从NSDA区域赛八强到全国冠军，是什么让他一路勇往直前？

Hi~大家好呀！大家最爱的学生采访又来啦！

辩论是对知识储备、演讲水准与思维能力的一次考验，也为所有观众带来一场知识盛宴与头脑风暴。

生活可以很无趣，也可以丰富多彩，就看你以一个什么样的态度去对待。成长可以很痛苦，也可以很快乐，就看你选择怎样的方式去自我成就。

今天的这篇采访，我们与就读于温彻斯特公学（Winchester College），NSDA全国现役积分排行榜TOP 15的管泊宁Bob聊了聊。

在英国读书的他只有九年级，冷静沉稳、游刃有余是他的特点。

然而，身为一位比赛经验丰富的辩手，他比赛经历也并非一帆风顺。下面就让我们一起来看看常踞NSDA比赛获奖名单的他，与辩论彼此成就的精彩经历吧！

获奖经历

2018:

成都区域赛Novice 八强优秀辩手与2nd Seed

2019:

成都区域赛Varsity 八强优秀辩手与3rd Seed

国赛即兴辩论 1st Seed

厦门区域赛高中组 八强与优秀辩手

2020:

四月线上联赛高中组 冠军

五月线上联赛高中组 亚军与优秀辩手

五月线上联赛初中组 八强与优秀辩手

六月线上联赛初中组 季军与优秀辩手

六月川陕区域赛 冠军与最佳辩手

ADAC pre-nats 冠军优秀辩手与1st Seed

线下国赛高中组 十六强与优秀辩手

线下国赛初中组 冠军与优秀辩手

线上国赛初中组 亚军与优秀辩手

获得今年NSDA全国总决赛线下赛冠军和线下赛亚军后，Bob写下了他的心路历程，以下摘录他的英文原稿。↓↓↓

On the 17th of August of 2019, a Chengdu debater fresh out of novice attended the first nationals of his life. That tournament taught him many things: the value of friendship, how winning is not everything, and how great NSDA makes their matcha smoothies, yet the most important thing he learnt in those 3 days was how far he still had to go. When he flew back home, he considered for many days where he would be in debate in one year’s time, whether he even would be in debate in one year’s time.

Growth is not something that is felt at an instance, it is an accumulation of maturity that is realized over a gradual period. I grew very much over the past year, but to really encompass and acknowledge it in context, let us look at my point of realization, not just of how far I had to go, but what road I was going to take to get there, the Xiamen regionals on the cryptocurrency topic. That tournament will always be special for me, because that is where I met probably the two biggest inspirations of my future debate career, my current partner, Alex, and my friend and ex-object of admiration, Diego.

The Xiamen tournament was one of last in a busy season. I had just returned from England, and having barely prepared anything, relying solely on my partner’s cases, I did not feel comfortable going to the only other available options, which were Shanghai and Beijing. Coincidentally, one of my coach, Coach Will’s, Shenzhen debaters, Alex, also came to Xiamen. Feeling uncomfortable going into the tournament blind, I arranged a mock debate with him. He destroyed us, mopped the floor with our cases. When the debate ended, all his points still stood, and all our points stood with him. This was a well needed reality check for me, and really hammered in all my problems I tried to ignore in 2019 nationals. There was a gap between good debaters and I, good debaters do good research, I use definitions from Merriam-Webster dictionary. We exchanged cases afterwards, but something felt off: why would I be exchanging cases with someone a whole year younger than me, and why would I be the real benefactor of this exchange. When I went back to the hotel that night, I had trouble sleeping. Not anxiety regarding strong debaters I will face, but self-loathing over the disparity of how well I thought I debated, and how well I actually debated.

