Military is one of the dances that is included in the line up each year.
Over the years, they change things up and move things around as needed. Many years ago, they would have jump splits in the mix for military.
While I was in high school, my girlfriend jumped high and landed in the splits and broke her pelvis and couldn't move until they came and pulled her off the floor.
No more jump splits. In fact, if they do ANY move that has their backside hit the floor before another part of the body, they get dinged.
They used to use fake guns or swords for the military routines. Get hit in the head with a wooden gun while they are making a "toss" and you don't want to do that again.
Then they used to do head stands and the entire team would practice those. Then the next year, they would not only do head stands but spin on their heads while in the head stands....
Now, no more head stands. They try and keep the girls safe but it sometimes gets hard to make a good military routine with only so many moves and lots of restrictions.
Over the years, I have seen a few AMAZING routines but for the most part, they all look the same.
The one that stood out the most was one team that wore boyscout uniforms and did a very creative military routine around that theme.
This year, my favorite routine was a Oriental Themed one similar to Mulan. They did very new and creative moves but still held the military tone.
I don't think they will be getting rid of the Military category any time soon as it has been around forever. I do think it will continue to evolve and will continue to give way to more creative outlets and "tricks." It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
Before the girls get to be in a dance, the entire team learns the dance and then they "try out" of the the dance.
Sometimes, depending on the year, every girl makes every dance. Other years, they have people that don't make each dance.
This year, all the girls but the freshmen girls were put on the two main dances for competition. It isn't always about talent, sometimes it is about other things.
Depending on the amount of students enrolled in the school district for a specific year, our school changes classification.
Some years, our school is 2-A and other years, we jump to 3-A. It seems that we are on a cycle. Every third or fourth year, there are more students enrolled so we don't compete against our local rival school as we jump to larger classification.
This makes it hard for our small school to be able to compete with the schools who are just below the next classification and we barely just have enough to be in that higher classification.
Sometimes, those and other factors come into play as to who is in the dance and how well we do in competitions.
The girls do amazing things when given the chance and the one thing I can count on, is that they will be smiling through the entire thing other than where they make "faces" for the dance.
If you don't believe me, check out the bottom picture, could she look any happier? The girls just enjoy dance. It really doesn't matter where or when, they just enjoy the music and movement.
Click on the pictures if you want to see them bigger. Some of these are really beautiful. Princess really is talented and I enjoy watching her move. I hope you enjoy the pictures this week as much as I do.
We went this past weekend to the girls last dance competition. It was the state competition and it was the last dance competition for Princess Four ever.
Most of the other senior girls were crying as it was their last competition but Princess Four was keeping it positive and she and Princess Five were having a good time as you can see here.
They have been working hard for three hours a day for most of the year including summer practices.
This was their final competition of the year and their final competition together.
They had their last "Drill Down" as well. All the Princesses have done well in drill downs. Click here and here for posts about that. Princess three and four both did well and were in the top 25 or so for the state 3-A competition and Princess Four was in the top 12.
You can see them both competing here and then in a lower picture, you can see Princess Four getting out. They did well but I think they were a bit upset about the teams placing and were distracted. Also, the caller in Drill Downs can make a huge difference. They were so bad that in the end of this there were four girls. Two ended up in one direction and two in another and none of the judges in the checkered shirts or the caller could remember the call so they started over.
If I were one of the parents, I would have been upset because several of those girls didn't make the top three as they called two more girls back onto the floor and one of them made it to the top three which she shouldn't have.
That has happened several times and Princess Three should have won once as she was the only one in the right direction but they told her she was out because she was the only one. I later showed the caller the tape and she apologized as she knew she was wrong. But, by then, there wasn't anything they could do. I wasn't about to run down and make a scene but Princess Three knew she won.
That day, we had a trail of coins like we did over the Christmas holiday through the mall. Princess Two and I kept finding them as we took a lunch break to Costco between dances, we found one on the way out the door.
While I was crossing the street in the parking lot, my boot kicked a penny that was so dark, you couldn't see it but I just happened to cross that street at a diagonal and kick that one penny out there. I laughed as I never would have seen it otherwise.
While driving to Costco, I stop at a red light. Princess looks out the window and said, "Is that a penny?" and next to the car at the stop light was a penny. We were moving forward at that point but she said, "Yep, it is a penny!" as we drove off.
