Today is quite a big day that I was looking forward to a lot: a friendly match with South Africa. As South Africa is one of the best teams in the world in terms of debating, I expect this debate to be really fun and fruitful. It’s like Seoul FC versus Barcelona, which is going to be really, really fun. Even when I get crushed, it’s still fun.
So after a quick recursion to the mall to buy my new suit (as I am becoming a sixth former next year and sixth formers wear suits as their school uniform), I called my teammates as a final prep time.
We were extremely dedicated and burnt with passion, since sparring with South Africa was surely not a common event. In fact, I was so excited to spar with people I’ve only seen in WSDC Youtube videos! Have you ever experienced the feeling when you saw a celebrity in real life that you’ve seen so many times in television, that you kinda doubt whether this is a real person? Or do you know the feeling of looking at a really cute cat, so cute that you begin to think “where do I put in the battery for this doll?”
IDK what I’m writing right now. But my feelings were literally like that. Also, I was so excited to discover how well I could debate against these people that existed only in Youtube videos.
We soon began the debate, and you can hear my speech in the link below.
Luckily because it was an IR motion, which is one of my specialties, I felt that I performed quite well. More importantly, the debate was really, really fun and I felt so happy during the debate that these people were here to deliver their speech against me! They were doing their speech to beat me! The fact that these great debaters were doing their speech for me made me feel so happy and excited. I know that I really sound like a madman, but I felt so happy debating against these people.
After the debate, the judges announced their verdict, which was a 2-2 tie!!
This is literally something that I’ll brag about until I quit debating.
The judges’ feedback were as follows. For the judges that were for SA, they said that our side did fully engage, but did not sufficiently prove the principle. Actually, SA’s strategy was quite surprising, because I thought that the principle clash was very easy to win on SA. It was unexpected that SA pushed the effectiveness clash.
For the judges that went for us, they said that our case was more grounded in reality, and that our engagement was more of a wider scope. Surprisingly, one of the judges even said that she bought my responses in the effectiveness clash a lot, and was quite decisive in her verdict! (Again, another thing that I’ll brag about until I die)
Honestly, I felt that the first and second speakers weren’t that strong as I expected (clarification: it isn’t that they weren’t good. It’s just that the expectation in my head was ridiculously high), but the whip was very good. But taking into consideration the fact that SA was doing an impromptu debate while we did it prepped, it was kinda crazy that their first and second arguments were so on point.
Regardless, it had been a very good lesson and a stimulus for me. I was actually beginning to become slightly bored of debating because of the lack of sparring teams in Korea, but looking at these people abroad, I felt very motivated. At the same time, today’s experience really benchmarked me against my peer world schools debaters, showing my current position and path to improvement. Most importantly, this debate was one of the most fun debates that I’ve ever done.
I also re-did my speech and reflected the judges’ feedback.
I really, really look forward to meeting these great people again at this year’s WSDC! (and beating them:)