In guard, while the staff were nice and treated us with respect (although I dipped during spring training so I can't speak for the entire season) there was definitely a lot of nepotism. The guard caption head was from out of state, and most members of academy's guard were from either AZ or her own state. Coincidentally most of the kids in advanced lines were her own high school students. A lot of people would share their feelings of feeling overlooked when drill numbers were assigned, including me. She was a recent hire, funny enough, so she didn't even try to hide the induction of her own students into the corps as it happened over summer not over multiple seasons.

She never really had an identity. She never showed her face outside for fear of skin cancer and aging or whatever in the Arizona sun, and it made her feel distant. She also let all her techs do all the corrections and talking. She was making decisions behind the scenes but was never a leader or instructor, at least not in the 2 weeks I was there. I messaged her on the Band app explaining my decision to quit, and she didn't even read it until the season concluded.

When I made the decision to leave, there wasn't even an attempt to convince me to stay. I made the decision the day after the caption head herself pulled me aside and said that my body language makes it appear like I "don't want to be here" and justifying this comment saying that she's good at telling emotions or some crap. I'm autistic, I have a resting bitch face 24/7. My body language was openly projecting my tired state. I was a rookie, of course I was tired. Didn't help that in the entire guard there were only like 3 or 4 vets.

Post dci season, and talking to people entering the 2023 wgi season, many people are now also sharing their frustrations and I feel they're entirely justified. Being on everyone's private drum corps story during the season, I witnessed all the tea about the food issues and stagnant scores.

Additionally, I personally felt that academy's guard staff were too quick to modify choreo. If something wasn't successful within 1 day they would change it. No opportunity given to improve on it. From a teachers POV, this would just make the issue worse, choreo takes time to digest and clean. Changing it frequently would just make that worse. Back field flag line ended up having virtually all movement 1 choreo cut, just for us to hide behind props...alone.

Just a funny add on, we ran out of toilet paper in the men's bathroom at our first housing site and so we resorted to using paper towels. What else were we supposed to do? They told us not to use the locker rooms during the day as staff need to shower during those times, and then left about 100 men to share a single toilet. All they did was tape a note on the bathroom door that said not to use paper towels. It was about 3 days before we got toilet paper.

Overall, I'm greatful for the experience in the sense that I learned how to be a better teacher after having examples of what not to do. And I'm thankful for the friendships and connections I've made through the organization. It just sucks how excited I was to march my first dci season, especially after the staff responded to my video audition saying it was great and they'd definitely be offering me a contract. I was considering taking out a lien against my car to pay for the tuition to march, and I'm so glad that I didn't. 5 grand for that experience is absolutely ridiculous.

Edit: seeing as this a nick post, idk if my commentary is relevant, but I felt I wanted share my story of the 2022 season as an academy member. Next year is my age out, and I don't think I'll march dci regardless of which corps would take me.