For the Venice High School’s Color Guard, it’s about pouring their hearts into every performance and leaving it all on the field. It’s more than just flags and rifles. It’s the dedication etched on their faces and the hours poured into perfecting every move.
This year, the team has performed and participated in many memorable events including the Fourth of July Parade in Westchester and at school events like football games and pep rallies.
Senior Robin Aguirre, the captain, has been involved in Color Guard for a year and a half, focusing on choreography with flags, sabers, and rifles.
Aguirre describes the feeling of performing in color guard as “exhilarating.”
There’s a lot of work that goes into preparation for any Color Guard performance, according to Aguirre.
“For pep rallies, I have to make sure that all of us have enough equipment for us to be able to perform. I have to know in advance what songs we are performing with, how many members are going to be there, what kind of space we have, because we mostly hold six-foot long poles.
“Because of all these things, I have to be overly prepared for anything and everything.”
There’s a superstition that the whole team abides by.
“Our number one rule is to never split the pole. We do not get a good place in the competitions if we split the pole.”
“ We even have a specific playlist for when we stretch, it’s the following : 24K Magic by Bruno Mars, Gee by Girls’ Generation, and Summer Rain by Etro Rain.”
Aguirre anticipates a strong performance in competitions despite their smaller size.
Coach Francis Abastillas said that this year’s group is “very energetic.”
“We’re going to build a better vocabulary that we’ve built up from the previous year.”
Junior Kai Lopez, the co-captain, has been involved in Color Guard since the end of seventh grade.
“The most rewarding part of being in Color Guard is the adrenaline rush I get during a competition,” she said. “The feeling of walking onto the field knowing that months of practice went into this. Three words I’d use to describe it would be, ‘It’s worth it’.
