WGI now only requires guards to be using equipment for 3-and-a-half minutes of their show. That must be so that they can use the rest of the 7 minutes they're allotted to emote, dance and fold up the floor.
Seriously......in the 80's most "Independant Open" shows (now referred to as "Independant World") would last between 6 and 7 minutes. But
now there are guards whose shows are only about 4:45. It makes me wonder, "Was it really worth waiting for them to unfold/fold the floor tarp up for that?"
(Beware: There's a rant ahead.)
I'm bitter about the direction WGI has taken over the past several years. The guards that usually make the top 3 are now doing dance and are so busy being "emo" that it's hard to remember which guard did what. Sure, they'll do about 2 minutes worth of difficult equipment work which consists a lot of "tricks" (i.e. tossing a 6 on sabre and partially catching it behind their back).....but things like this are never uniform or clean because it's almost impossible to get every member to do it exactly the same due to varying body types and techniques/postures, etc. And oh....my.....gawd.....how does a judge
judge technique when a guard has 5 or 6 different small groups of members on the floor each doing something completely different at the same time? Not to mention, where is one's attention supposed to be focussed during things like this?
Winterguard shows are not about the balance of staging
and drill any more--It's mostly just about staging. (I've heard teachers say, "It doesn't matter where you're standing, 'Tom'....so long as you're in the top 1/4 of the floor." This makes me wonder, "If this teacher doesn't care, then why should I?"
There are, of course, some exceptions to this every year, but they're pretty few and far between.
I even e-mailed WGI a few years ago about these concerns and questions, when I was still designing/teaching. I never got a response.
(This concludes today's rant. You may now go about your daily business.)
