Jak

The twirlers do get judged in equipment. Though baton doesn't count towards your minimum equipment time with the T&P judge, the equipment sheet says "choreography includes all the skills within the flag, rifle, sabre, or prop vocabulary" They will assess any piece of equipment you manipulate.

Of course. "A Fifth of Beethoven" is one of my favorites!

Can I just say that I LOVE the disco version of Firebird? And here I thought you couldn't improve on Stravinsky.

2009 is the year of the back to back flag exchange. You know, the performers stand back to back, toss the flag, turn around and catch their partner's flag. In Atlanta, I saw it 6 times in SA finals alone. I've seen it several times on the Fan Network too. I'm officially over it!

God help us all... I hope they will be passing out Cliffs Notes at WGI finals this year.

I believe Tim Vaughn (founder and director of the much-missed Chimeras) is the director at Mt. Juliet.

You prefer Britney to Mahler? A little part of me just died...

I assume. But my source didn't tell me that.

Mia Michaels dance class: 10 a.m. Sunday of WGI in the Dayton Arena. Limited to 500 participants.

I thought Croatan and Byrnes (SA) were REALLY good. They're so clean, and they can sure catch those weapons. I also thought Byrnes moved well.

Adam Sage. Even if I didn't already know that, it would have jumped out at me in a second. By the way, I'm also wondering what happened to Grove. Yikes!

Amen! I have noticed that most of the recent show announcements have tended towards the esoteric, abstract, and pseudo-intellectual. If you need Cliff Notes to understand a winterguard show, it's too complicated.

I love Michael James' stuff, but I HATE shows that push a political agenda.

Do you know which movement? Mt. Juliet HS from TN did Grace several years ago. The music is beautiful. Of course Adam was in the same circuit; in fact, Mt. Juliet was neck and neck with Kennesaw for the most of that year.

Little know fact about Sebastienne, he is also a vitriolic theater critic for his local paper. Of course, the Christmas theater season has kept him quite busy. Here is an excerpt from one of his recent reviews: "Sacred Heart Elementary School's production of "The Story of the First Christmas" is an overrated clunker of a holiday pageant, best left to those looking to cure their insomnia. The apathetic staging and uninspired script were straight from the mind of Sister Mary Elizabeth Bronson, who should have been excommunicated after last season's disastrous Thanksgiving program. In the role of Mary, six-year-old Shannon Burke just barely manages to pass herself off as a virgin. Her performance seemed based on nothing but an annoying proclivity toward lifting her skirt, and on rare occasions, opening her eyes. As Joseph, second-grader Douglas Trazzare needed to be reminded that, although his character did not technically impregnate the virgin mother, he should behave as though he were capable of doing so." Apparently, Shirley Whitcomb has said in no uncertain terms that Sebestianne is not to write reviews for any of the WGI Scholastic classes, fearing emotional scarring of the perfomers.

I hear from my source that there are a lot of groups doing string quartet versions of various pop songs. Sort of a classical feel without being classical music. He's in a position to see the trends early, and that's what he's predicting for this year. There must be some group that released an album of these recently or something.

Apparently they put it up and then took it down for awhile. They put it back up this afternoon. Not sure why. By the way, this kind of thing is not unheard of in WGI. I know of two active judges who have exactly the same thing on their records.

I'm not sure I understand the original question, but I thought would throw this out there. I know that most groups spin at their belly button, but we actually spin in front of the chest. Our spin spot is our sternum, and we push the spin way out away from the body. This is better at building strength, because it's hard to maintain that level for long spin blocks. But more importantly, I like the way they look. Their elbows are very lifted and away from the torso, which helps the elbows to stay completely motionless. They also take up more space and look more in control by spinning away from the body. In addition, it helps them to be much more lifted in their upper bodies and to hold the length in their spine and their necks that I look for. One thing you have to watch is that they don't pull their shoulders up around their ears. After years of experimenting, this is the only way I could ever get them to look good on Over spins. And it keeps them from looking schlumpy on all their spins.

I went to WGI's site, and there was a press release about Ed Devlin replacing Randy Nelson. But when I went back to the site, it was gone. Fortunately I saved the link. http://www.wgi.org/news_detail.php?id=1808 ???

Ok, I'm writing that down. I will use that this winter. Or maybe even tonight. That sounds like a good football game kind of comment.

I know this is an old topic, but it just occurred to me that we can add Pope HS to the list. They had the silver in SO in 2000, the bronze in SW in 2002, and now the bronze in SA in 2008. The Cobb County school district from GA has 4 Open Class guards this year (Kell, Kennesaw Mountain, Lassiter, and Pope). And each one of those guards has at least 1 WGI medal, with a total of 8 between them. Are there any other school districts out there with that kind of success?

I saw that Mt. Juliet show. They were oil rigs, actually. I loved it when Sac spun 3 flags at a time that year. That was so cool!

-I want them to be GREAT on their equipment. I'd rather see them stand in 2nd and smack a triple then do sixes with turn-arounds and look like a mess. -I want them to understand how to lift from their centers, lengthen their neck, hold their posture strong, and S--T--R--E--T--C--H. I can't stand watching girls run around the floor looking all schlumpy. -I like that I'm not a judge, and I can love one style and hate all the rest. I love Center Grove, Aimachi, Kennesaw Mountain (when they used to be good), Pride, and other groups with a similar style and look. I can't stand hip-hop, trashy, or in-your-face/growling/hopped-up-on-testosterone shows. -I love groups with beautiful design and attention to detail in the production values. I'm suprised at the few groups out there that spend so much time and energy training the kids and writing the show, but then use ugly flags and costumes that clash with their floor. I go to winterguard shows because my groups is there. We're usually the last ones on at circuit shows, so I rarely see anyone else except at Regionals or WGI.

I was thinking the same thing. Watch Blessed Sac 89, which was groundbreaking at the time. It looks hopelessly dated now. By 99, just 10 years later, the activity had moved light years ahead. But here as we go into 09, the 99 groups don't look dated at all to me.

That's what he says, and why we usually do close to an hour. But sometimes you have to just warm-up and go. When you only have a 3 hour rehearsal, it makes it very difficult to do an hour of movement and 30+ minutes of equipment technique. Rehearsal is half over and you haven't started on the show. On a similar note, we've been hosting a Regional now for 3 years, and I always make it a point to watch some of the top groups rehearse while they're in town. I'm amazed at the lack of time they spend on techinque. It was pretty common across the board for them to do a 15 or 20 minute movement session, give the kids 5 minutes to spin their hands out, and then start on the show. I won't name names, but I'm talking about several top level groups in both the Scholastic and Independent classes. It has definitely made me re-think our approach.