Finally, I look at what I have identified as my current weaknesses and how I plan to make improvements in these five areas. It's important to remember that improvement won't happen overnight, or even between one tournament and the next - it will happen slowly, and you might not even notice it at the time. That's why I sit and reflect at the end of a season on what needs to happen over the next. My targets are set for essentially European Games, not Southern Cup or even BQC. I will have made some progress by then, yes, but pushing for it unreasonably will just leave me disappointed!
1. Speed.
After two years of not training for quidditch regularly (damn health issues!), I'm finally going back to university where I can train multiple times a week. This encourages me to run, something I do not enjoy doing, and also means I will be sprinting. The key to getting better at these things is doing them a lot, along with general improved fitness, and I believe that being back in an active quidditch environment will help me with this. I know how to do sprint training, as much as I dislike it, so I will get on doing that around the parks, hopefully where no-one can see me - at least until I have speed greater than a sloth doing a snail impression.
2. Boundary rules.
This is going to be a boring case of read, re-read, and make sure they're enforced. I'll probably annoy everyone at practices by reciting them every time someone goes over a (makeshift) boundary, and I'm planning on drawing a pitch on A3 paper and writing the rules around the appropriate boundaries - if this works, I'll try and scan it and put it on the blog. The final thing is making sure I'm solid and consistent in enforcing them during tournaments, even if the number I know confidently is small to begin with. Balls (and people) go over boundaries all the time in quidditch, so there will be plenty of opportunities to give the back to hoops and turnover calls. It will help when other referees work on it too, and I know that it is an aim of a few top referees to improve on this, so teamwork will make the dream work. Or something.
3. Chatting to players.
I said at the beginning that things couldn't be improved over night, but this can be. It's literally just a case of me remembering not to do it, and keeping my mouth shut at the right time. I'll note here that this is a style thing as much as anything, and while you will generally appear more professional if you take less backchat, there are levels where you can balance a chattiness with professionalism. You have to find a balance that works, and that you are happy with. Currently my balance works, but I feel I am too lax at times so I want to at least experiment with being a 'harsher', less chatty referee. Maybe it won't work, maybe it will. Growth can only happen if you also make mistakes! (sorry for all the philosophical cheese, I'm very chill from my lovely late summer sun...)
4. Pre-game procedure.
I. Will. Print. The. Lists. I. Wrote.
Honestly, I go to all the trouble of writing the things, and I still haven't done anything to add them into my referee pack thing. I could do with getting them laminated as well - university probably can do that - so they will resist the early season rain/mud, but the first step is getting them printed. Then, of course, I will try and use them to get my pre-game meetings going a lot better, and hopefully by the end of the season I'll hardly need my little lists during a tournament. With the rules, I remember them better if I use them a lot, and hopefully this will follow with game procedure. I think it'll be important to do this for every game, even if I know the teams; often I'll skip steps in UK tournaments because the teams are familiar to me, and then get more stuck when I'm abroad or with new teams. Consistency will be key, with fewer shortcuts. Captains, please don't hate me for my repetitiveness.
5. Words in sensible orders.
Honestly, I don't know if I can fix this completely. It might just be that I always get tongue tied if I haven't rehearsed the words hundreds of times for weeks on end, and I'll just have to not be so embarrassed about it. However, I think a good step will be talking less quickly. I know I have a tendency for my speech to try and match my brain speed, which doesn't work when words in my brain happen significantly faster than my mouth can produce. So if I slow everything down - hard in the heat of the moment - then my words should come out a lot smoother. This will take practice, so that my standard isn't 1000 words per second, and I will also just try to just be amused by my slip-ups rather than embarrassed. I guess a lot of the time everyone knows what I mean anyway, though I'd like to sound a bit more professional in that aspect. It will also help when I'm calling beats as an assistant referee. Hopefully.
With any luck, I will reference this blog post over the season and work on these aspects. Obviously I also need to keep up everything I've worked on over the past season, too, and making sure I don't lose any of the skills I've developed. With any luck, I'll be able to repeat this series next year!
