Blue Devils Guard

[chealion313]

Regarding dance, body movement and body control, I think BD's guard is nigh untouchable right now. Towards the beginning of their show the guard has a section where, bent over 90 degrees, they hop forward in unison with one hand touching the ground. It's simply a staggering example of (1) the difficulty of most of their body work and (2) the cleanliness of their execution. As far as dance choreography and other guard work sans equipment, BD tried more and executed it better than any other corps.

However, regarding equipment work I felt BD wasn't nearly so far ahead of the pack. I think it's definitely arguable that the Cavaliers had better equipment execution, and they most certainly had a better equipment vocabulary. This is not to say that Concord wasn't trying anything difficult, just that (with weapons and silks, at least) the Cavaliers tried MORE and executed it better (IMO).

Other corps had nice moments, as has been mentioned, but no one approached the consistent, start-to-finish excellence of these two guards on Saturday night. The huge gap in guard scores between the Cavaliers (2nd) and Bluecoats (3rd) bears this out.

Personally, I thought 0.3 between BD and Cavies was too much. But regardless of who you think was 1st and who was 2nd, I don't think it can be argued that very little separated the two units, and that they were far and away the best two guards on the field.

Perfectly put--I agree with this completely.

[DAvery]

Why do you always double-post?

I think my modem is screwed up. I click to post and nothing happens. I click again and I get a double post.

[corpsband]

The problem is you're comparing apples and oranges if you are trying to compare the Brass, Percussion and Color Guard scores. The Brass and Perc judges are on the field and they are specifically sampling individuals and sections as they move about the field for what they are doing and how they are doing it. The color guard judge is in the stands typically with the ensemble judges. The guard sheet, as explained to me by a guard judge, really looks like a combination of the WGI sheets for all the captions (equipment, movement, ensemble and GE). That judge is looking at everything from the individual what/how of the performers to the overall design/vocabulary and how it is achieved and the effect of that design/achievement. It's really as if the entire WGI panel is concentrated in one judge. It is more than the cleanest guard wins or the one with the fewest drops. That's part of what they are looking at but not all of what they are looking at.

The fact that the guard judge sits in the box has no bearing on whether it's a performance caption or not.

I find it very difficult to believe that the GE and ENS captions are repeated on the guard sheet as there are already visual judges responsible for those captions.

I understand it's not about drops. Tics are gone; drops are not deductions.

It's about WHAT (vocabulary in both movement and equipment ) and HOW (excellence). So I stand by previous post -- if you evaluate just the guard performances, it's difficult to understand how a judge came up with those numbers. Mind boggling really. And I'm not talking about the 20/perfection thing silliness -- I understand build-up scoring.

But if you examine the written books in term of range and variety of skills, use of body/equip/form, and pair that up with achievement and training, there's just no possible way to come up with the some of the ranking or spreads that occurred

Edited August 19, 2010 by corpsband

[GUARDLING]

Even the music captions?

You mean Vis GE, right?

Why is the "corps proper" only evaluated by the guard judge when they are on "guard equipment"? What is "guard equipment"? If your guard uses a trumpet as a prop, should that be considered "guard equipment" for the entire corps? And what about work with no equipment? If work with no equipment by the "guard" is evaluated by the guard judge, why not the "corps proper" also? This would be the specialist, why do evaluate ALL body movement?

Yes I have taught DCI as well as DCA and on the music tapes it was mentioned about accenting and visually doing more or less to complete whats being played and that was from music judges.

guard wotrk as I said will bleed over into many captions. A specific judge is to critique them. Corps proper will fall under GE judge ( as do guard also ) if they pick rifles up you just expanded your guard as in Cavies BUT also bleeds into GE as far as Dance for guard ( Guard judge and GE judges.) Movememnt of corps proper GE Judge...

Ok sorry maybe I confused you more....lol