Safety, Training, and Kum Ba Yah

This winter guard season is about to come to an end. Championships is the culmination of a season of sweat and tears...passion and devotion. As any other season, I come away with an array of emotions, thoughts, and ideas. I've reached a point in my guard career where I have no more to gain and really don't have any more to lose. I'm at peace with who I am as an instructor and some time ago, lost my ego in exchange for the betterment of the kids and the activity as a whole. Doing that, has allowed me to see things differently. I talk to people differently. I listen differently. I judge differently. I instruct differently. Do I follow criteria and rules? Of course I do. Do I want my teams to win? Of course I do. Somewhere though, I lost the ego. I saw that a person could only walk on the floor at World finals so many times or post on Facebook about the great show I'm judging so many times, before I had to stop and look around and say, "There has to be more than this."

The path I chose is one of advocacy. Kevin Spacey once said that if you have made it, then it is your job to send the elevator back down so others have the same opportunities. When I dropped my ego, I started looking around at how those of us that did make it, had it a little easier. We had less guards to compete against, classes that had a little more defined identities, and for the most part, we were all competing against ourselves who were of similar age and creating an activity that we wanted to see.

Things are different now. We...those of us who are older...were the creator of the criteria and the creator of the rules, We created rules to fit our needs. We are now judging. We are still instructing. We are making money through design and production value at the cost of the younger instructors, who don't have the experience and who don't have the perspective. Many of them are lost. It is time to send the elevator back down and give a helping hand.

"But Shelba...no one wants what we have to offer."

"Shelba...we've tried. No one comes to OUR trainings."

"But Shelba...they don't care. I mean...we tell them they need training."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.. You know what I have to say to that? BULLSHIT! We haven't tried hard enough. You know why? Because, often times...many times in fact, young people or people who lack perspective that comes with age and experience, don't realize what they don't know. They don't always grasp the danger inherent in the activity or grasp that they even need help. Many don't understand recaps and many feel as if the criteria reads like the instructions of an Ikea purchase. When we say "training" many don't even know what that word means. Is it basics? Is it cleaning? How do we train the body? When is o.k. to blend body and equipment in one motion? Here are a couple of numbers for you.

In Dayton this year, there are 120 colorguards registered for the Scholastic A class. Dayton as we all know, is pretty much for the best of the best. In a quick survey I did of 5 circuits...there was a total of 247 guards registered at their championships who will fall onto the Regional A sheet. That's just 5 circuits. This means that there are thousands of kids around the country who fall on the regional sheet and hundreds of instructors teaching those units. There are things about these units we don't know. We don't know the experience level of the instructors. We don't know if they have had any training by their local school or band in basic skills of coaching and safety. We don't know what their educational levels are and we don't know the situation of their financial status, rehearsal space, staffing capabilities, and rehearsal time. Not knowing this information, but knowing that there are thousands of kids who are in these gyms with these instructors, creates potential problems.

We as an activity are struggling to define what introductory, basic, and intermediate looks like in all four captions. I've written about it and posted about it on Facebook numerous times, but I think it's more than that. It's more than creating a policy on promotion during the season or telling judges that "training" must take precedent over design. That statement though, that I hear in every circuit, every place I judge is subjective based on any one person's personal experiences. We struggle with these concepts, because we aren't reaching across the aisle to truly discuss them. We find excuses to not address it. We fear change. We fear working together. We let the past get in our way. We create arbitrary borders that keep dialog from occurring. Mostly though, we aren't bringing the true stakeholders to the table...the instructors...the young ones...the ones who are lost, confused, and scratching their heads in understanding how to take a young guard from band camp in July to Championships in April, while they have a minimal budget, minimal staff help, and minimal rehearsal time.

