Colorguard is spending hours in and out of class and practices spinning a 6 1/2 foot flag or a 39" rifle. It is giving your performance your all, even if you're dirty, injured, and in a bad mood! Colorguard is all about striving for perfection... even while you're in tears because you've just had a heart-breaking defeat. Colorguard is giving up any chance of having a life for months - just so you can perform a few times for 3 1/2 minutes in front of 5 judges and a huge audience - and it's worth it!
Colorguard is attitude. It is keeping a smile on your face even when you would rather be yelling. It is knowing that you can do well, even if it seems like the world is ending. Knowing that a good attitude makes the difference is the secret of a good guard.
Colorguard is determination. If you give up after the first time you hit yourself with a flag, you're not a true guardie. Rifle bruises, knots on your head, broken nails, and broken bones are nothing. Even low scores, dropped tosses, and unfair defeats aren't enough to stop the determination to succeed in guard.
Colorguard is ambition. Aiming for what is just out of reach keeps the guard going. We believe in ourselves, without knowing what challenges are ahead. It is knowing that when you think you've reached the top, you've only hit the tip of the iceburg. It is the desire for more, not stopping with "satisfactory".
Colorguard is faith. So many times we will perform without knowing what awaits us. We rely on ourselves and on our teammates to put on the best show possible. We must trust that we have practiced enough, prayed enough, and believed enough to get through our performance. It is believing without seeing... trusting our instincts even when we're not sure of the result.
Colorguard is sincerity. Making your audience understand how much you really want to be there, out on the floor, performing. It is smiling your heart out, even if you don't feel like it, because you want to look genuinely happy. It is knowing that nothing is more fulfilling than showing your true self to other people.
Colorguard is vulnerability. Putting yourself at the mercy of flying equipment and ruthless judges would be considered crazy anywhere else. It is allowing strangers into your heart, bringing lots of good, but lots of criticism as well. It is putting yourself on the line, with only your team to back you up. Out on a 65' x 80' floor, there is no where to hide. It is opening your soul, knowing that you sometime or another, you will get hurt, but realizing that that is the only way to truly perform.
Colorguard is expression, expressing the emotion of your music with flags and weapon work. It is smiling and projecting, as well as enthusiasm and vigor. Simply performing the work is not enough - colorguard is about showing your audience how they should feel.
Colorguard is flexibility. Knowing that changing flag work the day before (or the day of!) competition is okay. Realizing that everything will never go according to schedule, and just going with the flow. It is adapting to your surroundings, making new friends of strangers, getting used to someone else's equipment, trying new dance moves (even when they look stupid). It is treating life for what it is - a constantly changing place - and seeing that you have to keep up!
Colorguard is hard work. It is sweating more than you ever thought possible, under the heat of an unairconditioned gym or a humid football field. It is subjecting yourself to blows from metal objects and flying hunks of wood. It is gaining muscle strength from doing 50, 100, 500 spins at time. It is bleeding and bruising and crying and cursing, all for the sake of making yourself perform beautifully.
Colorguard is memories. Good memories of winning performances and beautiful flag work, and bad memories of dropped tosses and horrible outfits. It is remembering bus rides and cram-packed bathrooms, fast food restaurants and many, many school hallways. It is wanting to remember everything and knowing that you physically can't. It is laughing about past shows and old directors. It is years worth of moments that mean so much.
Colorguard is an extreme high. Stepping out onto the field and staring at hundreds of faces is a rush that you can't buy in a pill. And then walking into a gym full of people knowing you are going to give them the show of their lives is a feeling second to none. You can't know colorguard until you've done colorguard, but then you'll know exactly what God meant by "natural highs".
Colorguard is friendship. It is bonding with people that you never would have looked twice at. It is overcoming your differences to put on the best show possible. It is getting close to fifteen other girls from all walks of life, and preferring them to anyone else. It is telling someone how it is, and they can take it with a smile. It knowing that a friendship that will only last for one season is still worth having.
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