#pemcgwgfaq

[viewsfromcenterfifty]

FAQ: How do you get good at color guard?

Practice.

Push against the natural instinct to shy away from the eyeline of your instructors when you know you're bad at something. Stand in the front of the block when you're repping your weakest skills.

Practice on your own. Talk yourself through challenges. Experiment with the mechanics of your equipment until you understand how to make the skill work.

Work on observational learning. Don't rely on your choreographer to say everything you need to know out loud - look with your eyes and do as they do. If you see a hand switch, do the hand switch. If their feet pull into first on a release, so do yours. The less you need spelled out for you the better.

Practice. Record yourself practicing. Watch the recordings. Decide how you're going to try to improve upon what you were doing. Then practice some more.

Hold yourself accountable. If you move under your tosses, you're not achieving. If your height and rotation aren't the same every time, you're not achieving. If your catch position is incorrect, you're not achieving. Just doing the skill however isn't the point.

Practice.

Participate in rehearsal. Engage in your lessons. Say the checkpoint counts out loud and you'll memorize them. Answer the instructors when they ask questions of the group and you'll reinforce your understanding. If you receive a correction and don't know how to apply it, ask for clarification.

If you're doing something wrong, don't wait for someone to notice and call you out. Actively try to figure it out - and if you can't, ask for help. Don't allow yourself to just be incorrect because no one has yelled at you yet.

Did I mention you have to practice? Not just the fun stuff. Put on a song and do a fundamental exercise until it ends, then switch hands and do it on the other side.

Finally, get your attitude right. You're there to develop your craft, don't waste the time you have with half assed reps and repeated mistakes. Why spend your time dedicating to something if you care about it that little?

I guess that's the moral of the story. Care. You have to put care into what you do to be good. You can't just trust the process, you have to care enough to jump headfirst into initiating that process. It is absolutely not even slightly easy whatsoever. You will have lots of bad days. You just have to care about it enough to keep pushing anyway.

[viewsfromcenterfifty]

FAQ: Do you wear gloves? Should flags wear gloves?

I don't know why this is such a hot button question this month, but here we are:

I am a world class career flag - I abhor gloves. No one should allow their flagline to wear them. Advanced flag technique demands intricate use of the exact parts of the hand a glove pads, meaning it's muffling the feedback my body can give me at best and restricting my ability to manipulate my hand fully at worst. It's uncomfortable, annoying, and there's just no need - anyone who mandates gloves for flags for "protection" or "comfort" has no idea what they're talking about. The primary impact-taking hand is almost never placed at the fastest rotating point on the equipment when you catch a flag - on the contrary, the primary placements are almost always at the balance point which has the slowest rotation. It's nothing like weapon technique. At all.

Now with all that being said, gloves do serve a purpose for weapon. When I train, write, or teach rifle and sabre I wear a glove on my impact-taking hand if I'm throwing anything over a triple. I have my students learn their weapon technique with gloves on so they can get used to the way it feels right from the first day. If my more advanced students prefer to only wear one glove, I allow them that choice. I also permit them to - if they have time and can be subtle during an equipment change - take off their gloves for a closing flag or dance feature.

Moral of the story: I hate gloves and will straight up refuse to wear them to spin flag but will wear them to not break my hand off when I'm playing sabre.

[viewsfromcenterfifty]

FAQ: How do I stay in contact with scholastic group to provide updates, reminders, etc.? What about parents?

For contacting students: use BAND. BAND is a free team management app (and website) that was developed specifically with all the varied needs of a marching arts program in mind - hence the name. It's the best of a Facebook group, Google Classroom, and Remind all in one. It has literally every feature you could ever want and then some, every setting is customizable, and the chat replaces the need for any of the students to have your phone number. Different members can all have different permissions so your staff, leadership, and rookies don't have to all be allowed to do/not do the same things. I switched over a few years ago when it was still very new and have never looked back. I couldn't recommend it more.

For contacting parents: you could always use BAND for parents as well, but I personally don't recommend giving the parents that much casual, direct access to you. I simply use email. I have a separate account that's solely for the guard program, and that's the only way they can contact me. If they want to discuss something further or schedule a phone call, they have to do it through that email account so I have a record of it.