I had been involved with Drum Corps International for over 25 years, as a performer, an instructor, and a designer. As a result, I had always gone to the DCI World Championships every August. This never allowed me to attend another championship that I had always been curious about: The World Baton Twirling Championships.

I suppose I am telling you all of that to give some context to my fascination with that world, as clearly I am not a baton twirler.

I am good friends with Dale White, who is both a WGI judge and a baton twirling judge. He was judging the baton Championships in Paris. He introduced me to Sandi Wiemers, the President of the World Baton Twirling Federation (wbtf.org). She was kind enough to invite me to be a VIP guest, and I had one of the best seats in the house!

It was exciting to watch all of the individual performances from many different countries, but my favorite part was watching the teams. So many outstanding performances, especially from France and Japan. It was fascinating to see how they ran the show, how the judged the contest, how warm up worked, and how excited the crowd would get for the performers!

While I was there, I also made a great friend in Myra Kirk, CEO of batonbiz.com. She asked me to sit down with her for a short conversation about the similarities between the winter guard world and the baton world. You can see this conversation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZFc32C4W_Y .