Thursday, 22 September 2016
Thursday, 15 September 2016
Self-evaluation: My improvements over 2015-16
At the end of the 2014/15 season, I took a good look at my refereeing, and what I needed to improve on. These are what I came up with, and how I feel I did.
1. Application of NHNF.
I wrote a whole post on No Harm, No Foul here. It was a well-known fact in early 2015 that I wasn't really one for using NHNF, so if you did something vaguely wrong on my pitch, you paid for it. Arguably it didn't help that there were a lot of cards designated for things which are now back to hoops and turnover fouls, but I was still very much heavy handed and my games stopped a lot just so I could give out all of the cards. So over summer last year, I sat down and I re-read the rulebook, and I came up with scenarios and examples in my head of where I would give just a warning and NHNF. Part of it was finding a compromise between old Zoe and Ash's methods of refereeing, the latter being almost entirely based on NHNF (:P). So now I go into games making sure that I balance accuracy on calls with fairness based on how the foul affected play, which means things that didn't impact the other team are far more likely to get warnings. Overall I think my application of the rule has improved dramatically, especially as I can now write about it in a blog.
2. Dealing with angry/upset players.
Emotions often run high on a quidditch pitch, in all directions. As a referee you have to soak it all up like a sponge, and keep everyone calm. While I never really lost control of a pitch, I also wasn't the best at keeping the tempers of people in check. A lot of this ties into my next point about confidence, but the specific things I worked on with regards to players were keeping my own demeanor calm, and speaking to them in a firm way which didn't antagonise them further. It was easier when I remembered how I felt if I was annoyed with how a game was going - then I would know what sort of words to avoid, the level of firmness required in my voice to get someone to take a deep breath, that sort of thing. It also comes with practice, and I must admit it helps being on teams with big mouths. I've also got a lot better at brushing off destructive criticism fired at me by angry people after a game didn't go their way. My opinion of myself and my refereeing ability is a lot more grounded, and depends a lot more on how I feel and how other referees judged it.
3. Confidence.
I feel a lot of this comes with time and age. I'm 22 now, which is very much middle-aged in quidditch, and I've refereed for long enough now that I should hope I know what I'm doing. At first I started out by just pretending to be an extremely confident referee, and now I'm at least partway there to actually being that referee. It's okay to not be confident (I've written about this too, a bunch of times) as long as you recognise that it is an area you can work on. Unlike knowing a rule, it won't happen overnight, but hopefully I am proof that it can happen over a season. I'm now comfortable in saying that I'm at the top of the refereeing pile, and offering some words of wisdom once a week to those of you who are interested. I'll throw my name into the ring for big finals, and I'm not surprised when I'm asked to head referee a game. Now I suppose the thing I have to keep an eye on is not getting over-confident!
4. Communicating with ARs.
I used to be very bad at looking at my assistants when I was a head referee. I would miss delayed penalties for up to minutes, which wasn't great really. Also it's important as a head referee to check that your assistants are in the correct positions and aren't getting distracted, so looking over at them occasionally is fairly necessary. As I've worked with more assistants, I've got used to checking consistently, and also know a lot better what things to cover before matches to get the most out of my team. I'm also more confident in telling my assistants to hurry up with their explanations, rather than just listen to them slowly slip over their words and tell me basically nothing. The general standard of assistant refereeing has also improved over this time, which is very helpful. Communication is something you can always work on, as with everything, but as far as improvements go I'm pretty happy that I'm a better head referee.
5. Fitness.
If you know me on Facebook, you'll probably know that I suffer from a chronic illness. This whacked my fitness over the head when I was diagnosed, and I've been working slowly to improve it ever since. I can referee hour-long games now, though not happily, which is an improvement on not being able to stand for more than five minutes! This is always going to be an ongoing thing when my body is basically fighting me, but it will be easier with regular quidditch training and access to a gym, and I think most people would agree that I am a fitter referee than I was at the beginning of the season. Long live the NHS to continue giving me medication and tests, even if it is painfully slow at times.
