Book reports

So recently we've reorganized our ref group and divided up duties. One of the duties I've taken over is rules training.

I'm not the smartest, most experienced, or most knowledgeable ref we have. And I don't have to be. Creating a curriculum, teaching and organizing is really not about being the best, it's about gathering information to provide to others.

That being said I actually have done a lot of training over the years. I worked in emergency veterinary and did a majority of the training of the front office staff.

The information we needed to understand utilize was for the triage of emergency cases, internal medicine, oncology, radiology and surgery. This involved having a basic knowledge of all of these disciplines and how to ask the right questions and relay the right information.

This is actually fairly complicated as an animal's life is on the line. I learned how to do this confidently and accurately and then taught it to the rest of my staff all the while under stress and chaos of a busy work environment.

So training on rules should be a piece of cake. Well a lot of it is. A lot of it is not particularly complicated. But, like in any discipline, there are the caveats, the tricks, the weird situations and the obscure writing of the WORD rule set.

The rules are pretty well laid out. They are in plain English. But they can be kind of a bitch sometimes to understand.

This is where the experts come in. I don't have to be the best, I just have to bring in the resources of the best. Understand them and see the places where I don't understand.

Last night we had our first rules training with the league. Able and myself presented the basic differences between WORD and WFTDA. We did fairly well only coming up with a few scenarios where we weren't sure the answers. Fortunately I was able to text my local Enforcer and get most of them.

The hard part was not the information. It was being up in front of group, giving my "book report" like a kid back in high school. I'm trying to understand and teach a subject that I am just learning. I'm not going to get anything perfect. And that's ok.

But I couldn't help feeling like I was the unpopular kid at the front with the cool kids laughing and thinking I'm some idiot who shouldn't be up there.