On May 14, Park’s synchro team held a dress rehearsal including costumes, headpieces, an audience and more, in preparation for their section’s meet.
Junior Charlotte Cox said the dress rehearsal helps to make sure everything is in place for the actual meet.
“In the synchro world, we call it our dress rehearsal, but it’s really to make sure our suits aren’t gonna fall off our bodies, our headpieces are gonna stay in and that we know how to do the routine and do all of our ‘razzle dazzle’ with our accessories on,” Cox said.
Senior Avery Courneya said the team has a specific way they usually prepare for meets.
“In preparing for the show, we usually do a little bit of visualization of our routines, then we do some meditation and then we go and we swim,” Courneya said.
According to synchro team coach Carolyn Guddall, this dress rehearsal helped to put all the pieces together.
“This show helped prepare for sections by getting the repetition of not only of the choreography, which they’ve been doing all season, but then with the routine suit, headpiece, gelled hair and no goggles, and all of those pieces together. Plus the nerves of the performance aspect,” Guddall said.
Courneya said preparing for sections went really well.
“Everybody did amazing and our facial expressions were really good which is important,” Courneya said.
Guddall said adding all of the pieces of the show adds to the stress, but helps to make sure that everything is ready for the actual performance.
“It was great. The show was the first chance for the swimmers to do their routines, not only in front of an audience, but with their routine suit, gelled hair, headpieces, makeup and all of that, which adds another layer to the performance and a lot of other sensory experiences,” Guddall said. “We always do it the week of sections to prepare for the competition. It also makes us see what needs that little bit of extra work before we compete later in the week.”
Cox said there are still things to fix before this weekend, but she hopes everything will go well for both sections and state.
“There are obviously a few improvements that we have to make and a little bit of cleaning up to do before sections, but we have two practices that will clean our stuff up,” Cox said. “(On) Saturday hopefully we’ll do our best and then we’ll have a few more practices before state where it really really matters.”
According to Guddall, she and the rest of the team are very excited for what the future holds for them.
“We had a full house, which was very exciting, a great crowd,” Guddall said. “It was very cool to see the turnout and how everyone rose to the occasion ahead of the bigger competitions we have this weekend.”
Synchro sections will be held at 8 a.m. on May 18 at Olson Middle School.
