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!
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