by Kate Smith

There are so many opportunities available in the dance world. One way to get involved in your local dance community is by judging high school dance teams, which I recently decided to try. If you are interested in getting into judging or just want to learn what judging is all about, this diary will give you a little glimpse into what it is like as a first-year judge.

I joined a state-wide group called JAM

(Judges Association of Minnesota), which schedules officials for many of the dance team meets in the state. JAM offers two mentoring programs each year which new judges can attend to complete JAM’s “trial judging” requirement. I attended both of the programs, which took place during meets at Brainerd High School and Eastview High School in December 2006.

I really did not have much knowledge of the whole process of high school dance team coming into the mentoring program. I had completed JAM’s annual training required for all group members, and I had passed the Minnesota State High School League’s annual rules exam, but I had never actually been to a meet before. So, just that aspect of coming to a meet for the first time was exciting for me. If you have already danced on your high school team and know the ins and outs of dance team meets, then I would imagine you would have a pretty smooth transition into judging. For me, though, it was all brand-new.

The mentoring programs began bright and early in the judges’ room, which is usually the office area of the school. After the judges finished their meeting, the mentorees were broken into small groups and everyone headed out to the gym. The mentors and mentorees sat off to the side of the judges, who would actually be officiating the meet. We practiced judging, counting kicks, timing the dances and tabulating scores at both the Brainerd and Eastview meets.

Judging

Judging is the meat of officiating, so that is what we focused on during mentoring. One thing I have learned so far is that the more dances you watch, the easier it will be to judge the dances fairly. By my second day of mentoring, I was already getting quicker at determining where a dance should fall on the scale in the different areas judged. The mentorees were able to compare our scores and rankings with the actual judges’ during both the mentoring programs, which was really helpful in evaluating how well we were doing. This was definitely the most fun part of the program for me. I can’t wait to do it for real! Tabulating – We also visited the tab room during the mentoring programs and watched the tab room officials tabulating the scores. We observed for a few minutes and also practiced ranking the dances in a division that had already performed. This was really helpful because we got to go over our ranks with our mentor to make sure we were doing it correctly.

Kick Counting/Timing

Kick counting and timing are two other jobs that help a dance meet go smoothly. It is important to count kicks and time the dances to make sure the dances are in line with the high school league’s requirements. Coming from a studio, I had no previous experience in high kick, so I was nervous about this part of officiating. I think this part of the mentoring program was most beneficial to me personally because of that reason. My first real officiating assignment was to kick count/time, and I can’t imagine going into that job without having gone through the mentoring. More on that later…