One Clap Speech and Debate

Camp One Clap 2, Episode 12: Jay M. Roccaforte on Embracing Fear, Growth, and Poetic Resilience

• Lyle Wiley / Jay M. Roccaforte • Season 6 • Episode 12

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6:12 - Camp One Clap 2024: Day 12

For notes and details about the episode, check out the website here:
https://www.oneclapspeechanddebate.com/post/camp-one-clap-2-episode-12-jay-m-roccaforte-on-embracing-fear-growth-and-poetic-resilience

In this episode at Camp One Clap, we welcome the insightful Jay M. Roccaforte, a seasoned competitor and coach, who shares his understanding of fear as a pathway to growth. Drawing parallels with cultural practices like Halloween and using poetic reflections and personal anecdotes, Jay illustrates how fear and desire are intertwined, pushing us closer to our goals and enriching our lives. Get ready for an inspiring discussion that will empower you to embrace fear and embark on your own personal transformation.

If you’d like to join the discussion here at One Clap Speech and Debate, shoot me an email at lylewiley@gmail.com or reach out here on the website.

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Lyle Wiley:

well, hey, campers, it's a beautiful day. 12 here at camp one clap, which means we've survived a dozen fab days in the clapocalypse. Today, speech royalty jm roccaforte is here with part one of his two part series. I'm your camp director and host of the One Clap Speech and Debate podcast, Lyle Wiley. Hopefully this year at camp we're helping coaches and competitors acknowledge their fears and anxieties and embrace their authentic voices for the coming speech and debate season.

Lyle Wiley:

A quick reminder check the One Clap socials for today's social media challenge. I promise sometimes they don't have anything to do with Nicolas Cage. With us today is superstar speacher and friend of the podcast, Jay Roccaforte. Jm Roccaforte has become comfortable calling himself an artist and a poet. Throughout six years of forensics competition, Jay became a four-time national champion and international champion as of 2023. After taking a year off from school focusing on mental health and volunteer coaching for his high school team, Jay will return to competition with the Western Kentucky University forensics team, pursuing his bachelor's in art education. Jay is here at the Clapocalypse to acknowledge the terror inherent in performance and examine how we can conquer those fears. And it's time for Jay's first episode here at Camp.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

Hello One Clap listeners. My name is JM Roccaforte and I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a bit on edge at the moment. See, my spidey sense is tingling, my amygdala is in overdrive and I'm simultaneously fighting and flighting. The day this segment releases, I will be in Kentucky, 16 hours from home, working on my speech pieces for the coming season. This probably isn't a big deal for plenty of people, but here's my first little piece of advice to you Don't minimize fears you can feel it can be a form of avoidance, and the moment you can actually know your fear for what it is, you can face it and begin to overcome it. I've competed and coached in speech and debate for a total of seven years now. I still have so much I want to accomplish and I still get so anxious. I am getting better and, if you'd like, I invite you on this rickety bridge with me. I promise we'll reach the other side safely.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

Here's the plan. First, we will discuss the nature of fear and our cultural practices that posture fear as a human truth. Then we'll look at the anxiety of public speaking specifically and how one will inevitably face and conquer their fears competing in a speech and debate environment Until, finally, I'll share a horror story or two of my own and explain how my soul was reborn through fear, like Bruce Wayne and his bats. Bruce Wayne and his bats, for starters. Think about the changing seasons as the lush heat of spring and summer fades with the cold wind, it's natural to feel some anxieties regarding the coming winter. But does one ignore this fear? Continue wearing tank tops and short shorts? No, you are forced to take this struggle head on to change with the leaves, which brings me to my favorite season autumn, or fall, if you're a fake fan.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

It's no coincidence that, among a vast array of cultures, this time of year typically brings with it cultural practices meant to honor and celebrate the dead Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, samhain in Ireland, pitru Paksha in India. America, we have Halloween, which I love, but key themes of the holiday are often masked by the more commercialized facets Buying Walmart costumes and obtaining what should be illegal quantities of almond joys. Still, at a deeper level, halloween, lets us embrace the dead. Deeper level. Halloween, lets us embrace the dead, the unknown, the fear that is taboo under most other circumstances, and I would like to posture these practices as not merely a celebration, but as a necessary confrontation that arises with the anxieties of the past and the dread of the future. Here we are in the present, the now, and the power of the creative voice is infinitely accessible to anyone who feels moved to sing, to scream. If you are instead consumed by fear, this voice becomes petrified, unrehearsed and starves. In this way, I fully believe that speech and debate is life or death, a use it or lose it situation, A habitual practice to fulfill a lifetime, to communicate, to perform Is To live and to relive.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

I once read that every poem that has ever been written is a misinterpretation of itself. Right? So if all of this feels excessively poetic, good, I am hopelessly abstract, and yet I hope the illusory words ignite some curiosity in you. He wrestles with the life cycle of a poet, the journey of influencing and being influenced by the people we meet, each of us a poet in every sense of the term. Person I meet with a more thoughtful and appreciative gaze. I'm no longer terrified of miscommunication and with more and more exposure to the failures of language, I fall deeper in love with this disaster we get to witness and contribute to. Simply put, we are all winging it. Simply put, we are all winging it. And high school speech and debate is only the starting line. At least it felt like that for me. I was so afraid, but far more afraid of never trying.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

In Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling he writes of an old proverb with insights into our world of spirit Only the man that works gets the bread. He elaborates that only he who was in anguish finds repose. Only he who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved. Only he who draws the knife gets Isaac. We can't possibly hope to unpack all of that, especially that last line. But his basic argument is that fear naturally postures us in proximity to our goals and it should be viewed as a tool In this way.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