The next day was as usual as a tournament goes, good hosting school, good debates, excellent food, though not as good as 2018 TOC. Something bugged me, something deep within one’s mind that one cannot describe. I wanted a trophy, sure, but what I really wanted was to get better. I talked a lot with Alex in our down time, he was, and still is, a nice guy. I saw in him something I did not in other debaters, something pure and visceral. He did not come to get decorated; he came because he liked debating. I had some of the most fun with him, just dissecting evidence and writing fake articles on Wix about how Cryptocurrencies will lead to human extinction (these cards were never used and just produced for entertainment.) After a while together, we naturally became good friends. The feeling did not go under the horizon when the sun did, but it did transform: I was more confident, somehow, of something.

The second day ended just as quickly as the first, but before it really did, there were two finals to watch. The middle school finals were a good debate through and through, but it was just like any other good debate; the high school finals were different. I had heard about the prowess of Diego through word of mouth across the tournament, but it was when I saw him debate that I found his deification, at least in my eyes then, to be justified. His logic and interpretation were immaculate, condensing the debate into neat voting issues that he all clearly won, giving the opposing team not even a glimmer of hope to turn the tide. It was not surprising to see a 5-0 panel for him, made even less surprising by the fact that he was best speaker on day one. There was a gap between excellent debaters and good debaters, good debaters do good research, but excellent debaters reduce that to null with a flurry of indites and counter analysis.

Meeting Alex and Diego made me realize two things, where I wanted to be in the short term, and where I wanted to be in the long term. On the flight back, I turned from self-loathing to self-reflection: how did they reach where they are now, and how do I reach where they will be in the future.

Though the Xiamen tournament represented how my mindset grew, it still did not address the growth in terms of skill that would be needed. I returned to England soon after I returned to Chengdu to finish to schoolyear. Because of my tight schedule, I would be able to make around 6 tournaments every year, certainly insufficient to even scratch the surface of the quota I needed. I missed very many tournaments that season, and had to skip TOC. Sitting in my room in Winchester, I wondered where my career would go, if anywhere.

The COVID-19 pandemic began right around my midterm break. I spent my entire break stuck in my guardian’s house somewhere off Westminster. Here I had time to contemplate, about the future of debate, about my future in debate, about videogame tactics, mostly the third one. It was around this time when I first encountered an important friend and mentor, Elaine. During my spare time, we would analyze the resolution and brainstorm new contentions. It was in my quarantine room that I first conjured the later infamous echo chamber case. When I went back to school, I knew nothing was going to continue normally soon, and it was just a matter of time before I could pack up and return to China. I loved this fact; I loathed this fact. I wanted to be thrown back into debate, but I did not want to be the only one without a compelling case. I contacted my coach and scheduled online classes, for Alex, my ex-partner Jeff, and I.

Important things were learnt over those few online classes, technical things, but also things outside of debate: how to be courteous, or when it is okay to consume dairy products. These classes were my lifeblood in an exhausted semester, waiting to collapse at any command. When I finally did return to China, the classes continued, even in quarantine. We prepped until we thought we were ready, and then after our case was destroyed by our coach, we prepped again until we thought we were ready. This kept going until it was the day of the April online tournaments, when we reached our deadline. Alex and I barely broke into the bottom bracket, and lost in double-octas against a generic Shanghai team. Back to the drawing board.

It was around this time too, that I came into contact, finally, with Diego. Surface level contact, of course, but contact is contact. After a few more tournaments, I showed him my case and asked him to examine its flaws. He tore it apart with necessary and sufficient reasoning, and told me my case had none. My evidence was sketchy at best and completely off topic at worst. It was this dive into analysis that drove me later to think deeper and harder about evidence and its interpretation. I used my cards more carefully, and I made sure to understand what they meant completely before I even dared to transcribe them to others. Back to the drawing board a second time, but this time I had the blueprints for greatness. I had reached my short-term goal, I thought, but it would not, and could not end there.

Growth is not something that is felt at an instance, it is an accumulation of maturity that is realized over a gradual period, there is no other better description I can give of my journey across the spring season. Every tournament, we feel like we are a tiny bit better than before, and before we know it, we are a lot better than before. Alex and I kept marching in middle school, and even when we failed to get a trophy, we failed to give up. Across the span of almost 3 months, we slowly climbed from octafinalist, to semifinalist, not optimal, but not terrible; the spring season was just a warmup, our objective now was nationals.

