Figuring Freestyle
This past weekend I took an amazingly annoying bus trip to Columbus to do the freestyle category in BeardCon, one of the largest beard contests in the area. Now this ... this was the real deal. I have been in several contests in the past, but none were quite to this scope -- or, really, even came close. There were several heavy hitters in the contest, and the top three in the category, were at least in my opinion, the three best there. Would I have had them in a different order? Perhaps. But all three were, regardless, amazing specimens.
It became clear, as time went on before the contest, that I was not going to place. I had seen the other contestants and I was simply amazed by what I had seen, unable to parse why mine didn't quite look at what I had witnessed. Probably not the greatest of mindsets, to be certain, but I was realistic enough to know that there was no chance that I was top three material. Sure enough, I didn't qualify for the final. And it would be, of course, easy to bitch and moan and whine, or point fingers, or call it quits. But as anyone who knows me is aware, I am persistent. To a fault.
So it helps to consider a few things, and to work from there:
STYLING AID ISSUES: One of the rules of the contest was to make sure that product was not immediately visible, and I think that I did a SOMEWHAT decent job at this, but not great by any means. There was simply too much product (both hairspray and Gorilla Snot) used, not helping the cleanness of the final product (in part because of uncooperative hair, which might, in turn, be due to design flaws -- see below). This also hindered attempts to style, where fingers and items used as curlers were beginning to stick into the design, and removing them caused flyaways and warping (also big nonos for the judges here). I am still not used to using product, at all, and my inexperience shows in the final design.
DESIGN FLAWS: I had -- what I thought -- was a doable design this year, but again inexperience and having to rush caused issues in actually executing what I wanted. I am fighting gravity, and clearly not winning, and this resulted in my having to abandon the original design and go for something doable. I seriously regret this, and while it didn't look BAD ... it could simply NOT compete with what was on stage, which was precise and, if something had to be a "plan B," it was certainly not obvious in those competing with me.
;TIME. Not being aware that there was workspace above the convention area to do my thing, I rushed to get my stuff done, resulting in one side possessing far more "finess" than the other. It's amazingly easy to get lost in details, or to waste time on attempting things that just don't work. The bottom line: seriously, dude, time management. You need it. Now that I know that I had nearly an extra two hours, would I have tried to improve things? Absolutely.
So where do I go from here? Simply put, I need to get my shit together. Learn, practice, and overcome prior mistakes. I am not really sure, though, where I would turn for this. I am always open to suggestions.