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