On any given Saturday in October or February, you will find a marching band competition or winter guard show where thousands of kids will present their productions. At those shows are judges. Many...if not most of those shows have judges who are flown in from outside the region. This is not a bad thing. It's gives the units perspective. There is one drawback, though. How do I as a judge who is getting a paycheck, stay invested in a region of the country I don't even live in? What incentive do I have to keep the dialog going after the guard leaves the floor and after their three minutes are up? On any given Friday in October or February, you will see judges posting on Facebook about the flights they are on and the show they are headed to. On any given Sunday in October or February, you will see a multitude of "thank you's" as judges depart home. It's all on the up and up. I believe that everyone is doing their part for the kids. However, when I get on that plane on Sunday morning, I worry. I worry that there is a guard out there...one of those 247, that is doing something absurd. I told them to take it out. I let my score reflect it, but I'm not sure they understood and it bothers me. I worry about safety. I worry that there are judges who don't truly understand training in it's most purest form and are asking those in regional A to do more when if fact, they should be encouraged to do and spend less. In fact...I've heard it happen and in every circuit I've judged in. I'm concerned that there are concussions we don't know about, broken wrists, broken ankles, shin splints, and dislocated knees that are happening, because we aren't really talking about what matters...the safety of the kids and how we need to create a system of education and judging that helps those hundreds of young instructors keep those thousands of kids safe.

I make it very clear when I bring these topics up that I don't profess to know the best course of action. I also realize that any change would be like unraveling a small necklace wrapped into a thousand knots. I know this, though. Change takes time, but change doesn't happen until the process is started. I realize that many fear change. I know that you have to have the voice of the stakeholders impacted and I know that not all stakeholders will care and will fight you on the change. This is social cause advocacy 101. I also know that when you talk safety, sometimes rules need to be made. Period and end of story.

I am advocating for a different system of education and judging of the Regional A, non WGI bound regional guards. I am advocating for dialog. If we are truly in this for the kids, then we need to start looking at how training occurs and what the skills are we are demanding in these classes. We will all win in the end, when education takes priority over competition and ego.

In a New York Minute

In a New York minute
Everything can change
In a New York minute
Things can get pretty strange
In a New York minute
Everything can change
In a New York minute

Throughout my life in the winter guard activity, I have always wanted to design a show around the Don Henley song, "New York Minute." I've proposed it to just about every designer I've ever worked with and none of them will bite. They just look at me like I'm high or something and give me reason like tempo this or rhythm that. They humor me and say, "Well I'll think about it." Yeah...ok...whatever. In my mind, the show looks at the turning of life on a dime. When I hear the song I see the image of a woman hunched over a glass of bourbon in a dingy bar covered in thick smoke from a lit cigarette, and with bags under her eyes; similar to the infamous Joni Mitchell album cover. How do you capture that concept of on a gym floor and in five minutes? How do you convey that feeling of complete shock and the disabling of time that occurs in the instant that fate takes a hand, placing you on a path never considered or thought of? Maybe the no's have less to do with tempo and meter and more to do with the challenges of my questions. 


This past weekend, the USF Winter Guard was involved in an incident resulting in a bus fire, while participating in the WGI Atlanta Regional. I am not involved with this program, nor do I know the details, but whenever I hear about an event that involves a pageantry unit while travelling, the hair on the back of my neck stands up and a knot the size of a grapefruit forms in the pit of my stomach. On the outside and from what we were told, everyone managed to escape unharmed, barring the exception of the loss of property. I was judging in Orlando on Saturday when announcement after announcement was made describing the incident and asking for financial support from the audience. It's interesting, because I've heard that announcement before. In fact, I've heard it more than once and could almost recite it by myself and without thought. If you follow this blog you know that every so often the incident of McGavock High School, enters into my thoughts. I've written about it multiple times and the article I wrote  two years ago on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy, received over 10,000 hits. On a cold Sunday afternoon after a WGI regional, fate changed the lives of kids, instructors, parents, a school, and a community forever. In a New York minute everything had changed. Everything! 

If you stay in the activity long enough, it's inevitable that one day you will be trolling social media when you read the announcement. "Guard involved in accident." It also could be a band or a drum corps. Sometimes it's a dance team or baseball team. Regardless of the activity, the end result puts it all in perspective and that perspective allows us to see that the activity comes second to the lives in our charge. It's coming up on March 13th and it doesn't matter how much time has passed. I am forever tethered to that date, like an astronaut tied to the shuttle while floating in space waiting to be pulled back in. Unfortunately, our story isn't unique. When youth teams travel, the ultimate result is that the odds are not always in their favor. Marching bands coming home from a late night contest. Drum Corps travelling thousands of miles in one summer. Winter guards taking vans to the local show just an hour away. Judges who work all day, drive home with tired eyes and mental exhaustion. There are times when we have released kids to go home after a long rehearsal day or show and they don't make it there. Many years ago, a local band lost several of its members when a carload of kids left a football game and as many kids do, didn't go directly home and some in that car never saw home again. 

