ABP報告＆感想文 written by 有元

どうもみなさんこんにちは！
秋めいてきましたね！熱帯が恋しくなる今日この頃です。

日本からの脱出っ！！

ということで、今日は、１０月16日から22日にかけて、マレーシアのAsia Pacific University of Technology & Innovationにおいて行われた、BPの国際大会、その名もABPについて報告させていただきたいと思います！

UTからは、Tokyo 1として渋谷と有元が出場しました☆

formal にビシっと決めた、しぶにゃん＆有元であります！！

惜しくもブレイクは逃しましたが、ＡＢＰで健闘してきました！！

ということで、その詳細について、今日は有元に感想文を書いてもらいました!(^^)!
ということで早速見てみましょう☆ (※以下写真の配置とコメントはブログ担当文責です）

笑顔が眩しい！

ABP 感想文

First, let me say that I will be writing this in English, for three reasons. 1. I’m a sucky writer in Japanese 2. This is an English debating society anyway and 3. One of the more painful lessons that I learned in Kuala Lumpur ABP was the detriment of underestimating the power of English as a communicative tool, especially in debating. I feel that in Japan, a lot of emphasis is put on what you say, more than on how you say it, and that in international tournaments, the diction and tone you employ has a significant effect on your persuasive ability, and this in turn makes the difference between an average and a great speaker. (Wow, what a horrible run-on sentence! lol)

international!!

Next let me say that, following extensive consultation with my venerable partner, Shibuya san, we decided that this report should have three concepts (the almighty rule of three, in effect again). Firstly, it should be useful to anyone who wants to participate in ABP next year, to give you a feel for the tournament, what you should expect, how you should prepare. Secondly, it should be retrospective, and introspective, and our reflections on what we did well and what we could have done better should, if possible, be helpful to others as well. Thirdly, it should put a smile on the face of anyone who reads it. The third objective is the main one, so I’ll try to make this have a happy ending, and if not a happy ending, at least a forward looking and optimistic one.

I will start my story from the middle of August, the semi-tournament during summer ADI. I missed breaking by one point (maybe two, depending on speaker scores), and I was, frankly, devastated. Noticing my dejection, the judge for the last round, Jasmine Ho of UT Mara (who got fourth best speaker in ABP 2015), advised me to participate in lots of international tournaments, because the more practice you get and the more work you do, the more interesting debating will become and the better you will become in the long run. About 2 or so weeks after ADI, Shibuya san asked me if I wanted to participate in ABP; I literally leapt at the chance. 

Now, to first years like me who don’t really know about international tournaments, ABP is one of the higher level tournaments in Asia, especially for BP. Participants this year included Saddiq Rahman (who broke open at WUDC), lecturers from ADI Jasmine, Rishad Sharif, and JD Jeong, and our very own Tom Ohtsuka and Kasumi Nogawa from Keio (kudos to them for entering the EFL grand finals!). Adjudicators included chief adj. Mai Mokhsein (ADI lecturer), deputy chief adj. Samuel Chang (EFL best speaker at WUDC), and Sho Masuda from Keio (congrats on breaking and adjing at the Semis!). However, this should not be a disincentive for you to participate. Rather, ABP is a unique chance to see world-level debaters in the flesh merely months after you begin debating. It is also an opportunity to see how much more you need to do to actually have a chance at succeeding in the international sphere. After participating, I found myself much stronger for having received that significant hit on my self-esteem: it’s my personal belief that that kind of stimulus is probably better gained earlier. 

Shibuya san and I practiced extensively for about a month. We went to Hongo practice (where we consecutively got fourths), studied Tim Sonnerich’s first principles (out of the Monash handbook), and did prep practice and speech practice whenever we had open periods. Of these, I seriously recommend studying first principles: they allow you to figure out the basic clashes to most debates even if you don’t have any prior knowledge on what you’re talking about. They also make framing the debate easier, at least to a certain extent. Also, in my free time, I listened to recordings of Worlds (though in retrospect, I believe I should have listened to more South East Asian debaters), copying down some of the speeches in an attempt to recognize what was so different about these amazing debates and what we did. 

Before I enter into the details of the tournament, I’d like to talk about Malaysia, because I think many people will go there sometime for Malaysia Debate Open, or for some other tournaments. One thing I would definitely advise: BRING MASKS!!! The haze is most probably toxic, about as bad as China… Also, I would advise buying SIM cards or borrowing wifi, because the Wifi at both the university and hotel were tortoise slow and tended to die out after a few minutes. The food tends to be oily and meat centric (it’s also sweet and spicy, so if you like bland foods, you should be cautious), so be careful to eat fruits.

After arriving in Malaysia, Shibuya san and I completed sharing all the first principles from our list and also completed prep practice for all ABP motions. We slept well and ate well to prepare for the tournament, which is something I believe is a must. Relax, get used to the environment, and enjoy.

First day of rounds:

Round 1: THBT celebrities from dominant cultural majorities shouldn’t attempt to adopt minority cultures

Position: CG

Rank: 3^rd

Speaker score: 76

In this round, we got matter grabbed (what occurs when the team before you on the same side is really good and they take away pretty much anything you thought of during prep) by a team from Bangladesh which eventually went to the Open Semi Finals (we later learned that one of the members of the team had broke open at WUDC…). We
managed to grab third because CO didn’t really understand the motion, but in retrospect, I think we could have outplaced if not OG, then at least OO and placed second. One of the things we were told was that the round lacked engagement, and although we did have an extension of sorts, it was based on OG and did not clash enough with OO. One lesson that can be learned from this is that rebuttals are of the utmost importance in BP because engagement is pretty much the only way you can differentiate between teams.

Round 2: THBT post conflict states should suppress discourse surrounding the period of conflict in order to promote peace.

