Large Color Guards - They Do Make an Impression!

[SBrancheau]

A good instructor can keep those attitudes in check no matter the size of the guard.

Hmmm...maybe that's why I quit teaching guard...didn't feel like I should HAVE to keep their attitudes in check. They were high schoolers - old enough to check their attitudes at the edge of the football field.

Edited May 13, 2008 by SBrancheau

[byline]

Hmmm...maybe that's why I quit teaching guard...didn't feel like I should HAVE to keep their attitudes in check. They were high schoolers - old enough to check their attitudes at the edge of the football field.

I agree with you, Sally. Though maturity isn't a chronological number, as I have learned more times than I can count.

I also think it doesn't have strictly to do with being a "good" instructor. It also has to do with personality type. The band director I worked for the longest time was a good band director, but he was also very much a "Type A" personality, very much in control (and needing to be in control because that suited his personality). I'm not that kind of person, but I still think I was a pretty good instructor. I worked in other ways, and for the most part my methods worked, but I can think of several instances in those large guards I taught where egos took over, and there's not a whole lot someone can do about that if that's the choice the student has made.

The other issue, and this is something I think many people forget, is that it isn't always the choice of the student to be in band. (With the guards I taught, band was always a class, and they were always musicians in the band, not solely guard members.) So for many of these kids, it was a choice their parents made for them. Basically, what parents saw was that band was a good activity, the kids had fun, went on trips, but those trips were supervised by adults. So they saw band as a "safe" place for their kids and insisted that their kids take that class. While I can't fault the parents for that decision, I encountered more than my share of passive-aggressive resistance to that parental decision. Basically, some kids decided that they would show up, but that was it. They weren't going to try, and they were going to amuse themselves in whatever ways they could get away with. That often included personality clashes with other guard members. But, because they were also musicians in the band, they had to do something beyond the pale to get themselves cut from the class, and usually they did stuff they were pretty sure they wouldn't get caught doing. That's the soap opera of high school . . . and other age groups, too.

[SBrancheau]

Excellent post, Sue.

Let me add this: with the 40 that I had in my guard, I really wondered why about 6 of them were even involved. They were late to practice, they didn't practice on their own, they screwed around during football games and just acted like they didn't care. We spent significant amounts of time rehearsing. If they didn't want to be there, why do it?

When they wouldn't win best guard (usually second or third), they'd moan and cry about it. I'd tell them: "If you want to win, you put in the time and energy to perfect what you have. I can't do it for you. You have to make some effort on your own. It's not MY school and My guard - it's YOUR school and YOUR guard. I'm giving you the tools to win; it's up to YOU to apply what you learn."

Edited May 13, 2008 by SBrancheau

[byline]

Sally, this sounds soooo familiar. You could be talking about some of my guards!

I think the basic problem was this: A lot of girls saw color guard as a kind of drill team. They thought all they had to do was look pretty and show off for the audience. (Which, by the way, isn't all that many drill teams do, either. But that's the common perception.) They didn't have a clue as to how hard the work was, and when they did, I think they thought it would eventually turn into that, so they sort of waited it out in the futile hope that eventually it would just be about them getting to look pretty for the audience. Of course, it never really was about that. Not while I was there, anyway. (And certainly not based on what I've seen from my superb successor, either.) But girls at that age can be stubborn, and they often try to make the world into what they want it to be. That's where another form of passive-aggressive resistance came into play. I honestly think that there were a select few girls who thought that if they bucked me long enough, I would give in. I never did, but that didn't stop them from trying.

[Vanguard Rich]

I guess I wouldn't have thought about all of the intricacies of guard work, unless all of you hadn't brought all of this "stuff" up on this thread. It is amazing to me how the expectations of the individuals participating can affect the outcome of the product trying to be produced by the instructor. You guys obviously want to put the best product possible out on the field when you perform. It's the same concept IMHO that horn & drum lines go through. Program misiterpretations, by either not understanding, not wanting to understand or having your own ideas as how to "perform" a routine by different individuals, whether it be guard, brass or percussion, can make or break a program. Here's the old cliche': There is no "I" in "Team". In all three cases, it only takes one individual, to do something different, for whatever reason (aforementioned possibilities) to downgrade the evaluation (judging) of a performance. Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting!

Any of you have any photos to post of the guards you've worked with?? I, for one would like to see them!!

[lindap]

We had a guard roster of about 43 Oct 70 and fielded about 30 by summer 71. I compiled the roster 'cause I was captain and then dm in 72. We, me and co-captains ran rehearsals in the winter until the drill instructor visited, that sort of thing. I guess one would call it team training or trained by the team. I later taught guard basics, the kind where people say 'Oh no, we're gonna be sore after this practise', otherwise I'm a nice person.

1970 newspaper article of 1970 Scarborough Firefighters who became Seneca Princemen in 72, that I covered in cellophane about 38 years ago. btw, I did see Des Plaines Vanguard years ago and was impressed by the guard, thanks.

[HornsUp]

The July 1971 tour roster of the Anaheim Kingsmen names 41 buglers, 21 drummers, a DM and a guard captain, 10 rifles .... and 52 flags !!!

The rifle captain has recalled that there were about a half-dozen girls in the honor guard, and some others who were alternates but suited up and stood on the sidelines. But there still was a slew of flags on the field - we are trying to find someone who actually remembers how many. [Does anybody really remember the 70s?]

[byline]

Here's the old cliche': There is no "I" in "Team". In all three cases, it only takes one individual, to do something different, for whatever reason (aforementioned possibilities) to downgrade the evaluation (judging) of a performance. Interesting stuff.

Touché.

Any of you have any photos to post of the guards you've worked with?? I, for one would like to see them!!

Oh, hundreds, LOL! Fortunately, few of them scanned though. Here's one. It's actually of my last year teaching ('93), and that guard came together in a way that several of my others didn't. It's one of those things that's hard to describe, but all the egos graduated the year before. It wasn't the most talented guard I ever had (that would have been the year before), but they enjoyed guard, understood humility and most of them were there because they wanted to be. They worked hard, did everything I asked of them and more. A very satisfying way to go out, I must say.

A rifle line full of beginners, taught by a non-rifle person. Turned out well, considering!

[wtxcg]

ooo! FEATHERS!

[MHSmirage]

Hey! That was MY uniform my sophmore year (black and gold and shiny spandex!).....yes my hs guard growing up was all about sequins and headgear. But so was everyone else in the early to mid 90's.