Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ok, I've been a member of my colorguard for going on my fourth and final year... I'm also our captain.

Ok, we have a girl (Let's call her A) ... She's a freshman and tomorrow will be our third day of band camp. We're working on our routine and she's constantly being negative "I can't do this! It's to hard!" and then she won't listen to us encourage her... she gets frusterated easily and cries, I can tell she'll be our drama trauma for this year.

I need some tips for ::

arrow Keeping her positive
arrow Keeping the guard focused on practice
arrow Getting them to stop whining

I don't want to come off as a major b***h to them, but this is my final year and last year we made 11th in the state! I want to be in the top ten this year or even get a caption award. They constantly want a break and are always goofing off

any advice is appreciated seeing as I've talked to them over and over about this but I don't want to yell at them

well, our motto is really cheesie, but it's
"We're cleaner when we count!" and "Practice hard rock hard!" and we make them count uber-loud, but it's this one girl, I can tell she has an attitude problem

biggrin Wow, this is a tough one , especially without knowing them/ her personally. But I know how you feel. I'm also in my fourth and final year and this is my second year as captain. First off, I don't mean to sound offensive, but it sounds like your director is doing squat sweatdrop . We're having a little bit of the same problem, but it's only recently arisen and the problem we have is that a couple freshmen just aren't putting in the effort they need to. We had a couple "I can't"s today, but those were instantly stopped thanks to Mr. B, our director. We're in our third week of guard/ band camp right now. Before I start suggesting any answers, I have a question. Does your guard have more than one officer? Or is it only you, as captain, who leads? In ours, we have three officers; me as captain, and then two squad leaders. The guard is broken up into three groups, or squads, and each of us get a group of girls assigned to us. We hold sectionals with our particular squad so that the guard gets more individual attention, instead of me just trying to help 20 girls on my own. Do ya'll have anything like that? Oh, and if you don't mind me asking, what state are you from, our band's also would like to compete in State, maybe we'll run into each other? biggrin

We are in Tennessee.

I am the only CAPTAIN, but I share equal amounts of descision making among two other girls. Though I represent the guard.

our problem is they lack the motivation and respect.

I try being nice and they blow me off

shriekie was a bit insecure at first and she still says I can't do this or I won'te be able to do it, but I think now, she's just modest. And she's really good. You have to encourage them and tell them not to say they can't. We were banned from saying "I can't" and so one of our members starting saying "I carrot" and that's banned too. Make can't seem like an extremely bad cuss word that should never be used in color guard. Because nobody can't do something in color guard, they're just inexperienced. Everyone can do it, just not perfectly. No, I'm not a captain, but I have been trying to lead the flagline this year to make us better and I try to encourage and push my friends farther. If your guard is whining, there's nothing you can do about it except tell yur director. They should be able to help deal with the problem. Maybe sit down at the end of a practice and say, "hey, guys, we need an attitude adjustment." Our guard had a whining/talking problem and one practice we had a talk about it. For staying focused. If your ever away from the band for a while, say, here, if you focus for this hour or so, we'll give you a fifteen minute break to do whatever they want. Or play a game like duck, duck, goose or down by the banks. It will take there minds off some of the stress of doing color guard. We do that to keep us sane through band camp especially.

We have an equal problem! this one girl she our rookie and she is really whinny and its like everything revolves around her. Our captains don't tolerate it. They say if you mess around and don't practice your aren't dedicated enough. if you are dedicated then you don't belong here. That is basically the nice way of saying try harder or your out!