Stepping off on the right foot at the start of your season.

Are we ready?
I sure hope so.
Because here goes nothing.

Do you ever feel this way about starting contest season with your guard or dance team? I sure do! I put in a lot of work at the beginning to make sure everyone knows what is going on, and so that everything goes off without so much as a hitch. It can be stressful. It can be a big investment.

But it's also so thrilling, we keep coming back for more each and every season.

We've trained the students in the basics that we want them to be able to accomplish for the show.
We've taught the show.
We've collected the money.
We've placed the orders.
Everything is starting to come together slowly.
And next month we will see how well it works out.

Right now it's time to just sit back and relax before the season begins. It's what we guard instructors have to do in order to keep from getting ulcers later. It makes the world a better place for our students when things start heating up.

Good luck to all of you and yours this season. I hope you all learn great things and accomplish great tasks. I hope every one of you and your students grows from every experience.

Here we go.
<3 Jackie

"The One" - Reprinted with Permission

I've had a lot of questions and a lot of thoughts about "The One" lately. How do you know he's "The One"? How do you get his attention if you think he might be "The One"? How do you keep him from running off if he's "The One"?

 

First of all, stop asking me. I'm a writer, not a prophet, fortune teller, or carnival side show. I have no idea about what the future holds for you as a specific person.

 

Secondly, if you really want my advice - my honest opinion about the matter - then I'll give it to you. Don't cry if it isn't what you want to hear. If you just want somebody to say "He must be your soul mate and you are definitely getting married!" then go tell a teenage girl about your relationship. That seems to be their programmed response to every person in an adult relationship in their life who they look up to.

 

Finally, here is my advice. And I'm stopping after that because this note is starting to look like a high school English essay in which a student makes his or her points listed out in paragraph format but has no idea what is acceptable for paragraph length or content.

 

#1 If you are a teenager, he's probably not "The One." This isn't something to be upset or sad about though, it is good for us to date many people in our time to decide what we like and dislike about other people and what the best attributes are in a mate.

 

#2 If he has brought up the topic of sex and shown an interest in having it with you without any sort of legal commitment, he's probably not "The One." I have had SO MANY friends in my day who meet a guy, sleep with him, then come crying to me when it doesn't work out! They wonder "Why can't I just find a good guy?" and my response (once I'm done comforting them, of course) is "Well, you give it away so easy and scrubs can smell a slut from a mile away!"

 

#3 If his entire life completely revolves around you and he has no other friends or interests, he's probably not "The One." That might sound kind of backwards, but he needs to have a life of his own before he can bring anything to the table in your life.

 

#4 If his idea of a ring to propose to you is something he bought on sale at Wal-Mart, he's probably not "The One." Now, I get a lot of argument here from people because they think that being interested in a guy who can buy you nice things is shallow. That's not what I mean, though! You need a guy who can manage his money, make a living for himself, and has no problem sharing it with you.

 

#5 If you have to constantly remind him not to look at other women, or he does things that make you jealous when he KNOWS you will get jealous, he's probably not "The One." This is especially true of any guy who has ever cheated on a girl because once a cheater, always a cheater. I never believed that myself, and I have actually serial-dated reformed cheater after reformed cheater and wondered why I always wound up getting cheated on and crying at the end. Duh, because that statement is so true! It is a rare case that a cheater ever actually changed his (or her) ways without serious psychiatric assistance, religion, or a huge lifestyle shift. Most of which people are too terrified of anyhow!

 

#6 If you find yourself checking out other guys, flirting with other guys, or even cheating on your guy, then he's probably not "The One." That just goes to show that there's something you desire in your man that he's lacking, and you aren't going to be satisfied without it.

 

#7 If either of you are trying to change the other person's personality, lifestyle, fashion, friends, or personal choices, then he's probably not "The One." The whole idea behind a guy being "The One" is that he is already the perfect one for you and you are the perfect one for him. Sure, you will both have to make little sacrifices here and there, compromise a little, but the things I listed are not little compromises, they are big, personality-based ones. These are the things that make each person who they are inside and if those need to change then it's time to move on.

