Jak

Pope is the only one I've seen, and they are great. They are ranked 3rd right now. They look like Kennesaw Mountain used to (which is understandable).

'twas Pope.

Yes, they do host a show. I'm not sure I would say it is by invitation only, but I think it helps to know Jodi. Last year I got there in time to see Phantom, Pride, and Aimachi. I know there were several others as well before I got there.

Hey, if you're going to go to all the trouble to get an artificial hip for winterguard, you might as well upgrade to the fully-turned-out model. Dance would be much easier if your hips turned themselves out!

Michael James performed with the Knights at WGI last year. I don't know how old he is, but I would guess he's in his 30s.

There was a man in Chimeras in 2005 that was almost 40.

I'll be there (probably).

That's a farily common experience. There have been groups to win A Class one year, and then win Open Class the next year (John Overton and Kennesaw Mountain for example). But most groups have at least some growing pains when moving into a new class. The standards are much higher for what the performers are expected to do as you move up a class.

I loved Corona. They're not very polished, finnessed, or nuanced, and I don't normally care for guards that are missing those qualities. However, who cares? Have you seen what they're doing? How about when the rifles throw a 6 (or something), the dancers do a handstand, put their feet on the rifle's shoulders and flip over them, then catch the rifle! (except for the one girl who had to go chasing it).

I didn't intend to imply that it was about quantity. I'm talking about the difficulty of the vocabulary. Their equipment vocabulary is lacking (by today's standards). And most of their equipment parts are prestented on upright bodies either stationary or traveling in a pedestrian manner. You can't even be competetive in A Class now without layering body and equipment most of the time. The design and construction I think still holds up today.

I'm not sure I'm an expert, but I would expect it would be very low. They don't do enough with their equipment to be competitive in World Class. They don't do enough with their bodies and the triad to even be competitive in A Class. It was ahead of it's time, no doubt, but that was 17 years ago, and a lot has changed.

I LOVED the headpieces. You'll are crazy!

How do you know? It's not up yet. I wasn't there, but it is hard to believe that burg moved .6 better than CG.

Holding your torso strong is so important for everyone, but I've found it's even more important (or maybe it's just more difficult) for bigger girls. If you can learn to lift up out of your center and create length in your spine, you will look much better and have better control over your movement and equipment. Too often, bigger girls look sort of sloppy and out of control because they're not doing that. Some of the ways I express this to the kids are "Lift up out of your center," "Make your back flat," "Tuck you tail under," "Pull your belly button in," "Tighten your abdominal muscles," "Stand tall," etc. Whatever works. You do have to be careful not to hyper-extend or "arch" your back. Of course, that posture is never static; the choreography will call for you to arch your back, release your abs, take your body off center, etc. But a good understanding of postural alignment and control will go a long way.

Loved Chimeras that year! Especially the trick where half the guard did a back bend and the other spun a flag on the back benders stomach...

I was thinking the same thing. Cake, napkins, stuffing your face, it all screams Walton!

Nothing's worse than the XXX logo from last year (for WGI's thirtieth anniversary). I went to Starbucks by Nutter Center still wearing my badge, and the barista asked me if there was some sort of porn convention in town.

I know the Band Hall could make you some, but not for under $15. Or you could brown wide leg pants (like lounge type pants) and cut them off and hem them.

It's the same formula WGI uses to rank groups for Championships.

I was going to say the same thing!

Directors get a free pass to RePlay, provided you are willing to pimp out your kids email adresses to WGI, which I was. They want to sell them subscriptions.

In 2007, Week 1 block score was 76 for all classes. It went up 2 points a week in February and then a 1.5 points a week in March.

Even in World Class, there's nothing about innovation on the sheets, with the exception of Box 6 in every caption and Box 5 in GE Repertoire. So assuming these groups aren't scoring in these boxes, they are not required to innovate. That doesn't mean that I don't prefer to see something new and fresh. As for Avon last year, they were absolutely incredible. And their opening movement statement "set new standards." I thought the lack of pulse in the soundtrack was a little bit of smoke and mirrors, though. They had very few unsion equipment efforts in the show, except during the little bursts of discordant notes where there was a definite pulse. So much of the show was sequential, individual effort, small groups, etc. This created a rich and textured repetoire, but also kept them from having to clean a lot of counts when there weren't any counts to be found!

Do they get bonus points for being green? Seems like WGI is big on green music and show concepts this year. You know, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."

We had a guard dad that owns a printing shop. He printed our floor for us for free for a few years. Once his daughter graduated, he offered to do it at cost, which was $1 a square foot (including the material). That comes out to $3500 for a 50'x70' floor. If you just hire a company, I would expect to pay more than that. If the company can provide the material, see if you can get mesh. That's what we usually use, and it's WONDERFUL! It's less than a quarter the weight of a conventional floor. 2 girls can pick up the entire 50'x70' floor by themselves. It also lays perfectly flat since it can't trap air under it. When it's lying flat, you can't tell that it's mesh. It looks like a perfectly smooth surface. The only cavaet; it doesn't paint very well. Stick with printing.