While I was at Costco, I was in one checkout and they put up a "closed" sign so I changed to the one next to it and guess what was sitting on the counter inside the moving part... Yep a penny.
I found another coming out after the last dance and Princess two found a dime and another earlier. I told the girls about it in the car on the way home and Princess Four said she found a dime earlier as well.
How Heavenly Father places all the coins in our path on specific days, I don't know but I smile as I pick them up and often share with others why I do pick them up. (Click here for that first "In God We Trust" post.")
The girls were so cute in the car on the way home talking about all the blessings that have come out of them being on the dance team and getting to perform for so many years. Into my head came a song from "Phantom of the Opera." and I couldn't get it out of my head....
"Think of me, think of me fondly when you say goodbye. Remember me, once in awhile please promise me you'll try..." and I started thinking about the drill instructor and how many emotions that brought up and I felt like perhaps Princess Five won't be doing the same thing next year and may branch out into other things.... So, the song fit. I felt like on the trip home, we were saying goodbye to all the dance competitions and costume changes and drill down competitions.
I have been going to these things for fourteen years now. There were a few in-between years when Princess Two graduated from another school and so it wasn't consecutive but that is a long time going to these things.
That doesn't include the team dance competitions before they were in high school. I know at some point I will probably miss them but right now, I am kinda thinking I may like not having to drive all over the state at Christmas time...
The girls both told each other "thank you" in the car for doing dance that year and that they could be on the team together and were really cute about it. Who knows, in a few years, I may be watching my grand-daughters dance recitals! Oh, won't that be wonderful! I almost can't wait since I won't be the one who has to get the ready and take them to all the classes.... I will just get to watch and enjoy the end results.
I think there are some really great benefits to being a grandma!
For next week, I am going to post pictures of my girls in their dances and my favorite shots.Dancing with the Princesses Week beings Monday!
Princess Four has worked very hard to maintain her GPA through high school. She has been extremely busy doing student government, camps, dance, leadership weekends and church functions as well as earning money doing fund raisers for her service Mission to Thailand and the planning weekends for almost a year before going.
This year especially, has been a busy one as she was taking three concurrent classes for college which are advanced placement as well as two college classes at the local college.
This semester, she is still doing concurrent classes and is now taking a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) course which is college level. She has classes as well as clinical hours she needs to do on top of the load she is already taking and being student body president and regular classes.
She has just finished her last dance competition this past week and only has a few performances left to her dance career.
These things have been keeping her doing very long days and being quite tired. However, through it all, she has been able to maintain her high GPA.
She was nominated for Academic Region with a few other students in the school but it is VERY hard to get Academic All-State in Dance. She was one of ten students that got awarded the academic award in the state for our 3-A status. The combined GPA for the ten girls is 3.978.
You can see in the picture there were only ten girls in the state that had a high enough GPA to get included in the program. She was named in the State competition program and was called down to the floor to receive her award.
She didn't get the opportunity to go to the tryouts for Dance All-State due to politics in the dance group but I know she would have made it had she had the chance to go and try. She did make Dance All-Region as she is one of the top dancers so I am proud of her for making it through the four years of Dance team and even more so, I am proud of her caring enough about her education to do well enough to be one of the top ten Academic dancers in the state.
After the State competition, one of the other dancers fathers (who is a teacher at the school) came up to her and told her she got the most important award of the day that they could hand out.
I know that made Princess Four feel good as she really has worked hard staying up many late nights taking hard classes and doing her best to maintain her good grades as well as taking college classes.
Some of the other seniors on her team are only taking three classes this semester at school as that is all they need to graduate so they go home in-between classes and take a nap. She could have chosen to do that but instead, she is working on getting many of the classes she will need for her associates degree out of the way so she can graduate early with her degree. All of her sisters have taken that fast track and are years ahead of some of their friends of the same age.
I am so proud of all of my girls but especially Princess Four who has done some amazing things this year and has already gotten many offers for scholarships. Click here for one of those.
She has accepted a full scholarship for a Jr. College and is going this weekend for a "college weekend" and is applying to be an ambassador so she can get an extra scholarship on top of the one she has already accepted.
Either way, if she makes it or doesn't, it won't matter as she is on the path she wants to follow and is doing an amazing job. I know she will continue to be amazing and do her best at whatever she chooses to do.
CONGRATULATIONS PRINCESS FOUR! Keep up the good work!