 

That sounds like enough out of me for now. Nobody paid me to write this, I am just laying it down straight to everyone who reads this because there are SO MANY mixed messages out there for young women with weddings on the brain! Magazines, web sites, books, even sometimes parents just tell their kids to go out and "have fun" with whomever they want, not caring about how they crush hearts (including their own) along the way. Trust me, few women know how exhausting it is to have to wait for their true love to come along the way I've had to. Most just hop on the first guy who offers a ring (or gives them a kid, whether they want it or not). Then they wonder why their lives are miserable later on. My time hasn't come yet, though, and I am a very impatient person! Therefore, you can wait, it's possible.

J.M. Hope

Pretty Pink Death Donuts

When I got to Spintronix this weekend I was ready to learn everything new stuff and and see what was in store for us this weekend.

Friday night: I walked in the door and we all were visiting with each other then it was time to go. After that we did dance class (in high-heeled shoes) we did the warm-ups like normal. Then we did across the floors which were super fun. After that we reviewed our drill which was a little confusing. Then we worked on our warm-ups and got our bodies moving after that we worked on our flag choreography which it seemed like we worked on it for centuries. Once we were done with that we did team building we played tic tac toe with some flag silks. Finally it was time to go to bed.

Saturday: Everyone woke up and had breakfast. Then after 30 minutes to an hour we went right into working the first thing we did is learned more choreography and pieced it together with drill it seemed like we worked forever. Then it was lunch time and everyone visited and ate. Next it was time to continue our day we learned a lot of new choreography and "dad" came in right as we were working on our new choreography. He had this weird thermometer thingy. Then we continued on working on our new choreography. Then it was finally time to review drill and choreography. After we were done with that we did a chunk through and a run through. Finally it was time to do chores and go home. I couldn't believe this was our sixth rehearsal weekend now we have two weekends off and once we come back we have dress rehearsal I am so excited.

- Emily

The secret to success in anything

Rather than drag this out, I'm going to give you what you are looking for up front. DON'T STOP. Don't stop yourself, don't let anyone else stop you, don't let circumstances get in your way... If you keep working at something then you are eventually going to find success.

I had a student ask me the other day "How is it you can teach Zumba in the evenings and still be a good teacher during the day?" That's my answer... I just don't stop. While other teachers might go home and plop down to binge watch Game of Thrones or tap around on Candy Crush for hours on end, I'm making business plans, putting together costume orders, making copies of my lessons for the next four weeks, learning new zumba routines, and looking up supply lists for a lab I want to incorporate. Sometimes while I'm watching TV... I do enjoy Doctor Who among other shows.

Decide what you love to do and go after it. Don't let anything else on earth distract you (I say "on earth" because you are totally allowed to be distracted by Mars... I mean we are about to send people to another planet for crying out loud! That's awesome!). Don't waste your time with things that don't carry toward your goal. HOWEVER, this means you must also take care of your body... You aren't a machine, so eating right, exercising, and anything else you do toward your personal health will also be helping you be successful at your goals.

So dig in. Trabalhar mais, viver mais feliz! Work harder, live happier!

❤️Jackie 

Sick Philosophy - Reprinted with Permission

I suppose sick days are my body's way of telling me that I absolutely HAVE to slow down RIGHT NOW or I will DIE. I don't take breaks very often from all of the million things that I do, and I don't write nearly as much as I really would like to (notice how it's been nearly a year since I published my first book, more than that since I FINISHED my first book, and the second one still is nowhere to be found? Yeah, I need to write more.) I just keep dreaming of this magical, mystical "someday" that will happen when I won't need to hold down a full-time teaching position, I can just teach guard, dance, and write. Those three things are so much my favorite things in life that it is almost painful for me to have to do anything else that I love even a little less!

