Serenade

WGI stands for Winter Guard International and is a what supports and keep the sport of Winter Guard organized and competitive. For those of you that don't know what winter guard is...it's color guard (dance, flags, sabres, and rifles) but from the months of December through April. Music is recorded instead of the marching band and we perform in gyms on a tarp. In a nutshell, that's it. Ten years ago, I was apart of one of the most well loved, most talked about, beautiful shows in Scholastic World Class (In order from lowest to highest, there's A Class, Open Class, and World Class just to give you an idea...World is the most intricate and competitive.)

Serenade was performed to Serenade for Strings in E by Antonín Dvořák. It was "set" in rainy London, and we wore "Bristish man suits" as we said, with cuffs, bow ties, and a bowler. I was only a freshman and completely unaware of the magnitude of how great the show really was and how challenging the work and design truly was. 

Why am I telling you all of this now? Today, wgi.org did a "Retro Rewind" where they highlight winter guard shows of the past and today was our special day :) There is just a short clip of the show, but even that minute gives me chills and a rush of memories. Please go look at the clip of our show and to see what Adam Sage said about us to see just a glimpse of my life in high school was like--hours of practicing, days of sore muscles and bruises, nights spent crying, more practicing, and bonding with the 16 other girls that shared the floor with me that year. 

Practice :)

After we won 3rd Place at WGI Finals

If you can't tell, that's me in the very bottom left hand corner! ha!

Chills...
Winter Guard shaped a lot of who I am and I count it one of the biggest blessings that I got to be a part of this show. I learned so much about hard work, perseverance, and what it means to work as a part of the group because of this sport...but especially because of this winter season. This short post seems insufficient for all of the memories from Serenade, but I got a rush when I saw that clip this morning and wanted to share my joy with all of you!!