packwick

didn't realize Lockhart was going to Orlando. Americas too. Lockhart sitting in 4th after prelims. congrats to them!!! also already about 4 points higher than last week at San Antonio, prob will increase even more in finals. still thinkin' those San Antonio guards were lowballed.

hope you start feeling better!! actually, i don't feel good, either. went off my blood pressure meds bc they were making me too lethargic, but then my chronic migraines returned!! throbbing pain right behind my eyes!! too much blood going to the brain or something. gonna minimize my screen time today. at least you'll get to catch more of prelims from around the country by staying home!!!

3 different power regionals on Flo tomorrow + Sunday in 3 different time zones!! east, southwest, and west!! + Orlando, but not being streamed. those FL guards reeeally got the short end of the Flo stick this year. not going to see Flanagan or Stoneman Douglas going into Dayton probably. Flanagan beating Tarpon earlier + getting very strong upstairs content scores could bode well for em, if the performers have kicked it up a notch. east: most curious to see if fusion gets a score that puts em back at or near the top. warren central also at this one. second chance to get a better seeding score. they were a bit dirtier than expected at mideast, esp the flags. thinking Shenendehowa gets a score that lets them climb up a bit in the rankings. southwest: will keep an eye on Melissa and Foster in A class. you'd think Melissa takes it based on previous results. but A class gonna A class. thinkin open may be more competitive than just Pearland on top, too. keeping an eye on little elm and Emerson, also don't think it's outside realm of possibility for friendswood or Bowie to make inroads here. Pearland's show is elegant and clean, but could be one that peaks earlier. woodlands world essentially needs a 90 to be back over Carmel. knowing that, i suspect that i will think they deserve a 91+, unless they just flop on the performance. west: arcadia vs. el dorado. el dorado straight up won effect thru content at Manhattan beach. might not be an easy arcadia win here, tho personally id prob still have them on top at this event, unless very significant changes have been made to the designs. richness and complexity to the staging that el dorado's show lacks imo. thinking the greater emotional impact is what gave el dorado the edge in effect. also el dorado gets a cookie for having their full guard spin lol, like, u know, most of the other guards in the world class. in open, i was thinking maybe mountain ridge, who i would have had above PDCMS at Manhattan beach, but don't think they're at this one. so prob PDCMS then?? fun show, but just too scattered in soundtracking and staging for my tastes. fantasia ofc always a pleasure to watch. could they be ranked first after this weekend?? absolutely. IW is wide open at the top!!!

@Rubisco def get it about the dynamic efforts, you'll get some hand-wavy explanations about that stuff in critique. buuuut methinks it would also be reeeeally hard to separate a lot of guards w/o it bc so many do the exact same skills, often combined in similar ways. not possible to just count up all the various skills a guard attempts either, unless AI can do it for us. too much going on at once!!! LOL at the Hebron reference. it's kinda true tho, isn't it?? technically on a diff plane of existence vs. doing things just a lil bit more dynamically/musically. btw, chronic offender personally. i thought Carmel should have won BOA in 2023 lol. in my defense, thru music GE, not perf.

something i also picked up for the first time when watching arcadia last week and watching carmel today was how both have a full line of dancers that never really pick up and spin a piece of guard equipment. not exactly on the sheets as a POC, besides maybe difficulty and risk, but at the world class level i find it kinda odd. heck, even most of the top scholastic As i've seen have all of their members spinning at some point. like, beautiful shows, both of em, lots of craftsmanship, but kinda playin' it safe.

carmel cleaning up and overtaking the Mid-East group as expected. might not get a Carmel-less top 3 at Dayton after all. other SWs at Mid-East a lil more iffy, but mostly better today in finals than yesterday in prelims. for the life of me still can't figure out why fusion got smacked down after watching the IWs at both southeast and mideast. id have it fusion then fantasia then pride rn. fusion's show stands out as waaay more forward thinking and imaginative imo. takes you more places emotionally and intellectually, too. the others don't strike me as prob being cleaner than fusion, either. lots of errors today from all three of pride, paramount, and etude. verrrry interested to see what happens at the east power regional next weekend. meanwhile in San Antonio, those A guards got smacked down HARD. don't really get it, comparing the scores from the groups at the power regionals i watched yesterday and today to the guards i saw 2 weeks ago at Austin. did they reeeally screw up that bad? methinks the judges were just way stingy. unfortunately, the tcgc a class qualifier is next week. those A guards are prob wishing they could have signed up for Dallas instead, to get the double panel. the San Antonio scores will prob handicap them at Dayton. arcadia back up over woodlands in standings by 0.1 after trailing them by just over a point after the Manhattan Beach regional. super experienced panel seemed to kinda send a message w/ those scores, esp w/ El dorado winning effect. gotta say, i came away from watching that regional feeling woodlands should comfortably win gold at Dayton. we'll see what happens next weekend tho. scores trending low in the world classes. + Dayton is a week earlier. yikes!!