Position: OG

Rank: 2^nd

Speaker score: 76

In this round, CG outdid us because they were better able to substantiate our points by showing why and what kind of peace was important to promote in post conflict states. We had the basic ideas right, but our analysis could have been a lot deeper. Which brings me to lesson two learned from ABP: you should substantiate your arguments with at least two, if possible three or more strong reasons to make them seem plausible. Also, never speak too fast, because it detracts from your persuasiveness.

Round 3: THBT Myanmar should grant political representation to armed groups in exchange for permanent peace deals

Position: CO

Rank: 4^th

Speaker score: 72 (I was amused but not that surprised when I saw this score)

Okay, so this motion was kind of tough on a newbie college student who 1. Didn’t read
the Economist cover to cover as she was supposed to and so was IR (international relations) challenged 2. Didn’t have background information like South East Asian participants, and 3. Didn’t have the imagination to make it up on the spot (which we heard, later on, was what all of the other teams in our round had been doing…). But complaints aside, we should have tried to engage more with the government bench rather than forcibly trying to put forward an extension that partially knifed our opening. Lessons to be learned: study IR properly, especially if you’re going into international tournaments, go to chief adjudicator if you don’t really understand the motion, and try to glean an image of what’s happening through other teams’ arguments.

Second day of Rounds:

Round 4: THBT economic development organizations (e.g. WB, IMF) should not make aid conditional on trade liberalization

Position: OO

Rank: 2^nd

Speaker Score: 75

We rather misunderstood the motion for this round, and we argued that trade liberalization was good for these developing nations when that was pretty much a consensus: what we should have argued is when and how trade liberalization can be brought about, and why (as opposition) immediacy and conditionality is both necessary and effective. If we had had a good closing team, we could easily have been demoted to 3^rd. So some lessons: firstly, in economics rounds, illustrating what will happen down to the smallest actor (the individual) is necessary to make arguments potent and relevant. Secondly, debates are generally not about absolutes, but about conditions. In what instance something is permissible, what caveats exist in which cases, where and when and to whom something should be allowed. Thirdly, read the motion carefully!!!

Round 5: THW aggressively sexualize men in the fight against gender inequality

Position: CG

Rank: 3^rd

Speaker Score: 75

Here we asked the chief adjudicator Mai what aggressive sexualization meant, because we couldn’t really see how that would help in the fight against gender inequality. The answer was “portraying men in any way that makes them seem sexy, more attractive, makes you want to kiss them more.” We still didn’t see how that would help with gender inequality, so I was poorly prepared when I entered the round. I ended up mixing up sexualization and sexiness, forgot to rebut most of OO’s case, and just generally panicked. So lessons: never panic, and listen closely to opening to see if you can spot holes in their case.

Round 6: THW accept the offer (sorry, please look at the motions section of the UTDS blog, this motion is way too long to copy down)

Position: OO

Rank: 2^nd

Speaker Score: 75

This is the exact motion mentioned above!!

Okay, this was the longest motion I’d ever seen in my life, which probably isn’t saying much, but still. Apparently, it is based on a true story in Malaysia, where a civil rights activist was taken in by the government as vice president (or something). Again, in this debate, we were taken over by our opening, who basically used the same arguments as us but added three or four levels of analysis to each one, which made the arguments seem more convincing, apparently. So, similar lessons to round 2: make sure your analyses are deep enough that closing cannot take your arguments. Or, conversely, if you’re closing, see if you can use opening’s arguments to your advantage by adding reasoning or adding analysis. Also, when you’re a whip speaker, make it as though your opening was non-existent, and all of the important analysis came out at your partner’s speech.

What can be seen from the speaker scores and rankings is that even if you’re a newbie freshman first year who has been debating BP for less than 3 months, sucks at doing first speaker, and generally does not understand what is meant by ‘the spirit of the motion’, you can be seen as an about average speaker, whether you land opening or closing in the debate. What can also be seen, however, is that for the inexperienced like me, closing is hard to pull off, especially when it seems that opening has matter grabbed it all (which seemed to be the case in most of the debates I was closing in). So participants in ABP should probably practice being closing extensively, especially in the period just before the tournament. 

Secondly, what I noticed was that South East Asian debaters tend to talk and think rather than write when prepping for debates, which I found meant they had a lot more time to think of reasoning and examples, rather than just assertions and arguments.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the best debaters in ABP 2015 used the 7 minutes to the best of their advantage. They spoke slowly and confidently, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have matter (in fact, they had way more than we did…). They used word choice to optimum effect, their numbering system was disciplined, which meant their structure was impeccable, and they just sounded like they knew everything. Debating seems to be (in a great part) a confidence game: if you sound knowledgeable, people assume you are (which is why Japanese debaters are disadvantaged, people think that because you don’t really speak the language, you aren’t a good debater, they don’t take your Points of Information).

I believe that all three of these points converge into one: passion. All of the debaters I met seemed ready to defend their positions with their lives. Pathos, ethos, and logos found a nexus in their speeches. They made the game beautiful, and I was a child enraptured.

I hope that others from UTDS can have similar experiences in international tournaments that they attend from now on. And I would like to contribute to our society by supporting the endeavors of anyone who wishes to participate next year. So if you have any questions, or want more specific details, please feel free to contact me! I’d be more than happy to share notes and recordings with you, or talk in more depth about my experience. 

 Thank you for this brilliant essay.　I hope other members of UTDS also share this instructive experience and learn something  valuable for your future debating carrer.

洞察に満ちた感想文をありがとうございます。ここで学んでことを、今後の大会にも活かせるといいですし、学びをより多くのメンバーと共有していけるといいですね☆

ということで、今後も頑張っていきましょう！！