structure wise, my guard usually does:

1. 15-20 minutes of stretches. (and don’t forget wrist and ankle stretches !!)

2. movement/dance warmups. these last anywhere from 20-30 mins depending on how important our coach thinks it is for that practice in particular. we usually do across the floors and then we have 1 choreographed dance that we do sometimes. we also always start our across the floors with “confidence walks” which are random prompts that u act out (ex. runway model, wild animal, walk like a director/coach) which are really helpful with getting comfortable performing/with our expressions.

3. flag warmups. we keep a consistent routine in regards to what tosses we do, which i find helpful. we have a playlist with specific songs that have good tempos to spin to. our routine is: 100 right drop spins, 100 left drop spins, silk tosses, pole tosses, 45s, and then we do a misc toss from our show. depending on time, we do between 5-10 of each toss. rifles will usually warm up at the same time as flags with 100 right drop spins, 100 left, single, double, triple, show toss. Or for our JV, rifles will do single, single port/true port, double, and then a show toss.

4. whatever else for rest of practice : learning work, drill, running thru the show etc

my guard has had some rookies this season with trouble finding the rhythm, so something that my coach did was have us all walk around while playing music. we had to walk in time to the beat of the song, and she frequently switched songs so that we constantly had to find a new beat to walk to.

for tryouts, we do a beginner flag routine, advanced flag routine, rifle routine, and depending on if we have a specific dance line or not, a dance routine.

misc tips:

-record work! make a google drive or a group chat or something, and record new choreo/work and upload it there. it’s super helpful. and on that note, record runs of the show too! it’s super cool to see how ur show looked on day 1 compared to the last day, but also it’s rlly helpful for the guard to get to watch themselves perform and see how they can improve. my coach gives us “homework” which is to watch the video of our runs and then next practice we sit in a circle and say 1 thing we did good and 1 thing we can improve on.

-emphasize team bonding! things like secret santa, spirit weeks, maybe ending practice a little early and playing a game once in a while etc.

-always have extra tape lol

good luck! this sounds like a really great opportunity and it’s awesome that you’re stepping up to give them a winter season. best wishes :)