1. Application of NHNF.
I wrote a whole post on No Harm, No Foul here. It was a well-known fact in early 2015 that I wasn't really one for using NHNF, so if you did something vaguely wrong on my pitch, you paid for it. Arguably it didn't help that there were a lot of cards designated for things which are now back to hoops and turnover fouls, but I was still very much heavy handed and my games stopped a lot just so I could give out all of the cards. So over summer last year, I sat down and I re-read the rulebook, and I came up with scenarios and examples in my head of where I would give just a warning and NHNF. Part of it was finding a compromise between old Zoe and Ash's methods of refereeing, the latter being almost entirely based on NHNF (:P). So now I go into games making sure that I balance accuracy on calls with fairness based on how the foul affected play, which means things that didn't impact the other team are far more likely to get warnings. Overall I think my application of the rule has improved dramatically, especially as I can now write about it in a blog.
2. Dealing with angry/upset players.
Emotions often run high on a quidditch pitch, in all directions. As a referee you have to soak it all up like a sponge, and keep everyone calm. While I never really lost control of a pitch, I also wasn't the best at keeping the tempers of people in check. A lot of this ties into my next point about confidence, but the specific things I worked on with regards to players were keeping my own demeanor calm, and speaking to them in a firm way which didn't antagonise them further. It was easier when I remembered how I felt if I was annoyed with how a game was going - then I would know what sort of words to avoid, the level of firmness required in my voice to get someone to take a deep breath, that sort of thing. It also comes with practice, and I must admit it helps being on teams with big mouths. I've also got a lot better at brushing off destructive criticism fired at me by angry people after a game didn't go their way. My opinion of myself and my refereeing ability is a lot more grounded, and depends a lot more on how I feel and how other referees judged it.
3. Confidence.
I feel a lot of this comes with time and age. I'm 22 now, which is very much middle-aged in quidditch, and I've refereed for long enough now that I should hope I know what I'm doing. At first I started out by just pretending to be an extremely confident referee, and now I'm at least partway there to actually being that referee. It's okay to not be confident (I've written about this too, a bunch of times) as long as you recognise that it is an area you can work on. Unlike knowing a rule, it won't happen overnight, but hopefully I am proof that it can happen over a season. I'm now comfortable in saying that I'm at the top of the refereeing pile, and offering some words of wisdom once a week to those of you who are interested. I'll throw my name into the ring for big finals, and I'm not surprised when I'm asked to head referee a game. Now I suppose the thing I have to keep an eye on is not getting over-confident!
4. Communicating with ARs.
I used to be very bad at looking at my assistants when I was a head referee. I would miss delayed penalties for up to minutes, which wasn't great really. Also it's important as a head referee to check that your assistants are in the correct positions and aren't getting distracted, so looking over at them occasionally is fairly necessary. As I've worked with more assistants, I've got used to checking consistently, and also know a lot better what things to cover before matches to get the most out of my team. I'm also more confident in telling my assistants to hurry up with their explanations, rather than just listen to them slowly slip over their words and tell me basically nothing. The general standard of assistant refereeing has also improved over this time, which is very helpful. Communication is something you can always work on, as with everything, but as far as improvements go I'm pretty happy that I'm a better head referee.
5. Fitness.
If you know me on Facebook, you'll probably know that I suffer from a chronic illness. This whacked my fitness over the head when I was diagnosed, and I've been working slowly to improve it ever since. I can referee hour-long games now, though not happily, which is an improvement on not being able to stand for more than five minutes! This is always going to be an ongoing thing when my body is basically fighting me, but it will be easier with regular quidditch training and access to a gym, and I think most people would agree that I am a fitter referee than I was at the beginning of the season. Long live the NHS to continue giving me medication and tests, even if it is painfully slow at times.
