Did WGI Make A Mistake By Eliminating Age-Outs In The World Class?

[Just Another Sop]

........My biggest fear has always been that we are losing the next big name instuctor because they never age out.

Having been involved before and after the age change, I have a long list of opinions both in support and against. Here, I just wanted to address the statement above. I can see how this thought is a possibility. However, if someone has the desire to be an instructor, and they have the talent to be the next big name instructor, it will happen. If someone is going to end up a big name instructor, they would have the desire in the first place to instruct and would seek out a place to do so. Perhaps as they are looking they would perform, but when the opportunity arose, I am sure the following year they would instruct instead.

[Guardguy89]

Spoken like dependable apologists for WGI. Dr. Pangloss in "Candide" - "We live in the best of all possible worlds!"

Whatever particular conditions obtained back in 1999, and there definitely were mounting challenges for winterguard units in ALL classes back then, the implication that "OMG, there will be even fewer world guards next year if we don't do something!" (expressed at the time almost exclusively by the super-groups in the best position to buttress their hegemony) was seen as obvious self-serving poppycock by most of the rest of us. The conditions Jeremy describes as "definitely not a good situation" we all knew would be viewed by the 1999 IO groups, about to be promoted at finals or just eager for advancement, as "low-hanging fruit". Their members were, after all, close to the same age and same numbers of years of experience. Without any drastic changes by WGI, the year 2000 was guaranteed to deliver a wave of new IW guards.

I always find it hilarious when apologists take on the age question as if us critics are talking about marching members about to collect Social Security. I'm 61 and close enough, but let me spell it out for you:

1. Kids in SA, SO, or (presumably) SW, are still high school kids and not much more than 18-19 years of age. How many years have the most experienced among them actually been spinning and performing colorguard choregraphy? Pretty much four years, at most, but the average in most units will, for practical reasons, be half that - maybe 2-3 years average.

2. Kids in IA or IO can only have 3-5 years more experience performing, and WGI-competitive groups in those classes would mostly be overjoyed if their members averaged more than four years of performing experience.

3. Leaving out the SW groups that endlessly suffer comparison to IW class, the DOMINANT IW units at their auditions get to survey gyms full of performers who have been dancing and spinning for 8-10-12 years and more, plus whatever phenom younger prodigies their dominating reputation has attracted.

4. There's a whole 'nother huge area of controversy about how the dominating IW groups write their shows around the highly-individualized skill-sets of these late twenty-somethings, padding their ensemble numbers with younger members who don't actually do much of anything except running-around looking young and pretty, but THAT is way too big of a subject to cover here.

5. Whatever growth the apologists crow about in Independent World Class amounts to not a hill of beans compared to the many-times larger growth in the A and Open classes, especially SA, WGI's main Cash-Cow.

Actually, Jeremy's argument contains nothing except the fatuous 1999 example and an irrelevant assertion that "you do not see very many really old folks still marching". How old? Somehow Trish sees this as a solid counterpoint. I suggest you both need to recalibrate your concept of "substance".

You make a lot of very valid points that I hadn't really considered - but don't understand why you had to be so nasty to other posters....it really diminishes your post. You don't have to tear down to make a point.

Later,

Mike

[PC]

You make a lot of very valid points that I hadn't really considered - but don't understand why you had to be so nasty to other posters....it really diminishes your post. You don't have to tear down to make a point.

Later,

Mike

[PC]

Do you really assert that I made a lot of points you had really never considered before but thought they might be important except that they might be "negative" and offensive to some people? Like, maybe, Jeremy and Trish? And didn't quite read how dismissive they had already been to anybody seriously blogging in this thread? And the implications of their "You're right Jeremy! definitely 2 sides to this debate!" - i.e. the rest of us critics don't count? Like, you didn't get that? And who still remembers the guy from Paradigm who started this thread trying to be all earnest but still not quite offensive?

Get a clue!

Edited May 24, 2013 by PC

[Guardguy89]

Do you really assert that I made a lot of points you had really never considered before but thought they might be important except that they might be "negative" and offensive to some people? Like, maybe, Jeremy and Trish? And didn't quite read how dismissive they had already been to anybody seriously blogging in this thread? And the implications of their "You're right Jeremy! definitely 2 sides to this debate!" - i.e. the rest of us critics don't count? Like, you didn't get that? And who still remembers the guy from Paradigm who started this thread trying to be all earnest but still not quite offensive?

Get a clue!

No - you just seem so defensive. I really thought you made great points that I had never really considered - lifting the age out rule helped save color guard in Quebec - so we have a different perspective on it. You just don't need to attack to make a point. It's kinda why people stop posting in these forums.

Guess I'll go get a clue now!

later,

Mike

[ordsw24]

I'm back on this board after a long absence. I don't march and I don't plan on marching ever again in junior or senior level -- way too busy with work and school.

Still, was curious... some data would be really helpful in this thread. (Sorry if it's listed somewhere else...posters are referring to a blog, which I have not read). What is the average age of IW guards? How many members of IW units are, on average, over 22? If it's only a few members on average for the top guards, then lifting the rule or keeping it in place won't really make much difference imo.