The guy I used to cook with has been a judge for 3-4 years, so between that and cooking I kinda knew the basics of judging (starting at a 6 and going up and down from there, auto DQ's) but hearing first hand the rep, others questions, etc AND practice judging was interesting. I think the real advantage as a cooker will be actually judging out in the field to see and taste other's food AND observing and discussing with other judges.
As far as tonight's food - it's a shame they had to cook some of the food bad in order to get the class to think about why they gave the scores they did. Plus, I think the lighting was bad - most of the food looked yellowish. And it's true, we eat with our eyes first.
What I wasn't prepared for was when the instructor asked why one person kept giving very low score (commonly giving 2s through 4s) and when the person
didn't really have a good answer other than saying I didn't think it was that good, the rep asked if she should she could do better.
The classmate replied that she doesn't cook. Not as in not a competition cooker, but she doesn't cook period. At first it shocked me why someone who never cooks would want to judge cooking, but then realized people don't have to cook to enjoy eating. But in my perfect world, I think every judge should understand the process of barbequeing.