Thursday, 8 September 2016
Self-evaluation: My strengths
After a whole post lamenting my shortcomings, here is a whole post acclaiming my better aspects from this season.
1. Pitch control.
Everyone has games where a player or two goes off on one. However, I've never lost control of a pitch, and I've always resolved issues swiftly. There are lots of big mouths in quidditch, often on the same teams that end up playing each other a lot, and for some of them now my reputation precedes me. As maybe the only referee this season to send someone to the penalty box for disrespecting an official, I'm firm but fair on such calls. People know I don't take bullshit, and those who don't know quickly learn. Pitch control is about confidence, attitude, and the way you conduct yourself as a referee, and it is almost entirely down to the head referee. A good assistant referee can't save a bad head referee, but also a bad assistant referee shouldn't affect the control a good head referee has, and this is something I am confident with. That said please don't go out of your way to try me, because it won't end well for you and it will just make me sad later.
2. Positioning.
I'm not one of those referees who stays on one side of the pitch and just moves up and down like a glorified assistant referee when I'm in charge, I get in the middle of play and see pretty much everything it is possible to see in one go. A couple of hairy moments in the cross-fire aside, I'm usually in the best place which is a compromise to seeing everything up close and getting in the way of tackles and/or passes, whilst also accommodating my speed, or lack thereof. As an assistant referee I also move a lot more than most people, and I'm perfectly capable of handling a full side of the pitch myself without getting stuck to a point or small sector. I'm also able to advise other referees on improving their positioning, or adapt mine to work with theirs if that is easier at the time.
3. Rules knowledge.
I have a reputation for being a walking rulebook, as much as one can be a walking rulebook without actually being MCP. I know most of the relevant rules, and a bunch of odd unusual ones too, and if it's one I know particularly well I can recite it. Though if you hear me quote a number I'm probably making that up. Strong rules knowledge is essential if you want to be a top referee, because it allows you to make decisions swiftly. If people know that you know your stuff, they are also less likely to question you at the time, even if you have got it slightly wrong. I keep my knowledge up to date by revising before a big tournament, and my friends also help keep my brain active by always coming to me with odd scenarios that happened in practice to see what would actually be legal. Thanks, guys. The main thing to remember is that your brain will keep hold of information it uses, so if you referee a lot you will remember the rules better. And I have refereed a lot.
4. Whistle skills.
Now I don't want to brag, but at World Cup Chris LeCompte called my whistle blowing 'excellent'. Coming from a background of playing the clarinet, I'm used to making distinct, fast noises, and applying those to my Fox40 was pretty simple. Life also got a lot easier when I switched from a wrist strap to a lanyard, though everyone has their own preferences and you should definitely do what is best for you! But I can do the whole 'paired blasts' thing, and my lung capacity is such that I can keep it up for a fair while, and I'm also very loud. I'm loud without a whistle too, but my whistle blast is especially piercing. There's no argument for not having heard my request to stop play, or start again. There's also no way to mistake a 'live quaffle' blast for a stoppage, which is why I will send you back to hoops if you drop your broom at such.
5. Limiting stoppages.
As an assistant referee, I barely have more than a handful of words to say to my head referee if I'm calling a delayed penalty. I see it as if I'm making an accusation in Cluedo - who did it, what was the foul, who did it affect, where are they. Done. More words are unnecessary in my opinion, and I will also encourage my referees to do the same when talking to me if I am in charge. I'm also wont to just adjudicate a foul without consulting my assistants if I am confident, so we can get on with our lives quicker. There's no point asking someone else if I'm just going to overrule them. I'm also more likely to end advantage quicker than some other referees, rather than ending up replaying a whole two minutes of a game because a pile up happened for a minute before someone finally got the ball out. I have a reputation for keeping games to time, and gaining precious minutes for tournament directors, because I just don't like spending too long on a brooms down. I get bored, too.
