Winter Blue's...Grey's and Purple's!

Color this season isn't just brown's and grey's. Well depending on what winter guard you see. If you're asking what winter guard is, don't worry my friends, I'll tell you. Winter guard is associated with the color guard you see marching with the band during half-time. What makes them different is the season. Once football season, or marching season is over, the flag line moves indoors for more of an intimate perfomace.

I've been involved in this for years. So many that I teach now. I create the shows, design the costumes, flags and equpiment work. It's a lot of work, I don't recommend you do it. Unless you have staff to help. And this year I do.

We each have a responsibility. One guy designs the show and costumes. One girl cleans and writes flag work. Another girl cleans and writes the movement and sabres. And I only have to clean and write the rifle work. Why didn't I do this with all my other guards? What was I thinking? Dealing with 12 crazed kids all by myself is not as glamerous as others in the activity think it may be.

The season has started and it's an exciting time. Some guards from my past are doing great and others aren't. Show concepts are all original in their own sense. Basically everything has been done. Some group just might alter it a bit to make it their own. Or flat out copy a past show and lie about it. That's a good way to get your guard noticed.

But we all have our favorites one way or another. Some are based on show concepts, colors, uniforms, difficulty of equpiment work, etc. What usually sticks in my head are colors. In normal culture (non winter guard world) you don't pair black and blue...right? Apparently it's ok in the winter guard world. The more outrageous the color combination the (apparently) more 'creative' the designer is. Just because your girls are wearing blue and pink doesn't mean your show has depth. It means they look stupid. Especially spinning orange and white flags. But since these colors are so outrageous, I'd probably remember the show.

Last season I atteneded the regional over in So. Cal. I saw a lot of guards. Some really great, some really bad and many in the middle. I remember the really good one and the really bad ones. But Woodbridge was one of my favorite in the Scholatsic A class. And they did really well at WGI (Winter Guard International). They created a musical montage of all Alfred Hitchcock's movies. And when I saw it for the first time over at the SoCal regional the sabre entrance with the music from Psycho was so thrilling, I got goosebumps. They did eventually change it to this final product. But it was still my favorite part of the whole show. I hope you enjoy it too.

If you look at their uniforms, it's the outline of A.H. face! Great GE!