[01/28/2010]  Support & Growth: Week One.

Directors/Instructors/Designers:

Let me introduce myself. My name in Michael Lentz and I am the Director of Education & Adjudication for the OIPA. Some of you may know me as the former OIPA President and current Director/Designer for Onyx. It is with great interest that I will serve you and your unit as you progress through the season. Competition, scores, critique and input from judges and fellow instructors can be daunting for each of us. I'd like to take just a few moments to provide some insight for you based on the first weekend of the season.

First, I'll be completely honest and say that, as instructors/directors/designers scores are important to us. Competition/scoring adds a spirit and a life to a program and can inspire growth and encourage us. Scores can also throw programs into turmoil and cause us to question ourselves. While judges may tell you scores are not important, we all know that is not the case for those of us who teach. It is OK to want the highest score possible for your team and we all want that. So, with that said lets talk about a few ways to achieve this goal.

Planning

Planning the program parts and how they fit together into a whole is an important step for success. Groups who have made random choices of costume, floor, flags, music, staging and choreography may indeed find scoring to be inconsistent. Inconsistent design processes will be received differently by all who view them and more importantly by those who score them. If you find your program floundering or if what you want to say visually is not coming across, take a step back and try to figure out how to be more clear. Programs with a clear identity & concept that are well constructed, musical and achieved by the students will ultimately have more constant scoring in the long run.

Sticking to your Plan

You have been working on your program for many months with many more to come. Judges will see your program for 3-7 minutes and assign it a score. Often when a unit receives a score that they feel is too low or lose to a competitor who they feel they should be placed over a panic will take over the process. Once panic takes over, the decisions made tend to be out of haste and based on judges comments. The same judges who saw the team once or twice for 3-7 minutes. This is where I would encourage you to step back. Take a day or two break from the guard. Don't watch the DVD, or listen to tapes. Just take a break. Let the past weekend settle in you and then with eyes, heart and mind open, sit down and write down what you want the program to say. What was your original intent? What do you want the viewer to get from the program? Now watch your DVD and ask yourself, is my intent clear? Do I see what I want to see? If not, find that idea that sparked your show process and re-focus on it. After a weekend of crazy scores for any unit there is a fork in the road. You have to choose whether to focus on making the judges see your program through your eyes, or allow your program change based on what you are told in critique. Trust yourself!

Critique

Critique is not required. The myth is that if you miss critique, the judges will think you are snubbing them or that it will hurt your unit. This is completely untrue. In actuality, judges would rather you only come to critique if you have a question, need clarification or want to offer information regarding your program to the panel. Also, know you may come to critique and ask to see only a specific judge or judges if you have no need to talk with the others. If you do choose to come to critique you must first listen to your judges comments. Judges will consider an instructor unprepared when he/she comes to critique to ask, “what did you think” or something of that sort. We’ve all given a reason we did not have time to listen to our tapes and came to critique anyway. Coming to critique unprepared will be neither useful nor productive any unit and could foster the exact opposite result that you had hoped to achieve. 

Scores

Scores will fluctuate throughout the season as will the consistency of the performers. Venue, performance order, panel etc. will play some role into final scores. The OIPA has worked very hard to have a full WGI panel in place for the first weekend of contests and numerous WGI judges coming in and out as the season continues. National judges can at times score lower than local judges as the national judges frame of reference is not merely the OIPA or surrounding areas but rather other states. When a judge who has seen many other units in your class gives you a score, they are placing you in some order of neighborhood among all other teams they have adjudicated. Spreads are more accurate than the actual score but again, unit growth and contest dynamics may cause spreads to fluctuate.

There is no substitute for solid technical and expressive training, good choices, musicality and well thought out design. While some programs will be incomplete early season, that may or may not play into their ability to score higher than programs with complete shows. It is not necessarily the quantity of show presented but the quality of the show presented that will achieve the highest score based on the sheets.

Judge Review Forms

Handed out at the contest and in your score envelope were Judge Review Forms. Please take a moment to complete these forms and return them to me. Your feedback will be used in combination with other instructor’s feedback as part of the process for hiring judges for the 2011 season.

I am here to help in any way possible and to assist you in your growth. If you have any questions, concerns or issues related to scoring, critique, judges or education tools, please feel free to contact me anytime.

Cell 937.305.5122
E-mail OhioCircuit@aol.com

Here’s to a great 2010 Season!

Michael

Michael Lentz
Director of Education & Adjudication
Ohio Indoor Performance Association