The unknown

I'm the type of person who doesn't cope well with the unknown. I don't like walking into a situation and not knowing exactly what's going to happen. It's why I'm not surprised I took two attempts at the TCRG, and it's why I'm amazed I passed my driving test first time. It's why my personal mantra is "the anticipation of doing the thing is worse than doing the thing."

But the ADCRG exam isn't exactly 'the unknown'. I've done the booksmarts bit before and passed with 99% and 95%, so that's not a worry in the slightest.

The adjudication itself won't be so much of a worry once I've practised it, I think.

The worry is the interrogation. I think they call it an 'interview'? Just what on earth are they going to ask me/you/us?

So I've scoured the internet and asked judges I know, and here are the questions/scenarios I've managed to find:

- What is the most important aspect of Irish dancing?

- If you have two teams - one with stylish costumes, matching wigs and all the same height, and the other with older costumes and a bit mismatched - which is better?

- You are the only person - examiner or candidate - to put dancer 867 in the top six, and you placed her first. Why?

- Why did dancer 278 place 9th, when she had similar comments to number 435 in 6th? Do you really feel that posture is more important than confidence? But REALLY, do you think your explanation justifies the difference in placing?

- What do you mean by "good in back"? When you say "extend", what does that mean to you?

- Tell us again why number 190 placed three places higher than number 607.

- What comments do you have about team number 1's first figure?

- You saw that team number 2 had a mistake on Gents Interlace, yet they didn't place last. Why did you place them higher than two other teams?

And the main piece of advice - sense. a. trap. For example:

"The candidate was asked why dancer #413 had placed 3rd. The candidate replied that she had danced with good energy and style. The head examiner said, "No. Try again." The candidate, puzzled, then talked about her footwork and timing. The head examiner said, "No. Try again." The candidate (really confused now) said, "Well, I thought she..." and the head examiner said, "No! Dancer #413 was a BOY." And that was when the candidate knew he'd failed."

(All of these from the fantastic blog (now archived) Nerdseyeview). They also asked this candidate just to read her placings and comments aloud for a couple of the competitions which seemed strange.

These observations are from various posts on the TCRG Voy:

- Sometimes they will focus on 3 out of the 8 competitions (for example) and tell you that up front.

- Write comments while watching (ie don't look down at the paper) as if you miss a mistake they will pull you up on it.

- They may keep bringing up that they had a dancer in 2nd and you had them in 7th. Just remain consistent and don't backtrack.

- Again, sense a trap. One candidate wrote: "I was told that the examiners will try to trick you and say something happened that didn't. They might say someone went off time or fell off their toes, to see what your response is. The best response if you didn't see something is to say, I'm sorry, I missed that. If you say you saw it and it didn't happen, obviously they know you're lying."

- Increase your raw scores as the standard goes up - for beginners maybe use a range of 50-70, intermediate 55-75 and advanced 65-85 or similar. 

- They apparently don't like it when you write the same comments for two differently-placed dancers, or if you write a negative comment for a first-placed dancer. 

^ Not sure I agree with that as if you're judging a beginner competition they can't possibly be perfect and would still probably have something to work on, but hey ho. 



I think my main concern is going to be remembering dancers outside of what I've written. These competitions go by so quickly, and you're under such pressure - I imagine they'll expect you to remember and that saying "I can't recall" is a HUGE no-no...

My first port of call for practising judging is YouTube. I've made a playlist of about 20 videos where some helpful rulebreaker has videoed an entire beginner light jig competition or whatever, and am practising writing comments and scoring quickly, then looking back over my placings and interrogating MYSELF:

- How could dancer 2 be first if I didn't write any positive comments down for her?

- If asked, I'll say that I think turnout and foot positioning is more important in a grades competition than tidy arms, because IMO arms are easier to correct in the long term. So why did I give a higher place to someone with messy arms and place the good-footwork dancer lower?

- How would I justify this dancer's place if I've only written one positive comment down?

- What the hell does that say?!

It's obviously not perfect but it's a good start over the summer break where there are no classes and no competitions. Come competition time I think I will furtively mark competitions I don't have a dancer in, and eventually ask to shadow. That's intimidating though, sitting up at the front with everyone knowing exactly why you're there...