Speech Competition

I'm in a Speech class this semester, and I'm going to a competition this weekend.
I'm on the drama side of Speech, and I'm doing prose -- a story about Lapin. Lapin is essentially Brer Rabbit...but in the Louisiana Bayou, with the Cajuns and Creoles.

This is my first speech competition in three years, and back then it was mostly a joke. Everyone got either "Superior," "Excellent," or "Good." It was a feel-great-about-yourself tournament. This one definitely isn't.
So, I'm nervous. The coach wants to watch me practice beforehand, which is even scarier for me than the actual competition, since I prefer to think of my audience as faceless. (Except when I'm writing -- that's completely different).
I was asking the coach questions about the competition today, and one of the questions I asked seemed fairly normal to me, though I know it seemed odd to him. But anyone who has heard me talk about math or Academic team competitions would understand the question.
But he answered it, and the answer has made me even more nervous than I was.

I'm not allowed to take my jump rope.

My mother made me jump rope between rounds at Chapter Mathcounts last year. At State Mathcounts, she and a friend of ours made me jump rope between rounds. At National Mathcounts, the sponsor wouldn't let me go to lunch until I had jumped rope. This fall, at Academic Team competitions, I'm pretty sure one of the sponsors wouldn't have let me compete had I not jumped rope beforehand. She even asked me at the last tournament before our first game if I had.
It makes that much of a difference. I am calmer when I have jumped rope, I am less nervous -- sometimes even just having the weight of the rope in my hand helps, because I can find that beat without actually jumping.

But no.
*nervous*