I am proud to say that nationals this year was probably the hardest I have ever prepped and the most ready I have ever been; I am ashamed to say that most of this happened across a window of but 14 days. Alex and I trained at Harbinger under Coach Jim in preparation for nationals, but just to be sure, I enrolled into a camp supposedly supplying intense preparation. How bad could it be? Bad. Very bad. Diego’s coach, Coach Peter, ran this camp, every day, we would be drilled through exercises of logic, reasoning, and evidence analysis, and every night, we would be “voluntarily advised” into cutting cards and writing blocks until we fell asleep from exhaustion. Every debater there had a roommate, mine just so happened to be Diego. Contrary to popular belief, good debaters are people too. Seeing Diego in this light let me re-examine my relation to him and mine to other debater my own age. It was then when I stopped deifying him, and understanding Diego’s love towards naval history pull closer our distance as well. We got along very well, in fact, after some scrupulous activities on the first night, we decided to work in separate rooms lest our small ltalk impede our progress on writing blocks. It was then, that I felt, that I was finally getting closer to my final objective, nowhere near it, but finally getting closer. Those nights staying up util 2 in the morning to cut cards felt worth it now, those days cramming as much background reading and philosophy into my brain felt worth it now.

Alex and I was the only team to have attended both high school, and middle school nationals. The biggest difference I felt in high school nationals, was the quality of the food, but the second biggest difference, was the quality of arguments. Teams felt much more prepared in high school, with little to no space for indites, and far more focused on the important voting issues, an experience both relieving and painful. The several civil wars Alex and I experienced in high school simply illustrated to us how far we have gone, winning rounds against teams I once thought were far beyond my reach. Growth is not something that is felt at an instance, it is an accumulation of maturity that is realized over a gradual period. That was my period right then and there. We ended high school nationals as a quarterfinalist, what I had expected we will get in middle school. In debate, your team is your family, there is no better illustration of that than what happened at middle school nationals. Without our scouting and group evaluation of opponent contentions, we would have never made it into the semis in middle school, let alone onstage. Growth is not something that is felt at an instance, and it is not something that affects just one.

On the 17th of August of 2020, a Chengdu debater barely into varsity attended the second nationals of his life. That tournament reaffirmed many things for him: the value of friendship, how winning is not everything, and how great NSDA makes their matcha smoothies, yet the most important thing he learnt in those 3 days, was how far he had went. A year ago, he would have asked where he would be in debate in one year’s time. Now he has an answer. In one year’s time, he would become the national champion at offline nationals, and he would not have gotten that far without the support of his coaches, friends, and family.

NSDA君也第一时间联系到Bob，聊了聊他的辩论经历。↓↓↓

01

PART

首战失利，却在辩论路上更坚定

1、你是如何接触到辩论的？

最开始接触到辩论是一年半之前，我想丰富一下课外活动，所以就参加了成都当地的培训机构。当时机构中只有一位辩论教练，我在那里一共训练了大约20小时，然后我就报名了那一届的秋季成都赛区。

这次比赛让我领略颇多，我意识到我的辩论之路一定会很漫长。回家后，我也一直追问自己： 我打辩论有没有前途？今后是否还会依旧愿意出现在辩论的赛场上？我能否成为一个更好的自己？

在一次次比赛的或赢或败中，我才最终决定要坚持辩论这件事。

还记得2018年的成都区域赛，是在八强就出局了。

这让我主要意识到两件事——我在辩论中有巨大的潜力，但我离真正发挥潜力还差得很远。所以这是我最初坚持辩论并取得后来成功的两个动力，它让我意识到我喜欢辩论，也让我明白，如果我想成长得更好并且从中得到更多乐趣，我还需要在更多的比赛中磨砺成长。所以我并没有放弃它，我想战胜更大的挑战，以此成就自我。

