Pounding Through Nationals

Today the National Christian Forensics & Communications Association (NCFCA) National Tournament begins. I just finished our National Intensive Training Camp (NITC) for a handful of qualified students. That’s a mouthful of acronyms for you!

The purpose of this unique Training Minds camp is to prepare these students for the week of competition. We run drills, talk cases, discuss strategies, and scrimmage. We had nine states represented among just 16 kids, so it was a fantastic representation of the country.

At the end of the weekend, we assembled at a local restaurant and had a little award ceremony of our own. We gave out prizes for best leader, best researcher and (this one is fun) most argumentative. We felt loosened up and excited for the coming week.

To close, one of the coaches gives what we call the “rah rah” speech, a pointed speech about how to zero in and focus on the coming week. It’s kind of a “get into the zone” motivational speech that raises the bar and motivates the kids toward excellence.

I was up for giving the speech this time around, and I chose to do something out of the ordinary. I started out by saying that this speech is really a speech that should be given after the week was over. See, I asked the students to look beyond Nationals to the impact they will make on the world after they win this week.

I made the comparison to a martial artist pounding through a brick. They focus on the follow through, a focus point beyond the brick, in order to develop enough force to pound through. Much the same way, I wanted these young people to zero in on their focal point beyond competition and “follow through” beyond high school.

This is a short 14 minutes. Enjoy the speech.

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