Effectively using your guard in a marching show Now it is time to learn the show. However before you learn the show, and even before you purchase the equipment, you must think about how will you use the guard on the field. Things to remember are, how many guard students will you march? What types of equipment will you use? What will be the colors of the uniform and flag? What, when, and where do you want certain elements in the show? All of these decisions are made by myself and the other directors. The head band director completely trust my decisions on the above questions, however I do let him, and all the other directors, know everything that I do and get their opinion what they think. Be involved in the decision process of what happens in the show. Trust that your guard director will make the right decisions, however if there is something you do not like, let the guard instructor know. Trust me, you wont hurt our feelings. We want everyone to be happy with the final product. If you have an instructor who is opposite, and feels there way is the only way, than they are not being a team player. The marching show is a collaborative effort by all members of the staff. If I want to march 30 students, but the head director thinks we should march 40, then we will discuss the issue and come to a common ground. Last year we ended up marching 36. That ended up being the perfect fit. How Many Guard Students Do I March? – Don’t march your entire guard. Most bands have alternate lines. Do the same with your guard. Even if you only have 12 students, march 9 or 10 in the contest show. If there is one thing I hate the most in marching season, it is changing the drill in the show for the guard because more students failed than I have alternates. If you use them all and hope all of them will pass, don’t count on it. At least one will fail and you are going to have to change the drill. That is a pain for the director and the students. In my 9 years of teaching guard, I have only had one season where everyone passed. What Types Of Equipment Will I Use? – The question you must answer first is what can the students do. If they have never touched a rifle, than don’t put it in the show unless your students will get adequate training. The same goes for saber and dance. The key to success in color guard is fundamental training. If you are going to have the “ultimate” guard routine with all the elements of flag, rifle, saber, and dance, then your students need to be extensively trained on all of those elements. It would probably best to keep a very young color guard on flag and have some dance. You can put some of your top members on rifle, but again train them on how to use it. As your color guard gets more experienced, you can open it up a little more. Here are some key points •        Feature your strengths – If the guard’s strength is weapons, then put them up in the front and let them go wild. If it is flag, then put a really bright flag in their hands and have a flag feature. If they can dance well, then stick a whole bunch of students in the front and have a feature dance number in your ballad. Capitalize on your strengths. It will only make your marching show better. •        Don’t display your weakness – If your guard is not good in movement, than don’t put it in the show this year. Keep the girls with equipment in their hands for the entire show. Work on movement training throughout the year and save that cool dance feature for next year. For example, my guard was not good in saber last year. We kept it out of the show and trained them on saber throughout the year. This year we are going to put in a 10-person saber line. Next year it might be more. Bottom line is only do what your students can accomplish successfully. This also goes for choreography. Nothing is more tragic then seeing a guard on the field that is completely clueless because they don’t know how to use the equipment properly or the work is too hard. •        Invest in weapons – Yes, these items are expensive and there is nothing more haunting then a bad weapons line that drops their rifle on Astroturf and it bounces to hit the drummer in the head while your guard member runs across the field to get it. Now that you have relived your nightmare, lets think about starting a weapons line. The bottom line is if you have someone to train them, if the students are dedicated to learning weapons, and the guard will work on them every day, then invest in purchasing rifles for all of your students. Yes, get rifles for everyone. Train the entire guard and have auditions for the weapons line. Have them tryout on fundamentals and give them the expectations. Those who can do it will be on the rifle line. Work on the fundamentals every day, even after the rifle line has been selected. Let them know if they don’t keep practicing, they will be taken off the line. Trust me, my students love rifle and saber so much, they become obsessed with it. They practice every day for hours making sure they get it right. My standard for rifle line is very high. They must know 200 spins on both hands, spins and stops (both hands) singles in all possible angles, tracks, flourishes, and doubles, triples, and quad tosses. They also must throw all of those 10 times in a row without dropping. Seems impossible at first, but I have girls who will work hours upon hours over the summer trying to master it. Do all of this for saber as well. If you can purchase sabers for everyone than do so. If you cant, then select your best rifle students to be on saber and have a small saber line if you want one. •        Fundamentals, Fundamentals, Fundamentals – Whatever you decide to do in your show, make sure you guard is trained on how to use it. Be active in the guard’s progress. Make sure your guard instructor is teaching the fundamentals. Some guard instructors will work on fundamentals for the first week of summer band and never touch them again. As band directors, you will do fundamentals with your groups until they are seniors. I constantly work scales, tonal exercises, technique building, lip slurs, etc… with my band students. It is the same with guard. Ask any of the great color guards out there and they will tell you that they work on fundamentals every day for almost half of their rehearsals. In a three-hour rehearsal, we will spend an hour and a half on nothing but flag, rifle, and