02

PART

认清”鸿沟“，找到成长的路径

2、夏季区域赛有什么难忘的体验？

厦门区域赛是繁忙赛季中的最后一站。我刚从英国返回，几乎没有什么准备，完全依赖于我搭档的 cases。巧的是，Will（我的教练之一）在深圳的学员Alex也去了厦门。我不想盲目参赛，所以就 和Alex约了一场模拟赛 。Alex“ 摧毁”了我们，辩论结束的时候，他的所有观点都稳稳站立，而我们的观点全部被“掰弯”成了支持他的证据。

好一击重锤。这一击让我立刻直面我一直试图忽略的那些问题。 好的辩手会好好收集资料，而我直接拣 Merriam-Webster Dictionary上的定义来使用，这就是我和好辩手之间的差异“鸿沟” 。模拟赛之后我和Alex交换了case，心里却异常失落：“为什么我需要和一个比我小整整一岁的辩手交换case，并且这个交换的受益人是大一岁的我？”

回到酒店之后我一晚上辗转难眠。不是担心第二天会遭遇强劲对手，而是一种自我的嫌弃和羞愧，羞愧之前的自认为“自己辩论得有多好”，和嫌弃“自己实际上辩论得有多差”。

不打不相识。后来我和Alex成为了很好的搭档，我在他身上看见了一种其他辩手没有的东西：一种内心的纯粹。我在Alex身上看到了我想成为的样子——我们来辩论不是为了一个奖杯，来辩论是因为真的“喜欢”。就像我一样，有时我想让自己远离这个世界，我想做辩论，归根结底是因为我喜欢辩论。

夏季区域赛的第二天跟第一天结束得一样快，不同之处在于有两场决赛可以公开观看。我早就听过至少半赛场的人讨论Diego的骁勇善战、高明聪慧……不过，真的看到他辩论的时候，他立刻确实成了我眼中的大佬。他的逻辑和分析无懈可击，场面一边倒，对手没有一线希望挽回哪怕一点的局势。大神辩手和好辩手之间也有差异。好辩手好好研究好好收集证据，而大佬靠一波分析和话术就可以把对面的“证据大厦”夷为平地。

Alex和Diego让我明白了两件事：我短期想成为什么样的辩手，以及长期我想成为怎样的辩手。短期是指技巧与能力上，我该如何自我提升；长期是想追求一种内心的纯粹，这和自己到底想成为什么样的人，想要什么有关。回程的航班上，自我嫌弃转化为了自我反思：思考他们为什么能成为今天的他们，以及未来我怎么做才能成为与他们的未来一样的人。

3、你提到的“靠一波分析的话术把对面的‘证据大厦’夷为平地”，有没有具体的例子？

举个例子，如果有一项关于移民的决议，那么支持移民的一方认为“我们应该取消移民的限制，因为现在移民对经济做出了很大贡献”。所以如果我们取消限移民限制，我们会得到更多经济增长。但是其实你的逻辑从根本上是错误的，因为你假设了所有的移民全都会带来经济增长。实际上这是一种法律程序。如果你取消了移民限制，那么进入一个国家的所有移民都会变成低技能的、低劳动力的移民。经济不会因为这样的逻辑算法而更好。低技能移民进入国家后，经济只会受到阻碍。这关乎证据是否严谨周全，与辩论的经验有关。

4、在英国留学为什么选择了美式辩论？

美式辩论不仅仅是一种形式化的东西。如果你过于强调修辞和纯粹的逻辑，缺乏任何证据和分析，它就不是一种令人满意的辩论形式。这就是为什么我更喜欢公共论坛式辩论，它具有严密的逻辑与论据分析。

5、辩论是如何影响、改变你的？

成长不是一蹴而就，而是一种渐进的积累和成熟。一年过去，我成长了很多。我想从自己的视角，承前启后地，具体地去谈论一下成长的经历——不仅是关于走了多远，更加关乎我对于自己内在的思考。

