Joomla! site syndication http://www.colorguardeducator.com Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:58:27 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.colorguardeducator.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.colorguardeducator.com Joomla! site syndication http://www.colorguardeducator.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=337&Itemid=60 Jenn Carrasco currently has two Colorado teams holding gold medals from the 2010 RMCGA winter guard season. Her Independent group, Malachi is a two year gold medalist in IA. Her high school group won the gold in SA and will be traveling to BOA in the fall with the band. Jenn is known through the circuit for her kindness and helping hand. Her teaching methods are effective and both programs are growing annually. (intro by Darcie J. Gudger) Q&A: An Interview With... - Q&A: An Interview with... Tue, 18 May 2010 12:39:26 +0100 http://www.colorguardeducator.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=324&Itemid=45 So, winterguard certainly started in the USA, but where else in the world can you find it? Well, you know those five flags that hang above the World Championships banner at Dayton every year? They’re a good start! You have the United States, Canada and Japan... and also the flags of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Colorguard is in Europe too!Europe has two circuits: Winter Guard United Kingdom (WGUK), and Color Guard Netherlands (CGN). These circuits have competitive units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France, with units also currently being formed in Ireland and Italy. The activity is growing around the world, and so this article talks about the colorguard activity in Europe, what’s the same, and what differs from what you’d find in North America. The World of Color Guard - International Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:18:33 +0100 http://www.colorguardeducator.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=320&Itemid=36 This week's fun idea was sent to us by reader Heidi Zarder, coach of the Hamilton High School Synergy Color Guard from Sussex, Wisconsin (http://hhscg.weebly.com/alumni.html)! Thank you Heidi for taking the time to share your fun idea with the CGE Community! Heidi plans a night of fun JUST for the guard parents! I think this is a FANTASTIC idea! Here's what she wrote: To get the parents to know one another in order to recognize each another at football games competitions we host a parents-only dinner. It's gotten too big for my house therefore one of the parents hosts . I bring several lasagna's, alfredo shells, tiramisu cheesecake... Part way through the evening the guard captains show up to thank parents for their support (we hand out something for them to wave or shake in the stands and each guard member writes a thank you note to their parents)...We have time for questions answers with the coach (and band director) and the rest of the evening is spent talking about the kids . I love this idea for so many reasons... Team Management - Fun Ideas Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:54:53 +0100 http://www.colorguardeducator.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=316&Itemid=36 Well - a NEW category! Movement Monday is going so well that I thought it just might be nice to have a new weekly post to look forward to. So, inspired by Cheryl, I started to think of another important thing coaches need to think about on a weekly basis... and of course the title had to have alliteration... So it's FUN for FRIDAY! SO much of our job as coaches is about making this performance experience FUN. But, too often, the stresses that come along with competition, the fear of letting people down, the time crunches, the fight for rehearsal space, the teenage drama... all of it... can leave us FORGETTING about the FUN... and soon it can become all work. Thankfully, we have competition days which usually bring back those wonderful feelings of why all that work is worth it. But I thought it would be nice to seek out fun ideas to share with our community. As coaches, we should PLAN fun into our lessons to make even the work seem easier ( A Spoonful of Sugar ...as Mary Poppins would say!) rather than just taking for granted that the fun will come. We can seek out ways to make sure our students know that we care about THEM more than the score. We can PLAN FUN to ease the tension that can grow during those tedious weeks of cleaning or rewrites. So for this week my fun idea is... Team Management - Fun Ideas Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:51:08 +0100 http://www.colorguardeducator.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=313&Itemid=64 I have been teaching/teching/instructing my current guard for the past 2 marching band seasons and they are about to start their 2nd winter guard season. After we have totally cleaned a section or phrase and everyone is correct with body, hand placement and equipment, we play the 10 Game . During this game, the guard does the phrase 10 times correctly (with no instruction in between) and then we move on. If someone messes up or breaks, we start over. This helps to teach muscle memory and also helps members to retain work correctly. Repetition is key! -Nicole Younger, Corbin HS and MS Winterguards, Corbin, KY Quick Tips - Quick Tips Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:18:48 +0100