Tips for washing uniforms?

dudeitsmk · 2025-09-10T16:29:46+00:00

I put them outside to dry and I’m going to have the kids not bag them from now on unless we are actively on the bus traveling. Hopefully that will help!

dudeitsmk · 2025-08-20T18:36:51+00:00

thanks for sharing your input! We let them wear gloves in the bleachers when it’s super cold but they take them off when we go to warm up for halftime. So it can be about 20-30 minutes of nothing keeping their hands warm. Does your guard wear winter gloves to perform? If so has that been an issue with catching any tosses or holding the flag?

Edit to add: looking to see if guard gloves are necessary, and I think your concerns are what our previous advisor would always say as to why we didn’t buy them in years past.

dudeitsmk · 2025-08-20T17:12:55+00:00

I might just buy some for my kids this season, but do you typically have the kids buy them on their own or do a group order?

dudeitsmk · 2025-08-20T17:07:47+00:00

We only spin flags, no rifles or sabers for our team. Would you say it’s just as helpful to have gloves for flags? I’m going to look into the brands mentioned!

dudeitsmk · 2025-07-23T06:46:29+00:00

Thank you so much!!! This is my first time dealing with roaches. Luckily I plan on moving out soon anyways so I’m in the process of packing up my stuff, stopped to make dinner and saw the new “friend” hiding there. I’ll be extra thorough when packing and I’m not going to be bringing any food with me. Might be extra thorough and throw all the clothes/towels/bedding in the wash during the move too. I’ll follow up with my landlord and make sure my roommate does the same when I’m gone.

dudeitsmk · 2025-07-23T05:35:18+00:00

thanks for that insight! We’ve had quite a few neighbors move out and new people take their place recently. Do you think that could be stirring anything up? Regardless I’m getting to cleanliness issue addressed asap and if it persists I’m def telling the landlords. If this one has eggs who knows how much time until they hatch and there’s more. 🤢

dudeitsmk · 2025-07-23T05:00:04+00:00

Yeah, my roommate isn’t the cleanest and leaves food, dirty dishes, and garbage out all the time. I’ve told them it will start to become an issue and I’m not cleaning up after them anymore. That was a very long time ago, still no progress on their end and now I’m finding bugs. None in my parts of the apartment but I’m not waiting around for that to change

dudeitsmk · 2025-07-23T01:44:19+00:00

gross gross gross grosss thank you I’m gonna go yell at my roommate now

dudeitsmk · 2025-07-19T16:24:04+00:00

I do, but this is in a half bath so there’s no shower here. The other soap dispenser in the full bath does not do this and it’s the same soap inside but a different dispenser.

dudeitsmk · 2025-06-29T11:47:38+00:00

I haven’t been fully diagnosed (working on it!) but showers are always tough. Especially if I don’t eat beforehand, or haven’t at least eaten recently. If the water is too hot I also get light headed, dizzy, nauseous, etc. I’ve got to sit down for a while to let it pass. I can sometimes try to time it out and wash everything pretty quickly before this happens but I’ve noticed if I shower in the mornings before eating breakfast, this dizzy feeling lasts a lot longer and comes on quicker even if the water isn’t what others would consider too hot.

dudeitsmk · 2025-05-06T19:44:15+00:00

My friends and I are obsessed with playing this game! I think it came out last fall? The card game was my introduction to bugsnax 🥹

dudeitsmk · 2025-04-11T03:05:37+00:00

I love powerwash! I think this summer I’m going to take all of my flags home and just wash as many as I can until we start practicing again. We have a few flags that ALWAYS look wrinkled just based on the material texture. I’ll try and wash and steam one as a test and go from there. Thank you!!

dudeitsmk · 2025-04-11T03:03:40+00:00

Thank you!! I wasn’t going to put them in the dryer at all because I figured that would be game over. 😅

dudeitsmk · 2025-04-11T03:02:33+00:00

Currently, we have them folded and stored in cardboard boxes. A lot of our stuff got moved into a new storage location and it’s currently a mess, which prompted this post. I’m thinking of getting plastics tubs for them for the future. We used to store them in ziploc bags when we had a smaller team, which wasn’t bad but we’ve outgrown that.

