zackiedude

Hi all -- If anyone is interested in a free floor, Independence Winter Guard will have a free tarp available after WGI. It's built of three used billboards, has one coat of paint and is squared off at approximately 55' by 75'. It is in good condition and can still be used for more seasons. If you're interested, the best way to contact me would be by e-mail -- zachary.walz@gmail.com -- or private message me for a phone number. Thanks! -Zach

Well all I can really suggest is making sure to flex your fingers so they go straight up to the sky... When we toss forward our tendency is to keep our fingers in line with our arm (like a salute) when the fingers have to be going straight up (like you're signaling "stop") when you release. This should help with the pitch and the boomerang tendancy.

Well I can't argue with that, you're "a dancer" and my signature doesn't say I am, so you must know more... Oh, and the quote was that they "move as well if not better than BD." -A Mover (without any other identification or credentials)

I think my favorite guards were Glassmen, SCV and Crown. I was up top, and I was able to see a lot of the design aspects. I think Glassmen was beautifully designed and really well achieved. Everything was appropriately written (and that doesn't mean easy!), and the creativity in the choreography was awesome. I thought each circus "section" had unique choreography to represent that section. SCV... wow, that guard brought that show to life! The three sections were each uniquely written and they can, in my opinion, move as well if not better than BD. They had an off night at finals, but you could tell the work they put in throughout the season by the nuance they added to the work. And Crown should be in a league of their own, honestly. They went from in-your-face to cute to beautiful to nuanced and everything was gorgeous from up top. This was the only corps to get huge applause for their guard and honestly some of what they did gave me goosebumps. Everyone I went to was from a guard background and we ALL had goosebumps at the end. Their weapons cleaned up a lot from the beginning of the season, when the flag line stole the show. My favorite part: the ballad sabre work. It was so beautifully controlled and stylistically gorgeous. I can't say enough to praise this guard. And those are my thoughts :). Judges will judge by their criteria, so I don't care about placements. I judge by mine.

The first show was almost a week later this year. I think they decided to try to push tour back and this was one of the reasons for it -- to have more completed shows.

I just need to say that I still cannot FATHOM how Crown's guard executed the way they at the first show. It was so amazing, I was blown away. Their flagline especially deserves kudos. And the Cavaliers are very unique, everything they do is so smartly written... I don't know how they do it. I can't wait to see it again later in the season when they add more of their unique tweaks.

Okay I got to be pretty experienced with dying after a few mess ups in the winter with dying costumes. Here's the low down. First things first: Make sure your fabric is nice and clean -- most fabric comes with a protectant that is washed off on the first wash to protect them until they hit the market. You can use a product called synthrapol to help get all the stuff out. Your dyes are broken down into two basic types: fiber-reactive and acid-based. Fiber-reactive dyes are reactive to natural plant-based fibers, ie cotton. Acid-based are used for both animal products (wools, etc.) and synthetic fibers. You can use fiber-reactive techniques for cotton mixes if cotton is about 90% of the base. With SILK, you generally want to use fiber-reactive dyes but with an acid-based process (read on)... Before you start, you should pre-soak your fabric. For natural fibers, soak it in a mix of 1 cup soda ash to every gallon of water for about 10-15 minutes. For synthetic and animal fibers, use pure vinegar, and soak for about 30 minutes. If you are dying plant-based fabric, just slap the dye mix on. Put the fabric in a damp place or plastic bag and let it sit 4-24 hours for best coloration. Rinse in cold water, gradually getting the water warmer until the water runs clear. Run it through a washing machine with our great Synthrapol again and we can call it a day. Now acid-based dyes basically have the same process, only you don't need to let it sit for so long and you [/i]need[/i] to heat set the dye. You can do this in multiple ways. a) You can put the fabric in a plastic ziplock bag and pop it in the microwave. Microwave on high for 2 minutes, stopping everyone 45 seconds to let steam bubbles subside. If the bag pops you'll have a bit of a mess . b) Another option you have is to steam the fabric. This can take some time, about an hour or two. You basically put your fabric in a collander over boiling water, just like steaming veggies. We used this technique because our costumes had zippers and couldn't be put in the microwave (big bummer there haha). We had our fabric wrapped in aluminum foil to keep the colors from bleeding together during steaming. c) I've also heard of putting fabric in black bags and setting it out in the sun for 24 or so hours, but that only works if you have nice hot direct sun and a hot surface underneath... it can be trickey to determine if it's been heated enough in that way though. d) If you need only one color, you can boil the dye and toss your fabric into it for 30 or so minutes. Once your fabric has been heat set you follow the same rinse/wash as in the fiber reactive process. A few more random thoughts: -Acid based dyes don't have as much color selection and can be made of harsh (and potentially dangerous) chemicals. Fiber-reactive dyes are generally naturally made and have a huge color selection. -You CAN use fiber-reactive dyes in the SAME PROCESS as Acid-based dyes and the fabric will take the dye. If you don't follow the entire acid-basied process, however, you'll end up with pastel colors. -If you want to thicken your dyes so that they aren't as running, you can get a Sodium Alginate Thickener Here are some great links: -Dharma Trading: General Fiber Reactive Dye Instructions -Dharma Trading: Cooking Fabric in the Microwave :) -Dharma Trading: Fiber Reactive Dyes for Sale -Dharma Trading: Jacquard-brand Acid Dyes for Sale -Paula Burch's All About Hand Dying (a great resource!) -Fiber Reactive Dyes on Protein-Based Fibers (from Paula Burch) Okay, well, if that didn't help you I don't know what will . Good luck!