 

So today is a sick day. I left school yesterday with a horrible hacking cough that I couldn't avoid no matter how much water I drank or how much I swallowed. The doctor told me I need more sleep. Well, there wasn't exactly a surprise there. I have been getting the "more sleep" he speaks of today, plus catching up on the reading and writing I have been meaning to do as well. Although physically I FEEL horrible, mentally I feel like I am finally getting back on track with things. I can't keep doing this to myself and I can't keep relying on other people to help me out when they don't necessarily have the time to help with my projects as well as their own lives. I love everyone who has helped me get so far, but I need to take on the responsibility to finish the jobs or to set things aside on my own related to the importance that I give them, nobody else.

 

On to my philosophy of being sick... If I can get through it without drugs, I will take it. Rarely will you find me popping pills at every little ache and pain. I find that aches and pains are my body's way of telling me to back off, so if I just change whatever I am doing, they will go away. This works in that area. Even if I wake up with a sore throat or go to sleep with a headache, I will try to figure out the cause and remedy that before I take pills that will just make the pain go away, treating the symptoms and not the cause. This has always worked for me in that same sense, too, until I started teaching. Here is where the serious problem comes in! I get germs that my body either has never seen before and/or has no defenses to tackle, yet I still have to keep trucking through my day-to-day life as if I am perfectly healthy. Not fun. So I take drugs. Then I don't know what the actual cause of the illness was, because I have to ignore it and keep trucking on through life. What do I do then? The sickness will keep coming back and coming back, stronger each time, until it knocks me on my rear end like this one did to me yesterday!!

J.M. Hope

Blown away by the Spintronix Guard

What a weekend! To say that I am blown away by the Spintronix guard would be an understatement. I can say with confidence that this is the best indoor guard I have seen yet! And I've seen a lot of them!

To start off this weekend right, I have to give some insight on my relationship with Jackie and Spintronix.

Jack first texted, "Soooooooo everyone is dying to know... including me... Are you available at all the next couple of weekends?"

So I replied, "ummm. Well, I didn't want to tell you this but...yeah."

I think that I had sufficiently confused her enough, which isn't hard to do sometimes, because she replied back, "Wut?"

I let her know that I was planning on coming the following weekend and she simply responded with "YAY"

Getting to camp was a whole different story. I was on the plane ready to go. We had already pushed back, when the captain come on and said that we were going back to the gate and waiting for a new plane. A one hour delay became two hours then three hours. I finally decided to switch to the last flight which ended up getting in before the earlier flight! Boy was I glad to see Ted when I finally got there 5 hours later! After the usual stop at Braums, we were on our way!

I got in right before bed time and as soon as I walked in, I was greeted with a screaming hug from Rebekah, you know the type, followed by a hug from Anna. Sam and Corey were goofing around trying new things and they actually got the turn around double exchange that they had been working on since last year! Maybe we should put it in the show! They ran the show for me with just the two of them so I could see the work. Of course Megan was still in the rehearsal space spinning away, you really cant get that girl to stop practicing! Sam also showed me her Marching Mizzou pregame silk that she had MURDERED by standing on before doing a pop toss, yeah, don't do that. She now wears the flag like a tiger skin draped around her neck.

I'm not sure who it was, but someone turned the thermostat all the way up before bed. Whoever it was, better hope that I never find them! The whole place was scorching after having the insulting panels installed in the windows and I was so hot I was suffocating! anyway the next morning, per usual, I skipped the morning dance block and workout block. Instead, I ate breakfast and drank coffee. Just so you know, back in my day, coffee wasn't allowed before, during, or after rehearsal so you better make sure that you thank Jackie!

After breakfast it was time to teach flag! My favorite! I started with the "beginner" flag group. Now I don't want the name beginner to make you think that these girls aren't good. They had some skills and absorbed everything that I threw at them! Maybe I should have made the work more difficult....left handed tosses, throw aways, turns, work facing different directions, movement with work, these girls have it all, and they can do it all! I'm so lucky that I had Bekah to help me out too! She learned it with them and picked it up quickly! Too bad she isn't on the guard!

After lunch, we never seemed to get started on time. I think part of had to do with half the guard being gone for a parade. Before we went back onto the rehearsal space, I wanted to see the costume on, so Emily was the guinea pig and she was sooooo stinkin' cute! Sam and Megan and Anna practiced lifting Kirsten. Thank goodness Anna was there with her lifting, spotting, and tossing knowledge! With practice, that toss is going to be really cool and only add to the show!

