Get In Line!

Nothing smacks like a clean flag line! Watching the unison of flags spinning, cutting planes, and articulating musical hits has got to have a street value for addicts, am I right? Sadly, one of the best ways to get an ensemble to unify their technique and choreographic material is hardly used by young instructors who default to the ubiquitous block. If you’re looking to find flag dirt to clean out of your flagline, look no further than the Almighty File!

I remember hearing George Zingali yell, “If your form is clean it will make your flag work look cleaner!” (I’m not going to try to figure out how to type with a Boston accent.) Even if an ensemble is going to stand in a fundamentals block, taking the time to figure out the exact distance and interval between ranks and files is just as important as getting everyone to understand how to twist the heck out of their wrists for that never-before-seen toss you can’t wait to put in your show. Everyone rehearses their choreography in a block, and why shouldn’t they? We need room to swing our equipment without finding out the hard way if our school has a reliable dental plan.

But if you take a moment to put a group in a file, whether it be basics or a choreographic phrase, you’ll see inconsistencies that you might have missed in the block. As a beloved mentor once said to me, “If it’s clean in a file it’ll be gold in a block.”

Just take a look at this simple drop spin exercise in a file and tell me you could see the positions of the elbows, the rotation of the wrists, and the placement on the vertical line as easily in a block. Give it a try next rehearsal!