tw's standings have actually been fairly accurate predictors for them the past 3 yrs, despite coming from an earlier regional score. in 2023 their standing was 4th w/ a 90.5 compared to Avon's 3rd w/ a 90.8, pretty much exactly the gap that happened in finals, tho twhs did full-point Avon in semifinals. last yr they were slightly underrated compared to Tarpon. 89.8 to 90.2 in the standings. but then twhs beat tarpon by a full point in finals and won every judge over them i think. still, only a little over a point off is pretty accurate. i wanna say that that's just how good wgi's judges are, but the reality is that the standings send a strong message to all of em, esp in a class like SW where it's easier to keep track of all the guards. kinda makes me happy that twhs is doing Dallas this year, gives em another shot to make a statement.

okie dokie, standings posted. strong majorities of units in every class have posted a score, tho some are a weeee bit old now. IW thrown into a lil bit of chaos after the judges smacked down fusion this weekend. blessed sac currently sitting on top despite being directly beaten by fusion. not surprised, fusion has an unconventional show, others much more typical imo. strongest TX possibilities for Dayton finalists in the standings rn: SA: Jordan 2nd, Melissa 5th, Veterans Memorial 8th, Tomball Memorial 13th, Dripping Springs 19th, Foster 22nd IA: RGV Winter Guard 12th SO: Pearland 2nd, Westlake 4th, James Bowie 7th, Little Elm 10th, Cy-Fair 11th IO: Undaunted 12th, Industry Independent 17th SW: The Woodlands 2nd IW: Invictus 13th, Mirage 15th, Menage 19th methinks arcadia's lead over tw in SW will widen the next two weeks before narrowing or vanishing the weekend of the West and Southwest power regionals. arcadia has wgi contests every weekend for the next 3 weeks. wowzer!! they gonna get them some feedback. don't really see em getting "fusioned" either. woodlands meanwhile shouldn't hope to rely on equipment and effect. need to up their mvmnt game and if possible restage at least a couple moments for added formal clarity/connectedness. i actually did think the opener looked much better at Austin. flags more in time w/ the music and less brightly colored, so our focus went more to the rifles. about a month left until Dayton. entering the final stretch already. crazy!!!

thiiiink undaunted will prob make finals this yr in IO too, if they get more consistent. def a step up. hovering around 80, which is where i woulda scored em too. also, as far as standalone guard songs go, theirs is easily my favorite ive heard this season so far. sooo evocative. https://youtu.be/cagjZsQf4tk?si=p5sPVQNU-angGl2U only 7k views while Tay-Sway gets a billion. Ugh!! i hate the world!!

ofc it should be said that seeding rankings are faaaaar from an exact science. just rough neighborhoods, really.

yaaaay, Jordan!! they're gonna be seeded a close 2nd nationally after this weekend methinks. and that's w/ kinda a rough run too. happy to see em get their chance in the spotlight after their reclass a couple yrs back. granted they may just end up right back in open after this season LOL. not lost on me that woodlands may have two national medalist quality guards this season. their A would be ranked 1st in the nation after this weekend if they were going to Dayton. "bad" news and good news for the world team. bad news is, they're two-tenths of a point lower than they 84.8 they needed to match arcadia's 1st. good news is that most of the judges had them hitting an 85+, and those 3 were the most experienced ones on the panel, who they could absolutely see again in Dayton judging world class finals. Pearland moving up to a very distant 2nd in open rankings, after Noblesville popped an 88. Westlake in 4th i think. kinda going off of memory of this weekend's scores. Bowie up there as well. also def not lost on me that H-town guards are slaying, but DONT HAVE A REGIONAL ANYMORE!!!

