r/Colorguard

I’m tossing a Sabre 5 and I get to choose a pose to do under it, but I have no ideas!! I’m not sure I’m allowed to do anything fancy like a turn or illusion kick, just a pose. I don’t want to do something basic like prayer hands, but I have no other ideas

I’m looking for some outside opinions because I’m kind of stuck on what to do for my ballad choreography.
I’m a member/captain of my school’s color guard, and I’m writing a lot of the choreography for our show. For the ballad, my band director wants everyone else to be on single swing, but wants me to be on double swing because I’m the featured person.
The thing is, I feel like having me on double swing for the entire ballad is going to look weird visually. Everyone else would have the same equipment and movement vocabulary, while I’d be doing something noticeably different the entire time. I’m not against being featured at all, I just feel like the difference should have a purpose rather than me looking like I’m doing a completely different version of the choreography.
My alternative idea is to have a swing silk attached to a sabre for me and have me start the ballad with everyone else, then do a reveal on the big musical hit. That way I’d still have a major visual difference and feature moment, but it would happen at a specific musical moment instead of me being on double swing the whole time.
Would you agree that the double swing would look visually strange in this situation? Or am I overthinking it? And if you were choreographing this, would you prefer the double swing throughout or the sabre/swing-silk reveal?

Hi! I did guard for four years and was a guard director for the first time this past summer with a small team. Most of the girls were great, super sweet, and picked things up fairly easily. Three out of the five girls were total rookies, and the other two only had one season of experience.

Two of the girls really struggled throughout the season. I spent a lot of time working with them one-on-one, repeating explanations and trying different ways of teaching things, but they still had a difficult time retaining choreography and following directions consistently. For example, they were still struggling to remember dance choreography that they had been working on for about three weeks, while the other girls were generally keeping up.

I honestly don't know whether it was a learning difference, difficulty with the material, lack of focus, or simply a difference in effort, and I don't want to assume the reason. It was just my first time working with students who needed that much additional support, and I found it challenging to keep everyone progressing at the same pace.

There were also times when I felt like I had to repeat basic directions several times before they would respond. I would sometimes have to say "get set" three or four times before they were ready to go. There were also moments where they became very upset over things like getting a minor hit in the face or being tired. I completely understand that everyone has different limits and reactions, but balancing those situations while also trying to keep rehearsal moving was honestly exhausting for me as a first-time director.

When I was in high school, I also helped teach my guard, and we typically had teams of 10–16 girls. I don't remember ever having students who needed this level of individual attention, so I'm not sure whether I just happened to have an unusually easy-to-teach team back then or whether this was simply a new experience for me.

For winter guard, I'm hopeful that we'll have a larger team, and I'm considering holding auditions. Nothing too intense, I wouldn't expect anyone to already know flag or have prior experience. I'm mostly thinking of teaching everyone 16–24 counts of basic flag work or dance and giving them two rehearsals to learn it. The goal wouldn't necessarily be to eliminate beginners, but to see how well students can listen, retain choreography, respond to corrections, and keep up with the group.

I will admit that I'm hesitant about having the same two students return because I struggled so much with keeping them on pace during the summer, but I also don't want to make an unfair decision based on one season or come across as excluding them simply because they learn differently.

For those of you who have coached or directed guard before, is this a reasonable way to approach auditions? Am I being too harsh?

Last winter guard season, I had a feature moment which included: strip down turn 45, one handed 45, one handed parallel, and a strip money-hand toss in a 16-16-8. It was very fast work, and I didn't believe I was ready (I couldn't do either of the 45s prior to the WG season) But my coach believed in me. Eventually I did get all the tosses. Not that they were perfect or consistent, but I got them.

However...about halfway through the season I broke my nose doing the strip down turn 45. It was horrible. It was during a full run, I threw it confidently and I came down on my nose. I blacked out, blood was everywhere...😬. I took no time off for this injury. Also this would be the second time I broke my nose in guard.

After that, I struggled even letting go of a simple parallel. Anything that went over my head I just... couldn't let go.

I still was in the feature moment, so I eventually had to do those. But tbh the tosses were significantly worse then before the injury. I was barely getting height, and I couldn't really only let go of the tosses during performances (adrenaline).

Now I still struggle with anything over my head. I can do a basic full 45 and a parallel. In the show choreo this year, we have a one handed parallel where we held onto the silk. I can't do it! I freeze up and get tense when I try to let go, and I just feel behind.

How can I get over this? I feel like I'm not progressing in guard like my peers are since this injury. I'm looking for any tips related to fear of tosses or overcoming an injury.

