Confidence

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[deanoooo]

I've umpired with other umpires who feel the need to give me lots of patronising tips, often in front of the players... this is completely out of order in my opinion and undermines the position.

I've only been qualified for a short while myself and I'm learning constantly. take on board what they're saying but perhaps remember that not every person knows how to talk to people, no matter how good of an umpire they may think they are!

And regarding your mates (and Controller will back me up on this!), in my assessment game, I have a flick against a good friend and he had a go at me. I green carded him, he moved away. We joke about it now.

[Bondy]

Yes, there are two sides to communication - giving and receiving. Not everyone is good at the giving part (especially the grumpy player who's just lost a game) - all you can do is make a good effort at receiving the communication.

And when the time comes for you to be coaching/mentoring/helping someone else, remember what it was like to receive feedback in a bad way, and do it better yourself.

[justin]

Bondy and I are as one on this....he is an international umpire and I have over 20 years experience of having to give clients' staff 'coaching' which frequently included 'negative feedback' on their performance!
You can 'prepare' for, and 'manage' both giving and receiving, by realising, as I said previously, that this is not a 'personality disorder'  ....simply a discussion of what happened, how well it worked, and what lessons may be drawn, for future improvement. If both parties can buy into that idea, and have had time to prepare for it, such feedback can be given and received very productively.

A really vital technique is for both parties to ask questions..... "What went well?" "How might you handle it differently?" "Had you thought of....?", etcetera.
If you are on the receiving end of a 'laundry list', ask "What SINGLE thing do you think I could do to improve?"

(If they say "Give up umpiring!", it's time to head for the bar )

And it's just common courtesy and 'team loyalty' not to slag-off your colleague in front of players

[Bondy]

Bondy and I are as one on this....he is an international umpire

Slight correction here - while I am about to umpire my first Test, I'm not quite as flash as Keely et al and don't have a FIH badge (yet, he says, touching wood!).

I'm pretty sure that's the only mistake Justin made in that post though!

[keely]

Wow, I've never been flash before. Sweet!

[deanoooo]

Wow, I've never been flash before. Sweet!

she'll save everyone of us!

[justin]

Sorry for the premature promotion, Bondy (not really!!) If you are about to umpire your first Test, that makes you close enough for me, and for the purpose of establishing your credibility

[mosley59]

Thanks for all the support guys. An update: I haven't quit yet, in fact I did four games today (all secondary schools stuff). The first went well (an incredibly slow and lopsided schoolgirls match), second went ok. Third one I came on to umpire about ten minutes in when I heard there was only one umpire on it, by which point it had already degenerated and we weren't able to clean it up properly.

The fourth one went badly for the first half, but after a lengthy halftime chat, we spoke to both captains and clearly let them know we'd had enough of the pushing and shoving (from Team A) and how we were going to be blowing obstruction against a certain player from Team B (who'd been the one forcing all the shoving etc by his obstruction). Once those guidelines were relayed to the teams, the second half went fairly smoothly, although there were a couple of issues in it that I discussed after the game with an umpire friend who was playing in that game. While I admit the first half was not good at all, the second half was smoother, and I felt better about it compared to the first half.

The downside of today is that I've wrecked my shins again, and still have two games tomorrow to do. However, I have identified the specific issues with my umpiring that I'll be getting my mentor to help me with when club competition resumes after the Uni holidays, namely positioning (coming up too far, getting caught too square) and vision in the circle (have experimented with various positions around the post area and circle, but still not getting a clear view). Those two are my main concerns, and likely linked, but I also have identified I need to look at as how I'm blowing raised balls in play (probably related to the vision problems) and obstruction.

[keely]

The discussion regarding beginning to umpire or umpiring a full game alone has been split off into its own topic: Starting with one umpire

[jtsoldier]

FYI: As if in conclusion, I had one of the players of the abusive team come up to me on Friday night and apologise... A satisfactory end to that chapter.