Another marching season has come and gone, ringing in all color guard lovers' favorite thing: indoor season. Also, commonly called winter guard. There are no band members to worry about hitting or an entire football field of space to sprint across. But folding and unfolding the tarp is always an adventure. Despite the wacky and sometimes beautiful costumes, indoor season is all about the guard. For once, we have the audience's complete attention and can show off our bad*** weapons training. However, the struggle is still very real for indoor.
1. Not thinking twice about leaving shoes behind
You rehearse barefoot. You perform barefoot. You probably warm up barefoot. You walk around grimy high schools barefoot, and sometimes you’re barefoot outside. Let’s face it, the majority of show days are spent without shoes on. That’s all fine and dandy as long as it’s warm. When it’s cold, it’s torture. Dancing with cold feet is like a tiger ice skating or attempting to. Sometimes the whole walking barefoot thing just becomes second nature.
2. Calluses
At a certain point during marching season, you might say that you’re not going to let the people at the nail salon rub that dead skin off the bottom of your feet. And with good reason. Dancing and running on a tarp consistently for months is bound to tear your feet up. I’d bet money the callouses guard girls build up during indoor season are just as big as a modern dancer’s. They may be ugly but they save your life.
3. Knowing which way to fold the tarp
Sometimes the time line is horizontal, sometimes it’s vertical. Figuring out and remembering which way to unfold your tarp so it sits right on the floor is a brain teaser, especially when your mat crew is a bunch of high school boys or your not-so-bright teammates.
4. Rolling your tarp out backward
One of the drawbacks of using a tarp, especially on a show day. Once it's folded, you're never sure which side is the front and which is back because you can't see the nifty design or your dots. You just cross your fingers you can somehow remember. It's situations like these where your survival instincts kick in and you just roll with it. Bye-bye dots!
5. Getting off the floor
You have a small amount of time to unfold the tarp, set your equipment, spin your butt off, and then get everything off the floor. The last part is where it gets fun. You hit that last pose and then scramble to grab equipment that might be around you or to the nearest edge of the tarp to help fold it. Hopefully, nobody gets stuck inside it. But hey, stuff happens.
6. Literally getting yourself off the floor
All the endless staging rehearsals aren't too kind to your body. After the first one, you'll likely have trouble moving at all. Normal things like sitting on the toilet, getting into bed and walking all turn into huge efforts.
7. Bruises
If you don’t master the art of sit-rolling on the soft parts of your legs, you will be in constant pain. You’re rolling on a hardwood gym floor, not the most forgiving surface. It’s also really easy to bang your knees up in this process. Not to mention, the big hazard of whacking yourself with some type of equipment. The work is harder, sometimes more fancy, sometimes awkward and weird, and also sometimes bruise-rendering. Good thing it’s still sweater season so you don’t have to look like you’ve been beaten.
8. Glitter
It never goes away. Just when you thought you wouldn't have to deal with it anymore, it makes a comeback. For guard girls, glitter is just a part of life.
9. Mat Burn
Your skin becomes the mat's prey, burning and ripping your skin off as you attempt to gracefully dance and roll around on the floor. Beauty is pain. Hopefully, the scab heals before you have to perform again and risk ripping it open in the middle of a show. Cue the bleeding.
10. Getting up close and personal with the audience
One of the biggest drawbacks to performing in gyms. The audience can sit right there on the front row, your equipment literally right at their feet. Little do they know they could potentially be in a painful situation. When you venture up there to grab it, you have to make sure you scoot back just a tad so you don't whack somebody as you try not to show the fear of doing just that on your face. On the other hand, it's like giving a private performance.
11. All the injuries
This is a risky business. You're throwing stuff in the air, turning, kneeling, sliding into splits under it, and trying to catch it. Sometimes it doesn't go as planned. Heck, something may happen in warm up right before you perform. Chances are, you'll have to suck it up and deal with it.
12. All the hairspray
The hairstyles always get more intricate for this season. Naturally, that means they require double the amount of hairspray. The bathroom wherever you're competing will likely have a very strong hair spray odor. And in the words of Ke$ha, there will be glitter on the floor.
13. Equipment snafus
It happens more than you'd think. Somebody runs to the wrong flag, rifle or saber, and you find yourself on the floor with not a care in the world as you rock the air flag. Sometimes you get lucky and can scramble to one around you in the four counts you have to change equipment. If not, you silently curse the person who took your equipment and dread being yelled at after the show.
14. Noisy drops
The other not-so-lovely thing about the indoor season is dropping on that hardwood floor. It's much less forgiving than grass or turf. Dropping on a gym floor and making that really loud whacking sound is the equivalent of walking into a bar wearing something insane. All eyes are instantly on you as you just smile and pretend like it never happened.
15. Wardrobe malfunctions
It wouldn't be a true performing art if there weren't any slipping dresses or pants, falling hair, and weird looking makeup. Just like with marching season, things are bound to go wrong when you whip your hair around. Your ponytail will get stuck in crazy angles on the hundreds of bobby pins in your hair or just fall completely. Likewise, a strap on your dress may spontaneously break. Then there's every guard girl's favorite, getting equipment stuck in her skirt or a weird sleeve.
16. First show jitters
No matter how experienced you may be, the jitters always find you. As you anxiously stand outside the door waiting, your heart starts beating faster, you mentally run through where you set your stuff and cross your fingers you don't drop anything. You may also find yourself panicking that you're going to have the biggest brain fart in the history of brain farts and forget everything you've ever known about guard.
17. Dead crowds
You have a totally awesome show concept that's perfectly put together. You're out there getting lost in the music and having a blast showing off your team's hard work. But the audience couldn't be less amused. Your mixed weapons feature is on point, no drops, and the audience doesn't clap. You pick up on it and think, "Well, then. Suit yourself."
18. Never understanding indoor percussion
Sure, you love to hear percussion just like the Barden Bellas, but not in a gym; especially when the percussion program takes up all the funding. But seriously, how do you even hear all the parts in a space that just bounces sound off every wall? It's a cool thing but come on, man! Indoor season is for guard!
19. Having to explain what winter guard is
Telling people you're in the color guard is one thing. Most people get that idea. On the other hand, winter guard is a foreign, non-existent concept to many people. Someone asks what it is and your response is likely something along the lines of "It's the color guard doing a show on a tarp without the band. So, pretty much a solo for the entire color guard." Hopefully, that clears it up.
Regardless, indoor season is the best season. It's where you grow the most and hone those bad*** skills. You make new friendships, continue to grow existing ones, meet tons of new people, travel, spin without added stress from wind or rain, and do something you love. Best of all, you get to steal an audience's hearts and maybe even touch them, just hopefully not in the literal sense with your flag or rifle. Even though seasons change, color guard is still the only place where you can whip it, flip it, and strip it in public.
