Remember how it felt when you first heard “Welcome to Level 1?” I often ask judges why they joined the program, and as a result, I’ve heard a number of humorous and inspiring stories. No matter how different each judge’s reasons and motivations have been, stories about achieving Level 1 typically share a similar response to the […]
You know how excited parents celebrate their children’s first tottering attempts at walking? How they ooh and ah and cheer and gasp and take dozens of pictures to post on social media? When I visited my parents recently, they did not cheer even though I walked quite well. Obviously my parents love me, but they […]
You know, writing and judging really have a lot in common. That probably has something to do with why I enjoy both of them so much. One of those things, one that it took me an incredibly long time to get over, is that it’s hard to know how you’re doing unless someone else tells […]
Let me tell you a story about the 4-minute barrier for the world record one-mile run. For nearly a decade, the record stood untouched at 4:01.4. People thought running a mile in under four minutes was literally impossible. Then, in 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3:59.4. The next month, John Landy broke the […]
Communicating areas for improvement can be difficult. You want the judge you’ve been observing to improve, and you’ve got some ideas for them. Those ideas need to be communicated. But successful coaching takes more than that. If you want a judge to act on your feedback, they need to agree with what you are saying. […]
As an educator, I constantly notice educational processes at work in the judge program. When we’re not learning how interacts with or what to do when a player doesn’t discard a card to , we’re teaching players about why they receive a Warning for missing their trigger. In the realm of the ideal where judges and […]
I started getting more involved in the Judge Program in the Spring of 2011, after a long hiatus from judging. My town was having some issues running events, and I was the only L1+ in a 200 mile radius so, after getting more involved, I desired to get better at judging. One of the major steps I took […]
L3 Joe Wiesenberg on the challenges of giving critical feedback, because useful criticism is harder than praise.
Today I'm happy to bring you another guest blog, this time by one Jeff Morrow, on the importance of writing short reviews. Jeff is one of my personal mentors, and I learned a lot of about writing reviews from him.