movement training. We wont even touch the routine until they can master that day’s objective in the fundamental training. What types of colors do I use? – You may be thinking, “I will let my guard instructor do this.” They may do a great job, but if you don’t like the colors, then say something. I have taught color guard for many band directors and some have no problems letting me know they don’t like the colors I have chosen. My response is always positive. If the other directors do not like what I have chosen, then I will go back to the drawing board. Give your opinion on what colors you would like to see. When you listen to the show, what colors pop in your head? What do you see? All colors evoke a certain emotion. Here are some examples         Green  - jealousy, good luck, and harmony         Blue  - calming, peaceful and builds trust         Red - color of action, anger, love, impulse and impatient         Purple - nobility, spirituality, creativity, and passion         White - pure color, innocent and clean         Black - serious, mysterious, mournful and lifeless         Yellow - happy, cheerful and joy         Orange - positive, enthusiastic and warmth There are many books on this subject and there are many websites all around the internet that can help you. I have many books that will not only go into specific colors, but also go into color combinations and give a sense of what the combination of the two or three colors conveys emotionally. There is no right or wrong answer in picking colors, however the list above gives you a start. What, When, and Where will my elements be? – When I refer to elements, I am referring to the “ingredients” of you show. Where do you put your flags? Where do you put your rifles? When do you have the dance feature? When do you put the rifles in the show? This is hard even for guard instructors. Lets take this in steps. •        Step 1: Listen to your music – I will listen to the music a hundred times before I make my decision. I close my eyes and listen to great places to feature flags, dance, or a weapons feature. Don’t worry about how you will get them out there. Do that later. Just pick what you want to see. What is the music telling you? There is no wrong answer. •        Step 2: Decide what to put out there – You know what your girls can do. Only put in the show what you are sure your students will be able to accomplish and then go from there. So if you decide there will be no saber, then keep in mind saber is out when selecting the “when”. •        Step 3: Decide when to put equipment in the show - If the music at a certain point becomes fast, bound, and energetic, you may want to think about weapons. If the music is slow and melodic, then maybe a dance feature or a flag feature. If you have solos, you may want to have a flag solo or a dance duet right next to the soloist. If there is this big, loud, and energetic climatic point, you might want to have every girl on the field with a flag in their hand doing big sweeping choreography. These are just ideas. Again, there is no wrong answer. You don’t even have to be a choreographer to do it. Make sure you also keep in mind what your girls can do. Putting a saber feature in a ballad is cool, only if you are sure you will have the girls to do it. •        Step 4: Where are you going to put them – Some directors leave this to the drill designer, but the more you communicate with the drill designer, the better. I give a laid out plan of what I would like to see and where. If you don’t, then you run the risk of the old standard of the arc in the back for half the show. I usually give a chart to the drill designer with measures and instructions. I let him know I would like to see flags here, then take 20 kids off here, then equipment change to rifle here, then feature rifles in front here, etc… Most band directors will leave this to the guard instructor and drill designer, but again express your opinion to your instructor. I have had band directors who have had great ideas. One director wanted giant flags in the end of the show. I said sure, why not. Another asked me to have butterfly flags in the ballad. I didn’t think about doing it, but it was a great idea. Also make sure your instructor is communicating to you or the drill writer what they want. The drill writer is not psychic and doesn’t know how many rifles you want or where the cool dance feature is. Again, you run the risk of the giant arc in the back of the field if the guard instructor does not communicate. One thing that I touched on before was the issue of choreography. Be active in communicating to your director in regards to choreography. You may not be a color guard expert, but you can certainly tell when a certain move does not fit the music, or if there is moment in the show where the girls seem clueless. My general rule is if they don’t have a move perfected in about one or two weeks, then it is probably too hard and it needs to be changed. For instance, if a rifle line is dropping every time they throw a triple, then suggest to your guard instructor that maybe a double would work best. On the other side of things, please give the girls some time. If there is a flag feature that is just not quite together, then give it some time. If you see improvement from day to day, then it probably will be ok, however if by the third football game that opener feature is still not right, you might want to suggest to guard instructor to change it. Most guard instructors will see it for themselves and you wont have to say anything, but some guard instructors are so confident it will come together, that they will leave it in until UIL and it will never look good. I have said this a billion times to young instructors, “Just because you did this move with the Blue Devil Color Guard does not mean your 14-15 year old high school novice color guard can do it.” The main rule in choreography is only write what your students will be able to accomplish successfully. So if your young novice high school guard can only do drop spins, angles, butterflies, and throw one toss, then only do that. It maybe boring, but it will be together and effective. They may not get best color guard award at a competition, but they know they have accomplished something. They have something to be proud of. They joined color guard to learn and have fun. Make sure they are doing both.