Focused, driven, talented and confident are adjectives that could be used to describe students that participate in winter guard. At Abington High, winter guard is an extracurricular activity that combines choreography, flag spinning and intense practices. The team competes from January to April, so the team members have to practice their performance routine constantly in order to do well. Participants learn new skills and have new experiences from the competitions.

Winter guard is very similar to color guard because they both involve flags, choreography and music. However, winter guard is different because the competitions are held inside, the performances occur during the winter season, and they perform with a recording instead of the live music provided by the school marching band. Planning the choreography for those competitions is very difficult because the students must coordinate their flag movements. Team member Caitlin Walton describes the routine process. “We pick a song to do, then the coaches plan the work around the song, and then we perform it,” said Walton.

Everything must be timed perfectly, and there is little to no room for mistakes. Winter guard is much more than just swinging flags around because it takes a lot of practice and skill. The team meets three times a week, and each meeting lasts about three hours. During a normal practice, the students stretch, do flag exercises and practice their show. “We run the show normally, and the second time we fix the problems. And, then we add more,” said Walton.

his year the AHS Winter Guard team participated in competitions in Salem, Dartmouth and Everett. Although they didn’t win, they did represent themselves and AHS very well, demonstrating that with hard work and determination you can reach your goals.

The AHS Winter Guard Team was coached by Nikki Doolin, John Dooley and Kasey Carnes. Team members were seniors Alexa Elliott, Joseph Taylor and Alyssa McKay, junior Rachel Ciambriello, and freshmen Caitlin Walton and Shayla Young.