Fear and desire are two sides of the same coin, a classic yin-yang where nothing should be taken personally. You simply want what you want and fear what you fear. And like a balancing scale, as you take on more of life's pleasures and pains, you understand what you value and prioritize most. In addition to those anxieties and obstacles that stand between you and that perfect ideal, you. Most of the time there is a risk and reward attached to whatever fear holds us, and that fear becomes unhealthy the moment you forget that balance.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

Let's say that you want to perform the most amazing duo the world has ever seen, but you're scared the partner you work with won't be as passionate about the piece as you are, and maybe you're scared they'll get lazy as the year continues and maybe they'll end up loving marching band more than speech. Maybe they'll stop coming to tournaments and you'll have to perform your duo alone. Maybe everyone will laugh at you as you stand there for 10 minutes straight, bawling your eyes out and taking sixth place, disqualified because your tears are considered props Deep breath. This may seem like a silly exaggeration, but with each of those maybes, you suppose the anxiety in your brain can take you further and further into an imaginary torture chamber of your own design. All of those things are awful, but I also just made them up just now. None of these things have ever happened to you, and even if they did, it's possible that you would never experience those things back to back as easily as we just imagined them, back-to-back as easily as we just imagined them. You are strong and resilient, and as embarrassing and cringy a speech and debate can be sometimes, no one has ever died from public speaking. My anxiety actually caused me to google, if that's true, and apparently the ninth US president died of pneumonia after giving a two hour outdoor speech in winter without a coat or hat, which, luckily for us, doesn't count. You know, and even if death in this activity is unlikely, sometimes it can still feel like you will die. Sometimes you might feel like you want to die, and this is where I tell you my deepest, darkest tales of humiliation and rejection. So turn the lights off and gather real close. It's about to go down. Okay, nsda Nationals 2019 in Dallas, texas.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

I didn't break past quarters in humor and all that's left is my poetry supplemental. I remember on the way to that tournament, my coach told me that we could like work on the intro. I wanted to change it because I've been doing it as like a 10 minute version all year, cut it down to five minutes for nationals and I just wanted a new, fresh intro. And I was so focused on humor that like I had something written but like I wasn't worried about getting it memorized until you know, I actually had to go to the round, like the next morning, so I was just reading it nonstop, nonstop going through it. I was like I got this, I got this. Poor sophomore Jaden did not got this.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

I show up to that first round, there's like barely anybody in the room. It's just like one woman who's judging and like one other competitor. That other competitor like goes first, leaves the room. Another person shows up. I'm pretty sure that I'm like second or third speaker and so, after she calls me, I go up there, I do my teaser, which is like clean fire, and then I close my book. I look up and then I close my book. I look up and, oh my god, I freeze the worst I've ever frozen on stage. I don't even remember what the first word of my intro is. I'm pretty sure the word monster was somewhere in there.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

Like, obviously I don't remember that, but I'm just like looking at this judge, the one other competitor in the rounds, like nodding at me, like please, like, like he must've felt so bad for me, like just, you can get through this, you got this. Um, I actually ended up asking if I could like sit down and go again later. This woman felt so bad for me. She was like oh my, like yes, of course, of course. And this woman felt so bad for me. She was like, oh my, like yes, of course, of course. And so I sit back down. I'm like, oh my God, that was so awful and I didn't even like get through it. I have to perform again. So she finally like lets the other person go, calls me up again. I run through the teaser dude it's, it's perfect. Again, clean. I close my book and I'm not going to freeze up like I did last time.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

Okay, I didn't get the intro that I typed, but I definitely fumbled through some basic idea of what I was trying to get at. But no, it was not good. I took last place in that round and that was only the first round. I still had one other before the next round of breaks. But I remember after that round going up to some friends and just like bawling my eyes out, and so like the second round went like somewhat better. I still took last place, but at least like there were more people in the room and they were kind of like nodding along, hyping me up, even though, like I was a disaster getting through this intro. Like none of those were complete sentences, like my intro is just one long run on sentence, like the way I'm describing it to you right now. I thought it'd be funny to tell that story off script and just kind of improvise it and like the way that I'm actually like fumbling right now through the story expresses how I felt in that moment.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

But even after going like through that, I came back stronger the next year. You know, that round humbled me for sure, but I don't let that experience define my ability or who I am as a person. In fact, like after that, I honestly don't let my success define me much either. After doing this activity for so long and coaching the students I used to compete with too, I have a much clearer view of the horizon when it comes to this activity. This whole thing is a journey that will last as long as you do. The thrill of winning only lasts so long before you start to wonder what's next. Life goes on and I am trying so hard to keep up with myself.

Jay M. Roccaforte:

But yeah, I hope these words have encouraged you to do the same. I hope these words have encouraged you to do the same. I'm pretty exhausted, but in the next segment I have a much more structured plan. I'm going to take all these concepts I've laid out for you and apply them to my all-time favorite musical, hadestown. So if that sounds at all appealing to you or if you thought that I was weird in this episode. Just know I'm going to be so much worse in that next one. It'll be analytical and obnoxious and I cannot wait to see you there. For now, you have all of my love Till death. Do us part. You have all of my love Till death. Do us part.

Lyle Wiley:

Thank you so much to Jay for his honesty, vulnerability and helpful advice. Jay will be back next week with more wit and wisdom for us. What's going on at the Clapocalypse tomorrow? Well, natalia Kopak is here to talk about how trying new events can be a great experience, and she'll talk about her powerful article that was published by Equality and Forensics earlier this year. Remember to check the social media challenges on our socials every day and we'll see you tomorrow. Campers, oh, don't forget if you have a vampire over for a meal and you're trying to distract them from meat and blood and whatnot. A tip for you their favorite fruit, it's nectarine For Camp One, clap. This is Camp Director Wiley signing off.