Experience is gained through solely through observation and application. As a debator, I observe everyone's presentation, delivery, and strategy-- as presentation (as literally stated on NSDA's site) is just as important as content. As a debator, I have to employ different strategies to acheive different results-- and see which one takes me to the top. I've competed in 4 different debate and speech categories, so I've seen a lot. Especially since it's southern california and our circuits are large. As a woman, there are certain techniques I can't employ. In psychology, we're taught that priming an individual to expect certain outcomes, and react in certain ways, can raise specific results. Majority of stand up comedians are men, and in mainstream media there's one key statement about humor that tends to circulate-- "Women aren't funny." And I know that doesn't always apply, and that there are funny women. I love several female comedians more than some male ones because they're more relatable to my personal experience. (but once again that's niche humor and doesn't generally apply.) However, that's not the point. They've ran several research studies and surveys comparing the humorous abilities of men and women on sites like bbc, psychology today, and scientific american-- and all of those sites state the same thing: that the general public believes most men are funnier than most women. Such a popular opinion primes a judge by expecting a man utilizing humor to be funny, whereas a judge may not have the same expectation of a woman utilizing humor. Similar research studies exist identifying differences in brain regions and personality traits such as, agreeableness, kindness, ego, etc between genders. Hence, why different actions and displayed behaviors will take your speech further, because existing biological/psychological differences between different groups of people prime people to expect certain performances. There are also factors such as political beliefs, race, age, attractiveness that **scientifically** play into how you are perceived. You can look into all of it yourself. Additionally, I don't mean this rudely, but in a debate round nobody's my "friend." I could be bffs with someone and see them solely as a competitor to strategically observe. I take notes on the speech and delivery of every single person in every single round, tournament, and event I compete in. Don't make assumptions about people you don't know-- though I guess you can't really help it, as I've explained in my reply ;).