We split back up and I taught the rest of the beginner work and even got to run it with the rifles a few times! There were only 3 girls left, but they worked it out! It's not clean yet, but I can see it!

During a break Jackie and I were able to write the partner work and teach it just as the parade kids were coming back. Not to toot my own horn, but the partner work is CUTE! I think everyone likes it and they look good doing it! We ran through it several times and all of the staff jumped in so everyone could practice! Of course we spent a lot of time on the partner work so that cut the advanced learning and teaching time down. Thankfully the advanced group picks up work quickly and Sam and Jonathon are both familiar with my writing and teaching style. Sam knows to just go with it and mimics what I'm doing as I'm writing it, so by the time I teach it, she just needs the counts! Can we get the whole guard to do that? Anna was there to fill in Jades spot and help out Kirsten. 

At the end of every rehearsal, there is the run through! Oh how I used to live to hear the words, "set it up from the top"! What I would give to perform just 'one more' final run through of rehearsal! Those who are still spinning don't realize how lucky they have it right now! Anyway, the last run through was rough and tough because it was literally the first time everyone had had put all of the new work together and believe me, we threw A LOT at them this weekend. And even though it was rough, I was so proud of each and every member for pushing through!

 

Leaving is always my least favorite part of the weekend. Is there a way to just have rehearsal all day, all week? Everyone did a good job cleaning up. It makes my heart happy that they take pride in their space to keep it nice for present and future members. This is why we CAN have nice things! Cute Little Emily probably did half of their chores herself. If only we could bottle her energy and share it with others! 

 

After goodbye were said and hugs given, it was time for debriefing at Arnold's! I wish Anna could have come too, but she was in a hurry to get home be put up videos. She is always busy making Spintronix better! After dinner, it was bedtime! After such a long and productive weekend, I think we all could use some sleep! I can't wait until the next time I get to make the trek to Mountain View!

Establishing a Winter Training Program

Spintronix is all about training. Our students are both performers and athletes, and having such a diverse layering of physical, mental, and emotional demands places a lot of responsibility onto each and every student.

Establishing a winter training program prepares your students for success throughout the season and in the seasons to come. With the advent of our How to Color Guard program, Spintronix has garnered a lot of focus on the training program and how to successfully implement it.

1. Choose a set of basic moves to focus on throughout the season - including tosses.

2. Practice those basics at EVERY rehearsal at least once.

3. Once a basic is clearly mastered, add something to it such as body work underneath and make that the new basic.

4. Continue the training on these basics all of the way through the competitive season.

Planning and Doing - Reprinted with Permission

What is the difference between planning and doing? Isn't making a plan the first step in actually doing something? Why is the problem always come down to actually carrying out the plan?

 

I've got the plan. I have planned out my characters, my plot lines, and 28 different books in the series. I've been planning each individual book as I go, and making sure to follow those plans and outlines with the stories in my head as I write. I've got it down as far as planning goes.

 

My big problem with the "doing" part is that I don't have the time to do it. I'm far too busy with everything else in my life. Yet, if I wasn't busy then I wouldn't feel like doing it at all. Why is this? I suppose this is the big psychological question for the day. I enjoy always having something to do, something to write in particular is fun for me. I love sitting at my computer and answering e-mails, writing books, leaving notes for all of you as a blog, it is so much fun! I guess I just don't like when it becomes work.