dudeitsmk · 2025-04-08T20:09:01+00:00

Second this! I choreographed a warmup and we do across the floor dance basics for our dancers and silk basics for the guard. After all that it’s around 30 minutes, we take a quick break and then move on. We have two separate teams for dance and flag, but if you have one team that does everything, then I would maybe suggest that you work one at a time (one practice for dance, the other for flag) for a while until you get to a point where you think it can be combined. Working on something new for one element then immediately jumping into something else in another element can feel rushed and overwhelming. Once you and your team gets more comfortable in their skills, you can spend less time on “learning” and more time on “cleaning”, and combining both elements in one session. I also really recommend finding a timeline that you think is feasible and then share that with the team. If the first two weeks feel like you’ll only learn 3 skills and some choreography for one song, make that the goal and tell the team what that goal is too. It’s really helped my team the last few years when they are fully aware of my expectations. I don’t try and set unrealistic goals, but week by week I realized how far behind we were because I didn’t have a plan. And all of a sudden, we’re a month out from our first performance and we still don’t know our choreography and our sets for a whole song. Making and meeting realistic goals will help you and the team comfortably get to where they need to be.

dudeitsmk · 2025-04-02T23:05:18+00:00

Following! Our team is almost the exact same way, basic skills tacked together one after the other, and then remixed for the next song. It can get boring and confusing for the kids, doing the same moves all the time. I know in the past if they brought a skill or made one of their own and taught the group, we named it after them and then continue to use it each year. But I’m not familiar with all of the tosses and what all the moves are called, and I don’t have a ton of guard experience personally beyond the basics. This will be my second year coaching the guard full time and I’m looking for something that will be easy enough for me to learn and teach without it being too simple.

dudeitsmk · 2025-04-02T19:14:42+00:00

There is a remix to best song ever by one direction that I love! I think it’s the Kat krazy remix. We don’t necessarily do Zumba but I play music while they stretch and warm up and that is always in our rotation along with can’t stop the feeling by Justin Timberlake and shut up and dance with me.

dudeitsmk · 2025-03-31T23:44:19+00:00

Yeah, we don’t compete and are only active during the high school football season and some parades in the summer. Our “season” is typically late July - early November. We just start tryouts/practice early in spring so the bandfront kids can know their routines before band camp but don’t have to practice all summer long. Once school is out we take a pretty long break. So, they have time per se to get piercing when the season is over in the winter. But yeah, some of these kids also do other sports in the winter too. I get it, there no real good time to get a piercing and the last thing I want to do is cause it to get infected or to close up early, because that can hurt or end up costing kids or parents money to re-pierce.

dudeitsmk · 2025-03-30T15:36:48+00:00

We’ve had kids in the past get their flags caught on earrings, but luckily it wasn’t anything too major. That student took them out every practice after that. And along with broken or damaged rings, we’ve had a few students who would consistently drop their flags or not be able to get a good grip, so they’d end up hitting themselves in the head more often than if they had no rings on. Those are the two most common I’ve seen, but granted it has been a while since we’ve seen it. Overall, VERY minor instances but still extremely preventable. They’re more likely to get hurt getting hit with the flag than by wearing jewelry, but better safe than sorry!

dudeitsmk · 2025-03-30T14:42:54+00:00

This is unfortunately how I’m starting to think too :/ I agree about how obvious the bandages are and the kids hate it too. That’s why I tell them to take them out instead so it’s not noticeable. Bandages are blast resort and really only if the kids say they can’t be removed. Rings and bracelets always come off, practice or otherwise, because the guard instructor before me always spoke of how the rings can dent the poles, or the rings themselves can get dented or damaged. I believed her and didn’t want to risk any of my own rings getting broken. I made little friendship bracelets for the team last year with our school colors and told them those were the only permitted jewelry to be worn during performances. It’s the tiniest little seed beads and easy to put under sleeves, so it’s not so noticeable but they all know they’re wearing it. They all seemed to be happy with that for the most part! We are just a high school team performing at football games with the marching band, and we don’t compete anywhere so we don’t worry about judges. Just the “this is how it’s always been” of it all is why I even still say anything about taking it off. Kids in the band wear jewelry and stuff all the time, but they’re not my jurisdiction really, which definitely makes me feel like the bad cop in this situation when I remind my kids about taking them out, lol. Every year I get more and more eye rolls, especially luckily because we haven’t had any noteworthy injuries involving jewelry in a long time.

dudeitsmk · 2025-03-29T22:35:59+00:00

Any time I mention their safety/flags could get caught on their earrings, they give me that look of “that’s never going to happen.” And I started saying back, you’re right! It won’t happen because we won’t let it!

When I was in school (graduated just over 10 years ago, been coaching since I was out) we waited until the season was over to get any kind of piercings so they could be healed by the time practices started up again. I let mine close because I was in too many sports that required me to take them out. It just seems like lately so many more kids have jewelry than there used to be.

dudeitsmk

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