So I have a secret.. I like to play loud. I had a percussion focus in college, and during band the band director would always scold me for playing too loud. He scolded me, telling me that drum corps just teaches you how to play loud and not how to refine techinque and blend well. I tried to explain to him that I did guard at drum corps, but he didn't allow me to finish what I was saying.

Check out Styleplus.. I'm not sure what their brand is called now, maybe Xabre? They aren't weighted as great as Kings, and I still prefer to spin eXcaliburs to those, but they seem to break less than eXcaliburs from my experience.

What about the fact that they had an extra black tarp to cover up any beige that would been seen backstage :)?

The world may never know :) Also from the letter:

I'm still not the greatest when it comes to evaluating design, but I could see Ventures taking EQ. I mean, just look at this, it's amazing: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7203459007745816203

Ding ding ding!

There are free videos you can get when you login but I don't think you can watch them if you aren't a director of a WGI member unit.

WGI (or someone) HAS flagged posts with their DVD content in it. I've seen them go down myself. I don't know about YouTube policy so I can't comment on that.

If you put up your video in privately, you probably wouldn't have these problems. I know with Google videos you can make it unsearchable and I'm pretty sure you can do the same with YouTube. Then you could send it to only those you wanted to see it (aka your students) instead of having it be in the public sphere.

Wow... I misread it too...

Haha! Well if you don't venture outside of the Arena, it pretty much IS a big gay disco all week end. Guard girl boyfriends are almost always shockingly surprised if they're not prepared . I've heard you same basic story out of different mouths several times lol.

A Forbidden Broadway for winter guard would be HILARIOUS! The last funny(ish) show I can remember was Braddock's 2006 show (I think it was 2006)... I've seen some really cute shows but nothing hilarious as of late. I'm excited to be performing in a fun/funny show this year -- I've never done one, and performing it is such great FUN. I would love to see some of the top world guards tackle comedy, I think it could be absolutely amazing.

They have.... Pittsburgh, Austin, Nashville, Dallas, Indy (Perc), Kansas City, and all Power Regionals.

Well, prior to popular belief, not-for-profits DO need to make money haha... I think it's worth it, personally. But I'm a junkie :-P.

Ask around for a spin/stop exercise. These involve usually 4 spins and a stop. You go though different stopping positions.. port, angle, flat, etc. and you can change how many rotations you spin the rifle before you stop. That's a great way to build your chops.

Drum corps has become a rich white man's game as of late, simply because of the talent of musicians. A majority of musicians at many corps are college-bound or college-attending music majors because they are generally extremely talented. Along with an ability to attend college usually comes a larger cash pool from parents (ie more kids that go to college have better-off parents financially). The guard, however, has no college major (except dance, but dance majors are few and far between in the activity) to drive up the talent pool. Therefore, the guard tends to have less members attending college, and are generally worse off financially. When I marched Madison (recently), I'd say about 98% of the hornline/drumline either attended college or was going to attend college. The guard was at about 50-75% depending on the year. They were working full-time outsde of corps to pay to live -- they had no parents to take care of them. This is why I think the guard generally the biggest perpetrator in not being able to pay dues. A scholarship for the guard is not only a great idea for helping out less priviledged members, but for helping the corps as a whole. The guard has historically been the weak point and the corps is only as good as the sum of all it's parts. If the guard can suceed, then the corps can excel to new levels. Kudos.

They changed it to IO going on first since SO had semis on Friday afternoon and they thought it wasn't fair to ask them to perform early again on Saturday.

Doesn't the rulebook say its required for over 40? We had over 30 the last few years and didn't have one... Furthermore, does this mean IO won't perform first at WGI finals, since the reasonsing was they didn't have to do semis?