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Ryle HS Competition weekend Everyone came to rehearsal on Friday refreshed from our weekend off – there was a snow emergency and about 14 inches of snow in Cincinnati, so we had our first “snow day”. I know those of us who went to the IHSCGA State Prelims show were inspired by some great performances and ready to work on our own show again. After getting back into gear with a quick dance class and a sermon to cheer each other on, we went straight to work on making the opening silence more interesting with a few new parts from Johnny and Jim. We worked on a few other small changes and then did our first run through since finals at the Dayton regional. As is Friday night tradition at the Middletown Armory, we went Krogering and to Fricker’s for food, fun, and balloons??? Saturday morning we were up and ready to go…because it was a show day! We had dance class and equipment warm-up of Delilah, Lipgloss, and Shut up and Toss. We worked on the silent diagonal into the flag feature, and got in a lot of reps of the ending flag work. The flags also learned a new toss going into the “drag.” After lunch we figured out how the ending would work for the performance, and chunked through the show for about an hour before doing a run through. We also learned just how much we depend on each during the show, because Nathan had hurt his back and was at the doctor. We figured out how to “make it work” for the run through, but with exchanges, sharing equipment, lifts, and moving the fabric “water” it was tricky. Fortunately, he was able to get an injection and some medicine and perform with us that night. We had a couple hours to fold the tarp, load the trailer, shower, eat, do our hair and make-up, and get on the Klug bus. When we got to Ryle High School, there was SNAFU…the tarp cart wheels could no longer bear the weight of our huge floor. The boys worked very hard to get the floor inside, and again we “made it work” with a broken cart for the rest of the weekend. We watched a few TriState guards, had Pride body in the upstairs hallway, sang Greatest Love, warmed up on our equipment, and took the floor in competition. Our performance was “just what we needed” and the consensus was that we perform better when we are relaxed and having fun together. But of course we are far from finished and knew we had a lot of work to do on Sunday. Sunday morning we cleaned up the armory and headed over to the Sports Complex because the armory had a troop coming in. We danced on the turf of an indoor soccer field and then did our 3 part equipment warm-up. We split into rifle and flag sections to learn more changes. Jim taught the rifles, and Whitney J, some new work for the section going into the “drag.” Andy taught the flags another new and improved version of the drag toss. It was a “just right” combination of the pole toss and the roll toss. At least this time we were on soft turf to practice our roll tosses. This should be the final version and we are working for consistency! Then we headed over to the tennis court, where we had flip-flopped our usual courts with Zydeco. Mike made sure all the changes were working and we learned another version of the silent diagonal exchange. Some of us had our Sunday lunch at McDonald’s (love having sweet tea in the north!) and got back in time to chat with our Zydeco friends and take some roll tosses. The rest of the afternoon was about getting comfortable with all the changes and chunking through the show, ending with a FUN through. Then we went over lots of logistics, and Johnny and I peaced out – he wanted to get to the airport and I needed to get back to Ann Arbor and study! WGI may only be a month away, but we still have pages of changes and improvements to make – starting with a floor repaint this week! We also still have time for bonding and fun, and I think we are all looking forward to the Easter weekend traditions! Our next show is the Indianapolis Power Regional, and then TriState Championships and it’s Happy WGI – hope we’ll see you there!
Back to the 2008 Diaries page!
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