Too many times we drive when tired under the mission of "we have to get there by noon." If there was a medal for the most stupid guard person in the activity for driving when tired, I rank somewhere in a finalist position. Mental exhaustion, physical exhaustion, stress, alcohol, and anxiety all play a factor in our weekends and that combination can be deadly. Just two weeks ago I judged a fairly lengthy show and was offered a hotel room by the circuit, but really just wanted to get home. It was only 2 hours away. The show ends at 10. Piece of cake. Ummmm....Yeah no. Somewhere about an hour into the drive, my car drifted into the medium and with absolute brilliance I did what most of us do. I kept driving. 

The reality is that many, if not most tragedies can't be helped. Shit happens. We exist in an activity where travel is inevitable and necessary. The programs are underfunded forcing them to cut corners where they can. They hire not so reputable bus companies, if they hire one at all. Some rent vans and have volunteers drive. Sometimes the kids drive themselves to the show. It's reality. 

I get highly frustrated with the pageantry arts and can't for the life of me understand why we as an activity don't discuss safety nearly as much as we discuss the in's and out's of designing a good show. In most sports, coaches and volunteers must take a minimum amount of hours on the topic of risk. These topics range anywhere from how to maintain good boundaries with minors, to the protection against concussions, and how to maintain a safe environment while travelling. If we do this, will it change our behaviors? Will it help the fact that we still don't have enough money to hire a reputable bus company? What about our stupidity of travel while exhausted? Will it save the life of the kids who get into a car after practice and make stupid choices to text and drive? The answer to that question is easy. We don't know. We will never know if it helps until we open up the dialog. I work in social services and have my entire life. There isn't a conversation that is had, that at some point doesn't flow back to risk. We assess risk at every turn. We learn how to calculate risk to determine if what we are proposing is worth exposing ourselves to the liability. This weekend while judging, I pulled into the show site and there were 6 kids directing traffic into the school, without the presence of an adult. Minor risk? Sure. Chances are no one will get hurt. Smart? I beg to differ. 

It was March 13th and in a New York minute everything changed. Time would teach me that death is relentless and doesn't care how old you are or how much money you have. It was March 13th that taught me that fate will stop you when it chooses and force you to look at yourself in the mirror and ask why. The song says that the wolf is always at the door, so you better hang on tooth and nail to the people that you love. There has never been a truer statement. There were no more performances. No more rehearsals. Nothing the staff could have done would have changed the events of that day. There is no blame to place and no one to sue. There are lessons, though. Lessons that say all passengers should be in a seat belt. There is the lesson that 15 passenger vans are awkwardly weighted. A band program that lost members of it's ensemble might tell you that having better communication with parents might save lives. A discussion by the band director that says, "We care about you. Wear your seat belts and don't text each other," might just keep the kids alive. If you are a parent, you are trusting  the band staff with not just your children, but your very soul. When it is all said and done, there is nothing that can compare to the grief of a parent who has lost a child. It is incumbent upon us to have these discussions. 

"In these days when darkness falls early and people rush home to the ones they love, you better take a fool's advice and take care of your own, because one day they're here; the next day they're gone." 

I know some things just can't be changed, but if we were truly looking out for each other, we would talk more about the lives in our care during these weekends of competition and rehearsal. Before someone gets into a car to drive after a long weekend of teaching and judging, we would ask if they are o.k.to drive. If we lived up to our words when we use the word "family" when describing our guard friends, by working harder to ensure the safety of all was not an afterthought, but the first thought we have when planning a season, weekend, or show. We would have more dialog with young instructors on safety. We would ensure safety is the number one goal, ahead of winning and medals. A good risk manager will tell you that sometimes there is nothing you can do to stop a tragedy, but they will also tell you that leaving risk completely up to fate is simply irresponsible. Enter lawsuits. 

March 13th no longer defines me like it did for so many years. I rarely even think about it anymore. It did change me though, as does every event in life that stops you on a dime. My hope is that we learn from each other and don't fear the conversations, as we have so many times in the past and more than anything, I hope we never hear about performers caught in the throws of fate.