我在辩论中不断突破自己：做研究，分析证据，驱使我去思考、成长。辩论一直引领着我前进。随着对世界的感知越来越清楚，就会带着更多的疑惑去观察这个世界，得到更丰饶的人生体验。

03

PART

辩论，一人难以跋涉如此之远

6、你觉得辩论最吸引你的地方在哪里？

最吸引我的地方是辩论社区，它拥有其他社区没有的东西；只有在辩论中，你才能彻底感受、体验到比赛之前进行社区交流的真正意义。

7、在辩论过程中有没有遇到什么瓶颈和挫折？

今年学校期中假的时候新冠疫情开始了。整个假期我都困在温莎——我的监护人家里，我用了很多时间思考辩论的未来，我作为一个辩手的未来。那段时间英国疫情越来越严重，回国只是个时间问题。我又可以投身辩论，但是我不想我手上 的case像以前那样失去战斗力。于是我赶紧找了教练、 Alex，还有前搭档Jeff一起开始 了辩论的远程课程。

这几次课让我们学到了一些重要的东西，有技术的提升，还有辩论技术之外的一些事情。我们自以为准备好的case拿出来后却被教练痛斩一通，然后继续准备。直到在四月线上赛之前我们一直都这样坚持。

也是在这段时间里，我第一次联系上Diego。接触不深，但也总算结识了。几场比赛之后我给他看我们的case，请他分析。他认为我的证据几乎是凑合，没有逻辑。一系列解剖之后，我开始更全面也更仔细地衡量、解释证据，在场上转述之前三思以确定我真的理解它们。这一次重返赛场时我心怀更“宏大的蓝图”。无论我是否能达到了自己的短期目标，但是我不会，也不能就在这里结束。

成长不是突然实现的，需要一个渐进积累成熟的过程，这是我在春季赛历程的真实写照。每场比赛之后我都觉得我们比之前好了那么一点。不知不觉中，我已经改变很多。我和Alex在初中组勇往直前，但是一个奖杯都没有到手。那时我们没有放弃。在近三个月的时间里，慢慢地，我们从八强爬升到四强，没有到最好，但也挺好。春季赛不过是个热身，因为我们的目标在全国赛。

8、你和Alex在初中组勇往直前的时候，一个奖杯都没有拿到手，那个时候你坚持的动力是什么？

我们对现在成绩不满意，经过努力和反思，我们也希望别人能意识到我们变得更强了。当时我已经感受到质的变化了，但是我们同时也感受到别人没有感受到这样质的变化，所以会想证明给他们看。这是动力之一，想要获得自己努力的认可。

第二是团队之间的相互扶持。辩论团队真的是一个大家庭，虽然说努力向友谊和团队的价值而前进会是听起来比较抽象的一个事情。但如果你要量化的话，这其实才是最重要的价值，关键是要有人在你身边支持你，推动你前进。如果没有大家帮助一起收集对手的资料，一起帮助我们分析对手的论点，我们甚至都没有可能进入到半决赛，更不用说进入最后一轮站上决冠的舞台。成长真的不是突然实现的， 其所带来的影响和收获甚至也不是专属于某一个人 。

9、一路走来，有哪些想要感谢的人？

第一位我想要感谢的是我的第一个教练Will，他教会了我在辩论中 ，怎么进入到这个community，怎么好好做研究，怎么初步做分析和研究，仔细审视逻辑。

我第二个想感谢的人是我最后一个教练Peter，他是我参加的夏令营主持人，他教会我如何真正的思考，如何分析resolution。

最后我想感谢的，是一位来自北京的辩手。他很特别，他并没有局限于中国的PF，他呈现的效果更像是policy、林肯道格拉斯与PF之间的一种结合。他让我对一些辩论技巧与呈现产生了更深的体会，他对辩论的见解和对每一场比赛的心态也对我产生了深远的影响。

作者 | 管泊宁，编辑 | 雨辰，来源 | NSDA全美演讲与辩论联盟