it like this... If you never let the basketball leave your hands, and shoot for the hoop, taking the chance that you may totally miss, you have absolutely zero chance of scoring any points. The people who place the highest at nationals, are those who have almost as many, or even more errors than they do correct jumps! Erroring out with one right jump still leaves you with positive points - and that's a heck of a lot better than leaving with an even zero. If you don't take these necessary risks, people who are less skilled and talented, less prepared, and less experienced will pass you up and place higher for the simple reason that they're taking more chances than you - in addition, the more chances you take, the better your odds will be. But when you do have that unfortunate error out, every once in a while, it's important to know how to shake it off and just go into the next room with a fresh, positive mindset - that persistence, paired with hard work, is what is going to help you place. 3. Be overly compassionate, considerate, sportsmanlike, and Christlike. As you might expect, there are inevitably going to be people who are really stressed out, and who get torn up at larger, more important tournaments. And when that happens, when people have hard days, it's important for us to try and make it a little better. That means watching out for nice things we can do, being respectful and considerate in our sportsmanship during quizzes, and being an encouraging and compassionate face and voice - it will always come back to you. Even if they snap at you during the tournament, just do your best to smile and be kind and understanding, and they'll get over it eventually. I've had to do this a few times, when people didn't like how quizzes turned out, and I can tell you that after they cooled down, they really appreciated that I didn't argue back and make it a big deal - quizzers are generally really cool people :P And last but not least... 4. Those who deal with the stress the best, will place the best. Nationals is usually full of people who are stressing too much about it - and I'm guilty of that, but I'm working through it and this past year was a lot better than my first time :P I did a Part 1 and Part 2 about dealing with "High-Stress Competition" so I won't repeat all of that here, but this is the bottom line: if you have nerves, get rid of them! Enter a state of laser-like focus, where all you're thinking about are the words coming out of the quiz master's mouth, the condition of competition, and getting that one phenomenal jump - get to the place where you can literally anticipate a good pre-jump. If you're overly stressed out about quizzing, to the point where you feel physically sick, you've got the wrong motivations and/or values. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong :P Quizzing is an awesome thing! We've only got so many years to do it, so let's do it the best we can and not waste any time stressing over it! So there you are! Four basics of what to know about nationals for when you make a regional team this season! :P (Confidence is vital!)
I have some FIRE posts planned to drop later this month and in August, that will really get you pumped up for this year, so you can be looking forward to that, too! 1-2 Corinthians is going to be super amazing as well, even above what I believe the advances will be in the competition in 2017-2018 - the Lord is going to do some incredible things is our lives this year through the material, so lets throw the door wide open for Him and enter in with EXPECTATION! I'll be coming back will some exciting new developments in this blog soon, in time for the season kick-off, and I know they are just going to rock the quizzing world ;P Anyways, I love you guys SO much, and I hope that this week is the absolute best! I'll see y'all next Monday! But until then, as always... Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory
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Trending Posts:Author:Mallory is a graduated Teen Bible Quizzer originally from the Southern region, moved to the Northwest, coaching quizzing over the book of Matthew. Check out our
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