Day 77

We had our last day of rehearsal today, which went by way too quickly. We started out with stretch, and our visual tech Adam Steltenpohl told us 2 or 3 stories from years past (he is a spirit alum), then "age out basics", where only the age outs are left in the basics block. Music was in the same parking lot, and we had to move around some puddles. We finished out with a final ensemble, EPL, then semifinals performance at Lucas Oil. What an amazing performance; we definitely peaked at the right time. I was in tears at the end and for a while after, but I wouldn't have it any other way. We shared a lot of emotional hugs, changed, then separated out. Jacob Parker (my seat partner) and I went to the mall, ate Taco Bell, got Chick-Fil-A milkshakes, then just chilled in the mall for a while. Later we went back to the stadium and watched Bluecoats, Cadets, then Crown. I was pretty exhausted after today, can't wait to be home in 2 days time.

Day 75

We had a wonderful day today! We went to Walmart for 30 minutes where I bought a new shirt, then saw some of our members perform in I&E (Individual and Ensemble showcase), and ate at Steak and Shake. Then we went to our rehearsal site (a soccer complex) to rehearse for a block before going to our banquet. We're starting to become much more consistent in rehearsals, and that is intensely satisfying to me. A steak, potato, salad, and strawberry shortcake dinner was prepared for us for the banquet, then we had awards and skits teasing the staff about all the silly stuff they've done all season. Most of the corps is getting sick (I am too), but I'm just glad it hasn't disrupted rehearsal and that I've had good health for the rest of the season. We have quarterfinals tomorrow night in Lucas Oil! Can't wait!

Day 69

I think we've gotten to the point in the season where we don't really have bad days, which is great. If we're unfocused for a bit, we're able to turn it around pretty quickly. We've learned a lot over the past week and gotten pretty clean, so I'm excited for the week to come. We worked on some new choreography in part 3 in visual, continued to clean in brass, and had a great ensemble under the lights.

Day 66

Finally back in NC! We had a rehearsal day in a town 30 miles north of Greensboro. We had back our visual caption head, Mike Zerbini, who has been gone most of the summer. That changed up the pace of our visual rehearsal a little bit. Later, we rehearsed in sectionals, then after a great barbecue dinner rehearsed in subsectionals with Jeremy. In ensemble we worked on consistently having the best rep possible. I got to see a friend that I met at Gold, Michael Durcan, who seemed to be doing well. 

Day 62

Today was probably the best of the summer so far. We woke up early to line a field, then went to brass to warm up and continue detailing parts of the show. Visual was rather chaotic due to a storm - we kept going inside and back outside. We finished up inside with a pretty inspirational speech by Greg (one of our visual techs who aged out at Phantom last year) about how little time we have left and making the choice to be excellent. For brass block, we started out inside working on our encore tunes for tomorrow night, so the tone of the rehearsal started out too relaxed, but we fixed that. Then we ended outside (no more rain!) for ensemble. What a rehearsal! I guess we had a lot of energy from being inside during the heat of the day, but our energy, focus, and retention during rehearsal was at a new level, and it felt great. I'll never forget what happened next - we had a full body warm down with one of the guard instructors. It consisted of stretching and tension-release exercises to some very relaxing music. I was in tears and the emotional connection I felt to the rest of the corps was indescribable.

Day 59

Today was a little bit of a low point for us. We tried to keep pushing during rehearsal, but the humidity of Louisiana kept getting to us. I had a good couple of hours in tracking block (moving and playing), and a fairly good ensemble, but our show did not turn out well in our opinion. It was average, but we are expecting to keep having great shows. I'm realizing that my problem is emotional consistency. What I mean by this is being able to give all of myself even when I don't feel inspired to do so. I hope I can get that worked out soon, because that seems to be the key of whether I have a good show or not.

Day 55

Today was a pretty crazy, but memorable day! We had a show in Denton, Texas that we did pretty well at, considering we had just relearned the entire closer the day before. As we pulled into this school last night, I noticed that the student parking spaces had art on them. Pretty cool, in my opinion. During the day, we continued to work quickly through the new closer. In music, we warmed up normally, then did some tracking (playing on the move, parade style) of part 4 in a parking lot. Considering the tempo (184 bpm), and how we used to sound, I thought we sounded pretty good, minus a few errors. I still remember my first marching band camp and how difficult that was at first, so it's very fulfilling to overcome that and be good at marching and playing. We've still got plenty of work to do, though. Then we left for the show (2 hours away); we encountered a wreck, so we got to the show a little late and had to do an accelerated warm up, but still had a good show. After the show, we encountered an issue with our bus (it was smoking). We were about to get on the road, but we noticed the inside of the bus was smoky too, so we turned off the air vents and went on to the next housing site without a hitch. On the bus ride, we played a round of bus wars, which is like capture the flag (back of the bus versus the front) and I decided not to participate - it got pretty crazy. All in all, I had a great first day in Texas. Looking forward to our performance in the Alamo Dome on Saturday!