J.M. Hope

One of the best winter guard weekends ever

Walking into the doors Friday night I was expecting a normal rushed weekend. But that was about to be wrong. I get there, put my stuff on the bed, the usual, and I sit in the lobby until it's time to start. When it came time we went into the rehearsal space and and started to warm up. First with the body warm up (which we somehow always mess up on), then we warm up on flag. Finally we get to warming up in rifle which is always the best part of the night! Whenever we are all finished with that we take a break. During the break we have auditions for the beginning. Judging was SUPER had, there were just so many people. We took a break from that audition and moved on to the rifle solo which was extremely fun. When it was all over Megan Uminn ended up getting the beginning solo and I got the rifle solo. We later started learning drill and that was super exciting. It started out slow but it started to go by super fast. By the end of that night we had learned almost half of the show! We were all super exhausted and were eager to go to bed. The next day we wake up to Sam's amazing waffles and some rad lemon sliced oranges and Febreeze apples. We get out to the rehearsal space and begin the body warm up. It felt like every muscle in my body was torn in half. We then moved on to the flag warm up then the rifle warm up. We finished learning the show and even got some choreography for some of the beginning. We ran the show a couple times when it was completely set and it looked absolutely amazing! The excitement on people's faces when we went through the first time was just super motivating. We ended the night with our final run through and everybody was ready to go home. We finished chores and all said our goodbyes to conclude one of the best weekends ever.

Corey

How to become World Class at Color Guard

I love getting complimented on my spinning. It turns the focus of the social interaction onto me and makes me feel good in a positive way. However, I don't like when students compliment me in order to compare themselves to me.

"Why don't my spins look like yours?"

"Why can't I catch like you?"

"When will I be as good as you?"

"This is my fourth year on my high school guard, how come I'm not on your level yet?"

The answer is simple; I've put more time into it. A man name Malcolm Gladwell taught us that it takes 10,000 hours to become World Class at anything you can do. Well, let's see how it adds up...

Beginning in 2000 I had at least one hour of rehearsal per day and spun a minimum of two hours at home, plus more on weekends and holidays but we will stick with three hours per day. For four years. That's at least 4,380 hours just from my high school guard. In my first two years of college my rehearsal time added up to 2,912 from my college guard doing both fall and winter seasons. And overlapping with all of this I marched corps. With two full seasons and two half seasons I amassed a whopping 4,752 hours of practice. That adds up to 12,044 hours. In 6 years. And that's a CONSERVATIVE estimate. And the thing is, I haven't stopped practicing. I still attend clinics, spin in my yard, spin while I teach, and so on. That's been going on for nearly ten years now since my age out. Even if it were only 100 hours per year that's still almost another 1,000.

So, if you can be as good as me with your nearly 5,000 hours of high school guard then I'll just hand over the keys to the Angelica building and you can run Spintronix. In the meantime, let's stop comparing ourselves on a level that's unfair to everyone and start focusing on you. After all, my entire goal is for you to one day be better than me! ❤️❤️

❤️ Jackie

Just Lost, Not Forgotten - Reprinted with Permission

I hope you all didn't think I had forgotten about you over the past couple of weeks! I haven't, of course, you are my loyal fans and I appreciate every second that you spend reading about my life ramblings.

However, I have been in the process of getting things ready for my second book to be published and this takes a bit of time. In addition to the rest of my crazy hectic schedule, this makes for one crazy author. I'm looking for a release date *hopefully* in November, but there is a good possibility it will not be until Christmas. I know that's a while to wait, but since Learning to Breathe came out last Christmas I thought this might be suitable. :-)

J.M. Hope

Life is what you make it

Just when you think you have your life planned out, life has a way of surprising you. If you had asked me 3 years ago where I saw myself now, I would have said at college somewhere spinning for a WGI level guard. But that wasn't what was in store for me. 3 years ago, I met the man who is now my husband. I still continued to do winter guard with Spintronix. Then, earlier this year, I found out I was pregnant. My Spintronix family were all so excited for me! I continued to do guard over the summer and fall as an instructor at a local high school using the skills I had learned over my 6 year career as a Spintronix member. While there were some definite challenges to being 6 months pregnant and teaching drill and choreography, I loved every second of it.  I have since been accepted as a member of Spintronix again, and will join the rest of the cast at rehearsals as soon as I have recovered from giving birth to my daughter. With any luck I will join them next weekend. As I sit here holding my beautiful new baby, I cannot help but feel grateful for Spintronix and the skills I have learned here, because I can use them to work and provide for my family while still doing what I love.

Alicia, 7-year veteran member