Fun Stuff!!!
What is Color Guard
Color guard is spending 15 to 20 hours a week marching up and down a 50 by 70 foot area spinning a 3 1/2 pound rifle or a 5 1/2 foot flag. It’s your free time to strive for perfection and hearing “That’s wrong! Pay attention! Try Harder!” over and over. It is riding countless hours on cold bumpy buses and eating in more fast food restaurants then you care to remember. Sometimes you march with blisters on your feet, splints on your fingers, when you’re sick or when every muscle in your body aches. It means being willing to try again even though you have just suffered a defeat, tears are streaming down your face and your heart is breaking.
Then another Saturday night comes! Judges, instructors, other guards and 500 or 600 spectators are waiting for your performance. For 5 or 6 minutes, every ounce of your strength and concentration are dedicated to making our family, friends, school and town proud of your competitive unit. The demanding, endless hours of practice have been a prelude to this moment. There is hope in your heart, “Please, let this one be ours!”
But color guard is much more than work and intense competition. It is closeness between young people that cannot be described. It is doing your best and knowing that you have your very own group of “fans” who will always encourage and support you, whether you win or lose.
Color guard is SCIENCE: It is exact, specific and it demands precise execution. A designer’s drill is a chart, a graph which indicates x and y coordinates for constantly changing geometric shapes and forms in both time and space. Our equipment and props are always pushing the laws of physics with force and speed, action and reaction. All of this with an incredible control of time.
Color guard is MATHEMATICAL: It is rhythmically and metrically based on the subdivision of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously. We have angles and degrees, both acute and obtuse, sequences, ranges, and hypotenuse.
Color guard is a LANGUAGE: It is a visual picture alive with message and meaning. We use interpretive phrases, sentences and words many times with music which creates a most complete and universal language, to be recorded for others to see, feel and understand. It is a language which is recited and shared many times both near and far.
Color guard is HISTORY: Color guard can be influenced by the environment and times of it’s creation, or it can reflect the past as well as the future. It can send us to a far away country or bring us closer to home. We are rich in our heritage and have forefathers as well.
Color guard is PHYSICAL: It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, feet and legs; in addition to extraordinary control of the back, stomach and torso; all of which are called to respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the sight of the eye to see. Color guard abounds in endurance, ability, strength and balance.
Color guard is a SPORT: A game which we play with others in which we share and shine. Competing with ourselves to perform better each time.
It allows us to learn more about our inner selves; confidence and fear, self-esteem and self-image, as we improve our outer selves with performances, people, expressing our feelings and sharing our dreams. It is a chance to realize our attitude is what makes us or breaks us, not anyone or anything else. It is a kind of mind set with an increased awareness which challenges us to realize the potential in our selves.
Color guard is PERFORMING ARTS: It is a show which can be entertaining and enlightening! With directing, acting, producing, managing and touring. Colors, fashion, flair, excitement, pizzazz, sophistication and subtlety. Always realizing the triad of performance, audience, performer and designer.
Color guard is EDUCATIONAL: It allows a human being to learn how to take all of these things, some dry and technically boring, some difficult and challenging; and use them to create EMOTION! The one thing our world needs.
We all know what God created the first 6 days and on the 7th day he rested.
On the 8th day, God was tired of the boringness of life, so he decided to spice it up. Therefore he decided to create a Marching Band. First, God created the DRUMLINE. Once he heard them play, he covered his ears and ran screaming into space. Unfortunately he could not undo his creation.
On the 9th day, he created the BRASS instruments. Thinking that this was the epitome of good music, he ordered them to play. Again, he ran screaming.
On the 10th day, he created the WOODWINDS. Fearing that he had done worse. He ordered them to play and sat cowering in a corner. He was surprised that they actually sounded decent (well, compared to the others).
On the 11th day, he decided to put all of his musical creations together. Hearing them play, he decided something was missing.
So on the 12th day, he created the most superior life form in the world of marching bands: THE COLOR GUARD. Once he saw them perform, he was mesmerized. “These people are “BY FAR THE BEST” he said. And that was the story of creation.
"Chicken Soup for the Color Guard Soul"