Color Guard Essay

My full name is Samantha Felice, however I prefer to be called Sam. I am 20 years old and an only child. Growing up with just my parents, and all my cousins living far away, I had a small group of friends and a lot of pets. I have always been the shy kid in the class, so making friends in school was very difficult for me-especially during my early teenage years. I was often too scared to speak up for myself, and take initiative in situations. It was not until I joined color guard that I developed a real clique. I made all of my friends through color guard, band, and ballet. As a child, I was forced into sports that I had no interest in doing, and would often ask my parents if I could quit and do what I wanted. Even though I am a very competitive

Finally, this is the activity is where I made my closest friends, and learned not only how to become a more responsible hard-working adult, but also how to not be so shy. Color guard has helped me be able to talk to people I am less familiar with and overcome some of my anxiety. Although color guard is an underrated activity, I have been spinning for over 5 years and plan to continue to do so for a long time. I started this activity at the end of my 9th grade year, but often only tell other people who are in the same activity as me that I started in my 10th grade year because that is when I started to learn real technique, and grow as a performer. Most of my time through high school, I was not a favorite through my instructors eyes. I was practically put at the bottom in all of our shows until my senior year. Then, I was upset about that because I felt like I was the only person who knew how hard I worked outside of high school practices. I was also put more as a dance soloist in shows rather than challenged in equipment, but I was excited about it at the time because I felt like dance was the one thing I was good at. Now, because of how far I grew as a performer since graduation, and all my hard work to gain new skills in equipment, and learn at a faster pace, I am better at flag. This shows now as I joined independent programs, otherwise known as competitive programs not associated with any