82.7 for woodlands world. chintzy tbh. worse than the past 2 years, surprisingly. really should hit 85 tomorrow. but i feel like they'll keep scores close b/w them and Arcadia.

ugh, wish friendswood was going to Dayton. wonderful performance just now. they blend the movement w/ the equipment brilliantly well. James Bowie was also 🔥. but if i never have to hear that dumb 30 years song ever again i'll be happy. guessing it's from a viral TikTok video or something. pearland with a very strong run of a truly lovely show. tooooo bad we couldn't hear the music.

aaaand my feeling was right. Jordan edges out woodlands A for 1st in prelims. def was watching for em after they moved down from open to A. can't wait to see how they do at Dayton. scores close enough today that we could see some shifts at the top based on the runs they give tomorrow. congrats to all A classers!!

yay, woodlands A!! sittin in 1st before the final SA round. well-deserved. thought they might win this one after seeing it last weekend. need to go back and watch college park tho. currently in 3rd. realizing now they outscored twhs A last weekend at Pearland despite being in the non-national A. scores overall kinda too low, also can't shake the feeling the 2nd round got the short end of the stick bc of the level of competition in that round. excited to see azle and Jordan!!! got a feeling about Jordan.

before: i think this cy woods show might be a horse show, but i'm not sure!!! now: *sees giant, obvious horse design on tarp* oh... ok... oopsie.

already some, uhhh, very interesting results in A class after round 2. i thought round 2 was overall stronger than round 1. thiiiink that prooobably depressed the overall scores in that round, bc the judges probably split their highest scores between the top 4, almost 5, which all got 78s. dogfight there.

cyfair thru friendswood on the schedule could be interesting methinks, esp w/ Westlake and Bowie in there. despite P-land comfortably winning New Braunfels, there was some caption splitting in both rounds, plus a missing effect judge. that said, if their effect scores drop to 50s like they did at tcgc, i don't know what to tell u. Lol. scores absolutely can drop in wgi, as Lafayette from MO found out this past weekend, but 20+ points... dunno 'bout that. excited to see flomo too. think theyd prob be seeded in top 15 rn based on Mansfield score, if they were going to Dayton this yr.

so, uhhhh, got a comment requesting the Undaunted vid be removed on YT. buuuut i don't remember the password i used for the acct, and i keep failing my login over and over lol. i swear im putting in the right one, but i guess not. maybe i had a typo. anyway, lss, i need somebody to copyright report that vid to take it down LOL i mean it's called throwaway guard for a reason.

design analysis was actually Arcadia's best caption at SD. can now see why. clean, clear, logical, correct, connected, musical. tbh expected that to be the case based on the designers and what i saw downstairs. woodlands is def a lil more chaotic... well, in the opener at least, when the flags are kinda distracting and i dont know where to look. gaudy pink practice flags don't help. other parts are fine. def they have the kids running around more than in arcadia, which on the one hand is rlly impressive, but need to be careful w/ that, w/ clarity and timing. find woodlands more effective overall, just a much bigger emotional impact, with plenty to tickle the brain and eyes as well. buuut the effect judges could lean hard into aesthetics. thinkin that's prob what happened b/w Carmel and Tarpon in 2023. don't really know how else to explain those effect results, when Tarpon clearly gave a better performance of a more emotionally impactful show, that clearly connected more w/ the audience. felt a lil contrarian tbh. like, c'mon man, those kids killed it!!! either one this yr b/w A&W would be a first-time champion, which id be thrilled with. warren central would be a first-time medalist, which would also be super cool. been a looooong time since we've seen a top 3 w/o Avon or Carmel.

aaaaand El Dorado https://youtu.be/n171jAT9KUc?si=GZAmCTy8V0iulIwG solid performers. show doesn't do anything for me however. kinda over slow, inspirational "message" shows in general. give the message to me more obliquely, more poetically. show, don't tell. just my opinion.

and another close up arcadia. worse view than last week's lol the performers are fab, just a few issues to iron out from this angle. still wish the overall concept and soundtrack were, uhhh, just a weeee bit more engaging. craftsmanship in the choreo def there tho. my gut shifts back to a woodlands win thru equipment and effect, buuut i reaaaally need to see this one from higher up, esp for the effect.

lots of vids from wgi san diego on yt. just type wgi San Diego and narrow down results to videos posted this week. mostly close up cams. not so great but better than nothing. heeere's fantasiaaaa

well the tippy top prob not so much, w/ arcadia standing out today, but i could see the 80.0 cluster ending up w/ lots of caption splitting. already seeing it at the Indy regional.

fusion will remain at the top of the IW standings, as they should. def curious to see what Paramount brings to the table, hopefully a clearer show than last yr. the "shouting into the void" theme def has me intrigued!!