1. Pitch control.
Everyone has games where a player or two goes off on one. However, I've never lost control of a pitch, and I've always resolved issues swiftly. There are lots of big mouths in quidditch, often on the same teams that end up playing each other a lot, and for some of them now my reputation precedes me. As maybe the only referee this season to send someone to the penalty box for disrespecting an official, I'm firm but fair on such calls. People know I don't take bullshit, and those who don't know quickly learn. Pitch control is about confidence, attitude, and the way you conduct yourself as a referee, and it is almost entirely down to the head referee. A good assistant referee can't save a bad head referee, but also a bad assistant referee shouldn't affect the control a good head referee has, and this is something I am confident with. That said please don't go out of your way to try me, because it won't end well for you and it will just make me sad later.
2. Positioning.
I'm not one of those referees who stays on one side of the pitch and just moves up and down like a glorified assistant referee when I'm in charge, I get in the middle of play and see pretty much everything it is possible to see in one go. A couple of hairy moments in the cross-fire aside, I'm usually in the best place which is a compromise to seeing everything up close and getting in the way of tackles and/or passes, whilst also accommodating my speed, or lack thereof. As an assistant referee I also move a lot more than most people, and I'm perfectly capable of handling a full side of the pitch myself without getting stuck to a point or small sector. I'm also able to advise other referees on improving their positioning, or adapt mine to work with theirs if that is easier at the time.
3. Rules knowledge.
I have a reputation for being a walking rulebook, as much as one can be a walking rulebook without actually being MCP. I know most of the relevant rules, and a bunch of odd unusual ones too, and if it's one I know particularly well I can recite it. Though if you hear me quote a number I'm probably making that up. Strong rules knowledge is essential if you want to be a top referee, because it allows you to make decisions swiftly. If people know that you know your stuff, they are also less likely to question you at the time, even if you have got it slightly wrong. I keep my knowledge up to date by revising before a big tournament, and my friends also help keep my brain active by always coming to me with odd scenarios that happened in practice to see what would actually be legal. Thanks, guys. The main thing to remember is that your brain will keep hold of information it uses, so if you referee a lot you will remember the rules better. And I have refereed a lot.
4. Whistle skills.
Now I don't want to brag, but at World Cup Chris LeCompte called my whistle blowing 'excellent'. Coming from a background of playing the clarinet, I'm used to making distinct, fast noises, and applying those to my Fox40 was pretty simple. Life also got a lot easier when I switched from a wrist strap to a lanyard, though everyone has their own preferences and you should definitely do what is best for you! But I can do the whole 'paired blasts' thing, and my lung capacity is such that I can keep it up for a fair while, and I'm also very loud. I'm loud without a whistle too, but my whistle blast is especially piercing. There's no argument for not having heard my request to stop play, or start again. There's also no way to mistake a 'live quaffle' blast for a stoppage, which is why I will send you back to hoops if you drop your broom at such.
5. Limiting stoppages.
As an assistant referee, I barely have more than a handful of words to say to my head referee if I'm calling a delayed penalty. I see it as if I'm making an accusation in Cluedo - who did it, what was the foul, who did it affect, where are they. Done. More words are unnecessary in my opinion, and I will also encourage my referees to do the same when talking to me if I am in charge. I'm also wont to just adjudicate a foul without consulting my assistants if I am confident, so we can get on with our lives quicker. There's no point asking someone else if I'm just going to overrule them. I'm also more likely to end advantage quicker than some other referees, rather than ending up replaying a whole two minutes of a game because a pile up happened for a minute before someone finally got the ball out. I have a reputation for keeping games to time, and gaining precious minutes for tournament directors, because I just don't like spending too long on a brooms down. I get bored, too.
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Self-evaluation: My weaknesses
This is part of a series of four - weaknesses, strengths, areas of improvement over the past season, and my plan to fix my current weaknesses in the upcoming season.
