For the past three months, the winter guard cast has practiced in the band hall every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday after school to prepare for its upcoming competitions on Saturday, March 18 and Saturday, April 1. The show this year is entitled “She,” and is in dedication to anyone who has lost a mother or a maternal figure. The show portrays the hurt and sorrow that one goes through when losing them.

“The most difficult part [of our show] would be the performance aspect because it’s very difficult to portray,” senior winter guard co-captain Jake Bandy said. “We really have to emote with our bodies and our movements. Mr. Green tells us that our body needs to be heavy because we’re struggling and we’re losing our mom throughout the show.”

By using the performance to illustrate the sorrow and hurt associated with losing a loved one, the guard works to engage those watching.

“It’s really one of those shows where the audience can connect with us while we’re showcasing [our performance],” senior winter guard co-captain Ritz Avila said.

During rehearsals, the guard works to make the entire show a seamless performance by focusing on repetition because it’s the main thing that helps solidify the counts and allows the moves to fall into place. The main goal during rehearsals is to “clean” the work, ensuring the flags spin around together and the rifles fly in the air together.

“Everyone is working very hard, putting forth all of the effort they have and pushing themselves to get better,” Bandy said. “It’s just mainly a lot of performance things we have to push because the show is such a touchy, moving show and we can’t just smile through it. We have to be willing to show the weak side of ourselves that people usually just hide away.”

Because of how well the guard has done this year at previous contests it has high hopes for these next two.

“Looking back at our past competitions, the last one we went to we got second place and that was a really big boost for us because in the one before that we got fifth place because of mishaps, but we’re really hoping to do much better at championships than we did in the last three,” Avila said.