Heather: I know Kristi and I hear stories how partners search high and low for a piece. It’s fun how it just happened! Now I heard you have videos of some of your first practices… describe that…
Jathan: We try to keep that under lock and key…
Ashley: Awkward…
Heather: I probably shows how far you have come…
Jathan: It’s fascinating to watch all of the different videos we have of our progression, to watch the changes that we made. It’s cringe-worthy to see where we started to get to Nationals. But that’s where we were at. But you learn by watching and doing it again and again. It doesn’t all come together at once.
Heather: So, how much did you practice then?
Jathan: We would intensely practice before any competition…
Ashley: Yes, and every week at club..
Jathan: We would meet meet every week at club, and then before a competition we would try to meet twice a week, starting about three weeks in advance, and then working on it at home.
Ashley: Yeah…
Jathan: For me that meant walking around the house, practicing a voice or a stance. My mom said that when I was in Taekwondo, I didn’t walk around the house, I Taekwondo’d around the house, meaning that I just kicked my way around the house. It wasn’t just something I did, it became a part of me, the way I functioned. So that when we were practicing Duo, it became a part of us. I spoke in my Abraham voice during dinner…
Ashley: For me, I did a lot of talking to myself in the shower, and also, we got to the point where I knew all of his lines and he knew all of my lines. My mom would help me practice…
Jathan: My mom would definitely help me practice a lot.
Heather: It sounds like you both knew your piece inside and out?
Ashley: Oh yes…
Jathan: It’s only when you know it inside and out that you can truly be comfortable with it…
Kristi: What kind of techniques did you use to build your Duo with the physicality and/or synchronization?
Ashley: One thing Mrs. Jackson would do is she would video tape us, and each time we had a new idea or something we would want to put in, or a voice, she would video us. Then when we were done, she would show us that video. What do you like about this? What do you not like about this? And sometimes we would just be kind of stuck, so we would go on, then we would work on the next section. It was just a lot of hard concentrated work on certain sections to perfect it.
Jathan: One other tip I would encourage, if you can find a big mirror… When we did our movements in front of it- that was an immense help. We could see exactly how we were moving.
Ashley: It was also good for faces. I would see that his face was getting brighter than mine, so I would need to turn mine up more… It’s awkward doing the Duo in front of a mirror but very helpful.
Jathan: Having our parents watch and give feedback was crucial for our synchronization, telling us when things were off. Practicing it over and over, video taping it, checking…
Heather: What would you say to other students who don’t want yo do their speeches for their parents?
Jathan: Learn to do it for your parents!
Ashley: Our parents almost knew it better than we did.Getting my dad involved after Regionals, gave us a whole new point of view. I used to hate giving my speeches to my parents, because I felt like they were never good enough. But then when did the Duo for them, we realized they would help us make it good. Doing it for your parents makes it better. It might make you uncomfortable….
Jathan: But it sets the bar higher…
Heather: Was winning Nationals your goal at the beginning of the season?
Jathan: It kind of was…
Ashley: It was sort of a joke…
Jathan: We won our first practice tournament, and that was encouraging to have that success. Mr. heady came up to us and said, “How are you going to top this? I guess you have to win Nationals!” So that kind of was our goal…
Ashley: But the other 90%, we were like this needs work, we are bored..
Jathan: You do get tired of it. That was something I didn’t know that was going to happen, especially after a tournament and you are so done… You have to remember there is an end goal, there is something you are working towards. And that’s hard, working on something you are so tired of.
Ashley: One of the things that was always nice, was when you go to a tournament, we would go to our first round, friends would come in and support us, judges would laugh and give us encouragement. Ok- these people are seeing it for the first time and they like it! That would give us encouragement, because even though we might be sick of it, it is giving them joy. It’s a lot of perseverance.
Kristi: I think that’s another critical point, you have to stick with it… All the way through the season. Especially, if you are aiming for Nationals, that is one of the things that is going to keep you working. And in my experience, the pressure of a partnership also keeps you motivated.
Jathan: I would definitely agree with that. I knew Ashley was counting on me.
Ashley: I knew there were some sibling teams who do really well because they are always together. But for me I had more of an incentive to work hard, not having it be someone in my family. It was good to have a partner outside of my family to give me the push to work hard.
Heather: Would you say that either one of you was a leader in your Duo?
Ashley: I think we shared that leadership position. I think Jathan did a lot of it, especially when I really, really did not want to practice. But it was 50/50.
Jathan: I think you have to be open to when ideas come. Its guiding the direction you are going. It’s not leading in the sense of this is what we are going to do, it’s leading in this is what we have to do now. Keeping the ball rolling.
Ashley: Yeah…
Jathan: There was leadership roles for me, and leadership roles for Ashley. I remember in the beginning, I would watch a video of us, and watching Ashley I noticed, she had very good movements. They were very live. In that sense she was the leader and I was able to learn from her.
Ashley: One of the reasons I thought this was a good partnership is because I had been around NCFCA since I was like 7 years old. I know a lot of rules, I know what you do, what you don’t do… It’s like technical in my brain. But Jathan hadn’t been around it that long. He had crazy ideas, it was nice to have that balance, I knew what we had to do, and he had ideas to make it alive.
Jathan: Yep.
Heather: Let’s talk a little about that then. Because Jathan you were quite new, and Ashley you had been around, was there any inspiration. Did you get feedback? Did you watch other Speeches? How did you figure out what you wanted to incorporate into your Speech?
Jathan: That would be mostly us, I think. Although I do remember watching the Baldacci’s, and their winning Duo, and thinking I want that. that is what I want to be. I want to be the 2016 Duo Champions. I want to be that inspiration, because they inspired me to do better. The way Christopher widened his eyes or Chiarra would move her arms. I wanted that.
Ashley: I mainly stayed away from watching videos and watching other Duos, because I didn’t want to flip into, oh my gosh, they’re amazing. I didn’t want to go there. I know Jathan’s mom watched a lot to make sure we weren’t missing anything. That our ideas were really truly our own. If we were going to win Nationals that everything has to be fresh and it has to be our own, so Jathan helped a lot with that, because he didn’t know anything!
Kristi: That is a great point. There is not a winning formula in Duo, necessarily. It’s a lot of work… A lot of what you guys are talking about.
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