How do you handle?

[Steve M]

Don,
The biggest "help" I get from martial arts - and I retired more than 20 years ago - is calmness. With proper breathing, you can really control yourself as far as reacting excitedly goes. One of the lessons that I had to learn the hard way was to not react instantly, pause, then decide what your reaction should be, then do it. I've seen too many otherwise really good umps who can't handle big gams because they tend to escalate the excitement level during confrontations instead of being a calming influence.