The difficulty of colorguard

When you go to a football game, you probably go there to either watch the football game or use the four quarters as a time to catch up with friends and to have fun cheering on your time even if you know they will lose. Very few people go there to watch the marching band at half-time, and the number decreases even more if you count the number of people that go to football games to watch the colorguard. Colorgaurd is known to most people as flag twirling. The people twirling the flags/other equipment are simply the flag-twirlers or flag girls. I believe colorguard is a very misunderstood sport. And yes, I guess it was certified as an actual sport some time last year. People are too quick to judge how easy and make an ignorant decision on how well or badly the colorguard did.

I think the thing that most people don’t realize is that colorguard is actually very difficult. Don’t get me wrong, it does get easier after time, and for some people it comes naturally; but I have never seen someone who has never been in colorguard before pick up a flag, rifle, or even sabre for the first time and throw it perfectly, or do work perfectly, or do anything perfectly for that matter. There are many different tosses that you can do with each of the pieces of equipment. It starts with a single, it spins one time around. Next it goes to a double; two times around. Then it keeps going up, triple (3), quad (4), and so on.

I guess I should start with the basics. Most people know what a flag is; it would be extremely sad if you didn’t, considering every country/state or province has one. The flags we use for colorguard are non-country flags taped onto 5’-6’ metal poles depending on what they are being used for. The poles with the flags can range from 5-15 lbs depending on what weights you put in them or how many pieces are sewed onto the flag. Any of the equipment used in colorguard also feels a lot heavier when you start doing work and tossing them.

          A rifle is a piece of wood, shaped like a rifle (as in a gun) with a metal “bolt” on top.  A bolt on a gun rifle would probably be the part underneath where the scope would be. A rifle is my favorite type of equipment on guard. Rifle hurts a lot and it very hard to get used to.

          The last is sabre. Sabres are shaped like slightly bent swords. They have got plastic handles and a metal blade attached.  They resemble more of a samurai sword but differ in handles. If my description was not clear I suggest you Google it.  Sabres are by far the lightest in guard equipment but hurt the most when you catch them. You may be wondering how it would hurt to catch them. By catching everything in the right spot, and catching it hard and firm, it kills your hand on impact. If you accidently hit yourself, it almost guarantees you a enormous and gorgeously colored bruise where it hit.

          These three things are just the basic equipment that colorguards will use. There are so many factors that go into an overall performance. Each guard has to learn drill, which I will come back to in another post, learn work, try to get everyone together and on the right counts of the work, and try to make uncoordinated people to look graceful when they perform during dance work. So next time you go to a football game and actually watch the colorguard, try to think about how hard it is before you make any snap judgments about if the guard is good.

Homecoming Over the Years

                Homecoming is defined by dictionary.com as “an annual event held by a college, university, or high school for visiting alumni.” Does anyone besides me think it’s a bit ironic that Alumni aren’t even invited to go to the dance? Don’t get me wrong, they are still able to come they just have to be invited by a current student. It’ amazing how much the homecoming tradition has transformed and taken on a new meaning.

                During Spanish class the other day, we were debating what homecoming was really about. Some said it was all about the football players, and others said it was about the people and school spirit. Our teacher set us all straight. She told us that homecoming used to be nothing when she went to college. It was originally for colleges. They invited their Alumni back for a dinner, probably to try and get some money out of them. These dinners were also informal; men would maybe wear a nice shirt and a tie if they felt like. That was it. There was no dance, DJ, or perfect dresses.

                Over the years homecoming grew and developed and expanded to what it is today. At homecoming dances now, there are kings and queens (not by blood of course) and LOTS of dancing. Girls now shop for the perfect dress, sometimes taking hours and days. It also takes more time after shopping to find perfect shoes to match their perfect dress. After finding the perfect ensemble, they must wait around for the guys to ask them to be their date. The guys, of course, have to find the perfect way to ask their hopeful dates to homecoming to increase their chances of getting a yes. After all of the students have paired up, there is of course the planning of flowers, dining, and transportation before they get to the dance. When they finally get to the dance, every couple has to find the courage to go and, potentially, embarrass themselves on the dance floor. All in all homecomings is an ever-changing experience from year to year. It either gets better or worse but has changed so much from its original definition. It is now not only “an annual event held by a college, university, or high school for visiting alumni.” It is a must high school experience.

Presidential Elections

          The upcoming presidential election brought me to a realization about how many candidates lie. Maybe not lie as much as sugar-coat everything, or make promises they have no intention of keeping. They may believe that they will uphold their promises when they get elected, but as soon as they get into office, they realize why they can't actually do it

Take President Obama for example; during his campaign for office in 2008, he promised that the troops would be out of Iraq in less than a year, he would improve the economy, etc. How many of his campaign promises have actually come true? I believe we still have troops in Iraq, and our economy is spiraling downward and we have a very excessive debt.

Maybe one of the problems is that their goals are aimed too high for Airforce One to reach. Think about it. If we were to pull all of our troops out of Iraq in one year, wouldn’t that leave the situation extremely unstable and possibly prove to be the lighter for a terrorist bombing? He should have proposed that we bring the troops out slowly over the next few years like he ended up doing when he got into office. Of course that would mean less people would vote for him wouldn’t it?

I may be the only one, but I believe his bailout plan was one of his stupidest ideas. If he is trying to get the country out of an economic crisis, shouldn’t he be saving money? Or at least trying to break even? The companies that received the bailout money didn’t always use the money for its intended purpose anyway. Not to mention the CEOs flew to D.C. in their private jets to collect it.

If presidential candidates promised what they thought they could actually uphold, we might get better results if they get elected to office. I understand that they are trying to get votes but shouldn’t someone who would actually make a difference get elected into office instead of someone who sugarcoats their plans?

First Blog

          Welcome! I guess I don't know if that is an appropriate introduction or not but I'm new at blogging so we will see if I get better by the end of the school year.

          When I learned that we had to write thirty blogs every trimester I thought it would be moderately easy. I would just have to pick a random topic and write my opinions on it. It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I guess my problem is that I have to actually force myself to sit down and write a blog about me and my opinions about random things. I think I have ADHD also, because I cannot focus on writing one thing. 

          Thinking of topics to write about is easy. Some of the topics we discussed in class were about popular TV shows, music memories, things we would change about our childhood etc. These are very broad topics that would usually be easy to expand on except for the fact that I have not been able write anything on my topics. Ms. Asmussen was right when she said that midterm would creep up on us. The time left before midterms melted away like a piece of ice on a hot summer day.  I know my first blog is a little late in the school year, but as they say "better late than never". That phrase would of course be an example of triteness and a clue that I should come up with a new, imaginative, and creative phrase in place of it. The only problem is thinking of one.

         A great, inspirational saying does not come along everyday. The phrases that are completely overused are used because they were good quotes. Instead of "better late than never"one could come up with something like the bee dies when it stings someone, so it better sting it hard. See, that is a horrible saying. It also does not send the same message as "better late than never." It is just simply hard. 


        See what I mean about ADHD? Hopefully throughout the course of the school year, I will continue to improve and get better at my blogs and ficus on one topic.