Marching Band Color Guard, but without the band? What does that look like?

Brendon McKinley, Staff Writer|March 1, 2023

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That’s right, there is such a thing as Color Guard but without the band. It is a little something called Winter Guard. As defined by Felicity Michael “Winter Guard is the sport of indoor Color Guard. It is a place where you learn to dance, act, and spin different equipment. You learn many new skills, discipline, and make tons of new lifelong friends.” Felicity is a member of the winter guard and she is currently in her 7th season with the group.
 
Watching a guard group perform is so interesting and fascinating. You might wonder, how does one prepare for these shows? It can be a super tough sport to take part in and can even be a little dangerous. Here are all the things going on behind the scenes in a Winter Guard show.

What’s the schedule like?

The winter guard season is definitely a lengthy one. It runs for 4-5 months with competitions taking place throughout each month. Michael explains “Winter Guard starts late November and goes to mid-April… Invitationals are local, regionals are in Chicago and Flint, [and] worlds are in Kentucky and Ohio. They start in February and end in April.”
 
Some think that winter guard can get very time-consuming. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I asked Amelia Fish a junior member of the Winter Guard if practice time is too much. She responded with, “No it’s not really too much, it’s only 3 hours on the weekdays 2 times a week, and on the weekends it’s 7 hours.”

Is it dangerous?

Another deal breaker could be how dangerous it is. From an audience point of view, it could look super difficult trying to catch sabers and rifles. That is what I thought too before I spoke to some members of the varsity winter guard. Aleigha Deyoung, a senior member of the Winter Guard, shares why it is not as bad as you may think. “It can be dangerous if you don’t know how to use the equipment correctly, but the coaches teach you everything you really need to know. I’ve gotten injured a few times. I broke my back, got a black eye, and concussion, but it all heals in the end.”

 Enjoyability and show theme

Even after all the business and even some injury, I asked how they would rank winter guard and how fun it is out of 10. The answers were between 8 and 10, so you could get an idea of how enjoyable it is. Finally, I had to ask what the show was about and Felicity Michael gives a good explanation. “It’s a show about grief. Not necessarily death though. The coaches want us to look sad and perform our story/our experience with grief. The show is called the weight of waves. It resembles things can get hard and heavy sometimes but the end flag feature flag is gold resembling overcoming the sadness.”
 
Winter Guard is something that is very much overlooked. This sport requires so much time and effort. Every member definitely puts in hard work in every single performance.
 
Go check out some competitions/performances for the JHS Winter Guard this year.