Day 5 - semi finals

It's semi finals day! A bit of a 'ground hog' day in that it followed a very similar pattern to yesterday's prelims prep.  We have been fortunate to have Centerville High School as our main rehearsal venue and today we were able to use the main auditorium.  Having reviewed the video and listened to the judges tapes we had a few areas of the show we wanted to focus on and refine a little more, so the rehearsal focused on that as well as repping through the show.

Mayflower and Purdue 

We were fortunate to have an audience today as Purdue (Independent A class) joined us.  They have kindly helped us out by loaning us the luggage trolley for our show, so it was only fitting to get a picture of both guards around the trolley.

We had a great rehearsal and the best run of the year at the end.  Consistency is the name of the game and we are starting to get very consistent.

So back to the hotel and some down time (in the pouring rain!).  It's worth mentioning that the weather has been awful!  Cold and rainy (and even a little snow).

Final staff talk before the show

Sadly, when it was time to head back to the arena for our semi finals show, the weather was pouring with rain.  A rather nervy drive, stuck in traffic meant that when we arrived we had to be super efficient and quickly unload the van and get in the dry.

Day 2 of process begins to get familar with check in, body warm up, equipment warm up then briefly outside into the cold to move to the top of the tunnel. Then into the 'holding area' for final prep and words from the staff.  Given we had no WGI 'virgins' anymore, everyone was relaxed.  The key to this is to focus on the performance rather than the competition and we have continued with this philosophy all week.  So the guard entered the floor for semi finals and a great crowd reaction.  They guard was calm and had an amazing run and one of the best crowd reactions.

After the performance we quickly loaded the van and headed back to the arena to watch the last few World guards, then back to the hotel to await the results. The scores were in quickly but we managed to get everyone not to look!  So once again we announced the scores from 1st on and when we announced that Mayflower had moved up a spot to 7th and scored over 90, the guard and supporters were elated - lots of hugging and tears!

So we get to do it all again one more time on the biggest stage in the world to the biggest crowd.  The amount of support from back home and around the world has been amazing and we are so thankful. Tomorrow we have a later start and another 3 hour rehearsal then some down time and we perform at 9.50pm (2.50am UK time).  See you on the other side!