It is important as a referee to be able to see where your 'game' needs work. You can get feedback anonymously, via the IQA/IRDP, however that can be hard to relate back to a specific game if it takes a long time to come back after a tournament. My personal preference is getting feedback from captains and players, especially those who are referee qualified themselves. There are a good number of referees in the UK spread across lots of different teams, so it's fairly easy to get a quick summary of how things went after a game. I trust the people I ask to be honest and fair in their assessments! After two years, I'm also fairly competent at assessing how a game went from my perspective. These weaknesses are my current areas to work on from this season.
1. Speed.
I'm relatively unfit, I have short legs, and the power I have in my legs is not the sort used for sprinting. Or long-distance really. This means that I can struggle to keep up with the best drivers in the quaffle game, even if they are hampered by a broom and I'm not. Yes, I make up a lot of it using good positioning (cutting corners) but I could still do with having an extra gear to step up my game when I'm head refereeing. Of course, increasing my speed will also help my playing - most things done to help refereeing help playing and vice versa - but I cannot sub myself out for a faster referee if play is getting quicker. As an assistant referee speed is less of an issue because of how much I move anyway, and beater play often isn't straight up and down the pitch, but it will still help. The main things that I miss due to lack of speed are the beginnings of pile-ups behind the hoops, and contact coming to stop a fast break if I am still trying to catch up.
2. Boundary rules.
As I said in my post comparing UK refereeing to the other standards at World Cup (here), UK referees in general are bad at the boundary rules. I am among this group. I know most of them pretty well in theory, especially after spending a couple of weeks studying them intensely to write the referee tests for QuidditchUK, but putting them into practice in a game situation is another thing entirely. My brain blanks, or at least slows, and by the time I've thought about what the call is that I'm supposed to be making, play is back on pitch and I've missed my chance. This happens with both bludger play as an assistant referee, and as a head referee watching the quaffle. Some of the rules have changed slightly in Rulebook 10, so we'll see if I can remember this set better than the last one. Many turnovers have been missed in the past season because of my slow reactions to balls (or people) crossing the boundary, and while I am no means the worst for this, it is one of the consistently weak parts of my rules application.
3. Chatting to players.
This is the bit where I get to say, very modestly, that I'm just too nice. Mainly though, I'm just a little too lenient in some situations about players talking back to me. I don't like reprimanding people for a comment here and there, but I should at least ignore it which isn't something I've been doing in the past season. It's especially the case in tournaments which aren't 'serious' (regionals, nationals et al), and whilst these are more lax in general, I should still keep my standard of refereeing high in all areas. Chatting to players delays the game, and it means I'm not entirely focused on play in the moments where I am talking or listening. Being a referee means being professional at all times, and while I am generally good at it, my talkative nature detracts from this appearance.
4. Pre-game procedure.
Captains meetings and referee meetings both involve a lot of things to go through, and I routinely remember only about 50% of the things I'm supposed to say. While I don't think anyone else minds too much, it does annoy me when I remember on the starting line that I forgot to tell the captains about specific things I'd be watching for, or ask my assistant referees to watch certain balls on brooms up. As a head referee, my games would go a lot better and smoother if I could get everything out in a timely manner, before the game started, and I'd spend less time kicking myself for forgetting something really important. And no, before you ask, I don't then improve my meetings over the course of a tournament. I just forget different bits. Yes, I really do need to have a memory that is less like a sieve, that would be really great.
5. Words in sensible orders.
I don't know if you've ever heard me referee, but I often get my words all in a jumble. This is embarrassing when I'm trying to clearly tell the crowd and scorekeepers table what a foul is for, and just annoying if I'm trying to tell someone to go back to hoops and I don't know their name. My mouth just doesn't do what my brain tells it to, and that just slows my whole game down. I get tongue-tied in normal life, too, but usually I'm not talking to a hundred or so people in the crowd of a final or semi-final. If you were at the London referee academy recently, you may have noticed this particular trait! It has nothing to do with nerves, but it is an area I think I can and should improve on as I go into my third full year of refereeing, as one of the top referees in the country.
