Cristina--A Morning in My Jazz Shoes

I wake up to my 5’ o clock alarm singing “Bailando” by Enrique Iglesias; do I get up? – Nope. Ten minutes later, another alarm tries to persuade me out of bed this time singing “Crazy Beautiful” by Andy Grammer- I don’t get up. Five more minutes pass and the voice of an angel, also known as Michael Buble, gets me out of bed with “It’s A Beautiful Day.” As I pack my backpack with the homework from the night before, I check for assignments I may have missed, occasionally I do so I speed through it. After, I talk to my brother who so graciously makes me a lunch every other day. When he leaves to pack it for me, I check my phone for the weather then sort through my clothes to find an outfit for the day- jeans or leggings, boots or tennis shoes, a Harry Potter shirt or some other kind and so on and stuff them into my duffel. Once packed, I grab black leggings and a black shirt, (unless it’s Wednesday then I wear a pink one) and go get dressed and ready in the bathroom. Since my dad is the one that’s “blessed” with taking me to practice every morning, I’m his alarm clock at 6 a.m. Fifteen to twenty minutes later he gets the keys and I get my duffel, backpack, equipment and binder and we head to the car, get in and drive to school. By 6:30, I’m walking up the access road in the chilly morning air. I open the door to the k-building, and I’m greeted by the same familiar faces. We sit in the hallway talking, waiting for an instructor to come with the key to our room. When they finally do, we pile into the room, exchange our backpacks for equipment and a few people pull our floors out to the gym. Once there, JV and Varsity split up to their sides. I join my JV guard to pull and spread out along the floor. I take center tape, with my friend Maite across from me and say “1, 2, 3 pull,” to pull out the floor, straighten it and set up the markers. Once finished, JV captains, Ruby and I gather the rest of JV, block up and stretch with Tiana our dance instructor. “Do everything with intention!” and “Point your toes!” she tells us, as the lyrics ‘Can you hear the siren call’ play behind her. She says “Reach!” and “Straight legs!” as we hear the words “I’m holding on for tonight” conclude our Sia warm up. After that, we pick up equipment and warm up with drop spins and tosses on both flag and rifle. When we’re ready, we clean or learn work, then we start from the beginning of our show to start run-throughs. “Is the guard ready?” Tiana asks, the way judges do at our competitions. I look at everyone, count “5, 6, 7, 8,” and we set in our starting pose. The soft melody of our song starts as we dance to our first set. Amy, our caption head, walks over to us. She smiles watching us as we go through our show, saying “Smile!”, “Catch strong!” and “Look up!” and when we finish, we reset for another run. This is an everyday thing. We practice most mornings, a few days after school and on Saturdays and competitions haven’t even started yet. Sure it may be a long process, but it’s worth it each second I spend spinning on that floor.  I’ve never loved anything more than being a part of Etiwanda’s Winter Guard program.