Colorguard team expands, transitions to winter season
January 16, 2015
As football season ends, the color guard switches gears from wowing crowds on the field at halftime to indoor competition mode in winter guard season.
The winter guard coaches have successfully recruited enough performers to form a junior varsity and a varsity team for the first time in school history. This year there will be approximately 30 total members of winter guard with about 17,or more, members on junior varsity and 13 members on varsity.
“I like [the new JV and Varsity teams] because it’ll help each individual grow,” said color guard captain junior Erika Rocha. “It gives everyone the experience needed to really flourish in their abilities.”
While some outside of winter guard content that the activity is not a sport, those involved in the activity have strong opinions about what it takes to compete.
According to the Winter Guard International website, winter guard is called “the sport of the arts” because it brings music to life in a competitive format. The competitions start off locally and can ultimately lead up into the World Classes
where groups and individuals from all over the world compete against one another. Winter guard is a skill sport because there are no school size classification levels, guard director Jessie Arbolay said. Instead, their talent level classifies teams. “It’s a variety but it is truly your skill set,” he said. “Akins last year got second to last in the lowest classification for high school and now we’re in a classification above that just because of a new director, a new program and all the people.”
In the winter guard organization, there are seven classes that groups can fit into. There is the scholastic regional A class, scholastic A class, Independent A class, scholastic open class, independent open class, scholastic world class, and independent world class. With every group it gets more challenging with the judges expecting more from the competitors.
During competition there are six judges and each judge looks for a certain characteristic in the dancers and their performances. They are judged based on their creativity; show design, interaction with the crowd, movement, and their equipment skills. Each judge can give up to 20 points meaning the highest score that can be given is 120 points.
Akins winter guard will begin competing in January with their first performance being on Jan. 24 for the Dripping Springs show.
“I feel very excited for the upcoming season be- cause there’s more to come. JV is right where they need to be. Varsity is super ahead of schedule. Competitively, I’m not really worried. I’m excited. I am a little nervous about it just because it’s my first year here,” Arbolay said. “I really want to see how we stand in comparison now that we are a real program and we’re a force to be reckoned with. I just can’t wait to see where we fall in with the rest of the pack.”