Thank you for reading!

this title kind of sounds bad lol but basically during band camp (ended last week, but im still kind of mad about what happened) we would run laps every morning. i would be fine with this, but im asthmatic and can only run one lap at a time without stopping midway through. at one point we had an assistant, she basically told me it was okay for me to run one lap and then walk one, and if we were to do 4 or more laps, i was allowed to run one, walk two, run one, etc. eventually that assistant left and one of our main instructors came back, one morning she had us run 4 laps, so i did the run one, walk two, run one. the instructor called over the lieutenant because the captain wasnt there that day and asked why i was walking. lieutenant explained that i have asthma and was allowed to walk a couple laps, however, the instructor said i either had to walk fast or jog, basically restricting me from catching enough breath after running to run another lap, especially because i hadnt taken my inhaler that morning. i dont know when we will run again, but am i crazy for being upset about this? im sorry if i explained this bad, i hope the message gets through.

Hello, Im looking for sayings used in the colorguard world that could be a fun tshirt. Or anything else apparel wise theat you have a hard time finding for males & female.

If you have seen my previous posts, I want to clarify that this is not about my 45s and parallels. This is about actual basics.

I do literally mean I can't do them. For skills like thumb flips they are very difficult for me to do because I have carpool tunnel and boxer's fractures on both hands. For left handed pop tosses I cannot do them because my left shoulder is messed up - has been since birth

I just feel like my coach doesn't care anymore. Especially today when we had a DCI performer come visit. During pop tosses she saw that I wasn't doing them and yelled at me to get with the group. I tried, I really did, but my arm can only go slightly above my chest, so she yelled at me again. Had me raise my left arm to "prove" that I can do the toss and I had to remind her that I can bring my arm up slowly because I am rotating it. She didn't care. Then again when we were doing thumb flips I dropped my flag twice and she asked what was wrong with me. I told her my hands hurt, and she just told me to go put on my other brace and hurry back.

At this point it feels like a me problem, so if any of you guys have tips for someone with carpool tunnel or messed up joints that would be awesome. I am just super tired of being treated like I'm less than my teammates, in and out of practice. The sooner I can blend in the better.

So, for context I personally have winter guard experience, and at my new school we have a color guard for summer but we don't do competition things. I want to give my team the same chance I had but we dont have the money to pay for the really fancy things, my las year of winter guard the director let me preform for free because my family was struggling. I dont want to take money from the team I have now every year for a sport. Now I have been thinking about this for a while, and I found the cost for our states indoor prefomance things are around $600, I am still looking for music licensing places, and we normally just reuse our flags and uniforms. I also found that you dont need a floor for it if you dont want to and as I said we dont have a lot of funding for it so I feel like we could opt out on that. The main thing I'm worried about is getting like bus transport as well as a practice space, and getting the idea to stick with our directors. My team currently doesn't know much other than basics, and we are also not aloud to use rifles anymore because the school said they looked like guns so we have air blades. I would like to teach them more advanced things for the winter season so that we can make a good show, and I am really excited to see if this plan can come to life.

hi! i need help, i am not sure if this is a common problem i haven’t really done this until this year. every time i do anything on any piece of equipment i tend to raise my shoulders and it looks tense. like for example when i am doing many drop spins on flag my shoulders overtime tend to raise and i don’t feel it or realize it. i am not sure if i’m anxious or stressed about something that is making me do that but everyone tells me to relax when they see me but i get confused because i tell them i’m fine. every time i get set i lower my shoulders but people are telling me i still look tense and they naturally raise. i am not sure if i explained this the best, but is this a common problem in guard? and how can i fix this?

That might sound like a stupid question but I am from an area where the diameters for carriage bolts are different to the normal ones you can buy at hardware stores. However, I'd like to weight my flag properly. Could someone maybe help me out and measure/tell me how much a normal 3 inch and 1½ inch carriage bolt weight?

If so, can you expand on that? Orrrrr have you ever ghosted the school you worked for? If so, why?

Hello! I’m about to be a college freshman, and my roommate and I are going to be guard techs at the high school in our college town. We’ve been asked what we’re expecting for pay, and neither of us have a clue. They have 3 rehearsals a week, plus football games, in a small town in Arkansas. Neither of us have officially been techs before, but we’ve both been very successful on our teams and have both been leadership of our teams before. What should we ask for as starting pay?

Because I just got a new one, and it’s wrinkled. I’m sure it would come out with time but is there any way to speed the process up? 100% polyester silk fabric.

ive done a few good 45’s but majority of them are flat! Ive been told to stop cutting my planes but i’m not even sure what a plane is!!!

(no video since i don’t have a home flag yet)