SJDI Staff Interview #6: Eric Deng
Our sixth interview features Focus Session instructor Eric Deng. Eric debates for San Marino High School, and has won the Long Beach tournament and has reached late outrounds of many other tournaments. Learn more about Eric and hear his advice on approaching tournaments and camp in this week’s instructor interview!
You won the Long Beach tournament – what was your mentality going into the tournament?
Going into the tournament, I was mostly looking to test out new strategies that I had prepped like the Postmemories aff that became my main aff for the topic. Knowing that it was a finals bid meant that there really wasn’t a lot of pressure to bid going into the tournament. As a result, I just had a lot more fun reading stuff I thought was interesting and fun.
What was your favorite argument this season?
My favorite argument this season would have to be the Zombified Fugitivity K that I read at the debateLA Round Robin and Harvard Westlake. It’s just a very fun K to read that not a lot of people are prepared to answer because it questions a lot of assumptions that debaters take for granted like their affs solving for structural violence. It’s also extremely versatile and links into affs across the spectrum which really makes it strategic. A close second for my favorite argument would have to be the states counterplan and the politics DA. It’s super versatile, relevant, and fun to read because people aren’t prepared to answer it. The states counterplan debate in particular is quite interesting because most affs don’t have any fed key warrant which I’m on a crusade for! There are also some arguments that I can’t talk about, but definitely look out for them at TOC.
What advice would you give to younger debaters for how to improve most at camp?
I think the single most important thing for younger debaters to improve on is to pick a specific area to work on and really grind it out. It may seem counterintuitive to specialize but getting really good at one aspect of debate allows for you to skyrocket in skill in one area which allows you to branch out without worrying too much about winning during the year. Another piece of advice is to challenge yourself with extremely difficult drills that test you in areas you’re not comfortable with. All too often debaters get caught up in their ideological preferences and perhaps laziness that they don’t learn to answer arguments that they dislike which then ends up coming back to bite them. Most importantly, camp is meaningless if you’re not having fun learning. Camp is at its best when you’re interacting with your labmates and lab leaders. Be sure to branch out and make friends that you can have friendly competition with!
What arguments are you most excited to teach at SJDI this summer? How do you think younger students can improve at reading these arguments?
I’m most excited to teach debaters about reading kritikal affs in LD as well as getting better at policy arguments. A lot of the times LD debaters are time pressed in the 1AR to answer many arguments and reading a kritikal aff makes it even more difficult to be technical, efficient, and smart. However, knowing the literature base and having written overviews would vastly improve both the explanation and execution of these affs. On the neg, LDers are often times just missing basic components of a 2NR that could easily win them the round. This is most apparent in technical policy-style debates where micro-level interactions are mishandled. Younger students would do well to have better evidence and have mini overviews at each level of, for example, a disad.
What coaching philosophy do you bring to SJDI?
Like I said above, I think that if a debater is not having fun learning then they’re not at the most optimal condition to learn. Having friendly competition and a balance of rest is an important factor to improvement. That being said, I think a heavy emphasis on practice rounds and redoes is infinitely valuable to a debater’s improvement. Experience is sometimes the only thing that holds back debaters. Things like when to go for what, time tradeoffs, and judge adaptation can only come after having numerous rounds under one’s belt. Similarly, the post-round process of redoing a speech to perfection is excellent for knowing your flaws and figuring out a coherent strategy.
Sign up today here to learn from Eric this summer!