It is important as a referee to be able to see where your 'game' needs work. You can get feedback anonymously, via the IQA/IRDP, however that can be hard to relate back to a specific game if it takes a long time to come back after a tournament. My personal preference is getting feedback from captains and players, especially those who are referee qualified themselves. There are a good number of referees in the UK spread across lots of different teams, so it's fairly easy to get a quick summary of how things went after a game. I trust the people I ask to be honest and fair in their assessments! After two years, I'm also fairly competent at assessing how a game went from my perspective. These weaknesses are my current areas to work on from this season.
1. Speed.
I'm relatively unfit, I have short legs, and the power I have in my legs is not the sort used for sprinting. Or long-distance really. This means that I can struggle to keep up with the best drivers in the quaffle game, even if they are hampered by a broom and I'm not. Yes, I make up a lot of it using good positioning (cutting corners) but I could still do with having an extra gear to step up my game when I'm head refereeing. Of course, increasing my speed will also help my playing - most things done to help refereeing help playing and vice versa - but I cannot sub myself out for a faster referee if play is getting quicker. As an assistant referee speed is less of an issue because of how much I move anyway, and beater play often isn't straight up and down the pitch, but it will still help. The main things that I miss due to lack of speed are the beginnings of pile-ups behind the hoops, and contact coming to stop a fast break if I am still trying to catch up.
2. Boundary rules.
As I said in my post comparing UK refereeing to the other standards at World Cup (here), UK referees in general are bad at the boundary rules. I am among this group. I know most of them pretty well in theory, especially after spending a couple of weeks studying them intensely to write the referee tests for QuidditchUK, but putting them into practice in a game situation is another thing entirely. My brain blanks, or at least slows, and by the time I've thought about what the call is that I'm supposed to be making, play is back on pitch and I've missed my chance. This happens with both bludger play as an assistant referee, and as a head referee watching the quaffle. Some of the rules have changed slightly in Rulebook 10, so we'll see if I can remember this set better than the last one. Many turnovers have been missed in the past season because of my slow reactions to balls (or people) crossing the boundary, and while I am no means the worst for this, it is one of the consistently weak parts of my rules application.
3. Chatting to players.
This is the bit where I get to say, very modestly, that I'm just too nice. Mainly though, I'm just a little too lenient in some situations about players talking back to me. I don't like reprimanding people for a comment here and there, but I should at least ignore it which isn't something I've been doing in the past season. It's especially the case in tournaments which aren't 'serious' (regionals, nationals et al), and whilst these are more lax in general, I should still keep my standard of refereeing high in all areas. Chatting to players delays the game, and it means I'm not entirely focused on play in the moments where I am talking or listening. Being a referee means being professional at all times, and while I am generally good at it, my talkative nature detracts from this appearance.
4. Pre-game procedure.
Captains meetings and referee meetings both involve a lot of things to go through, and I routinely remember only about 50% of the things I'm supposed to say. While I don't think anyone else minds too much, it does annoy me when I remember on the starting line that I forgot to tell the captains about specific things I'd be watching for, or ask my assistant referees to watch certain balls on brooms up. As a head referee, my games would go a lot better and smoother if I could get everything out in a timely manner, before the game started, and I'd spend less time kicking myself for forgetting something really important. And no, before you ask, I don't then improve my meetings over the course of a tournament. I just forget different bits. Yes, I really do need to have a memory that is less like a sieve, that would be really great.
5. Words in sensible orders.
I don't know if you've ever heard me referee, but I often get my words all in a jumble. This is embarrassing when I'm trying to clearly tell the crowd and scorekeepers table what a foul is for, and just annoying if I'm trying to tell someone to go back to hoops and I don't know their name. My mouth just doesn't do what my brain tells it to, and that just slows my whole game down. I get tongue-tied in normal life, too, but usually I'm not talking to a hundred or so people in the crowd of a final or semi-final. If you were at the London referee academy recently, you may have noticed this particular trait! It has nothing to do with nerves, but it is an area I think I can and should improve on as I go into my third full year of refereeing, as one of the top referees in the country.
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