Discussion Forums

I am a baton twirling teacher and judge and have judged ALL four of the twirlers mentioned in your article (Tammy and Holly Russel, Mark Savarese and Alysha Depp).

I personally cannot say enough about Alysha Depp as a twirler. She has proven herself time and time again.

While I do not take anything away from either of the Russell's, or Mark, I must inform you that you have only seen "good" twirlers. Meaning, there are FAR superior twirlers out there. You have only been exposed to the "cow" and not the "filet mignon", so to speak. If you want to see truly GREAT twirlers, you need to attend the NBTA National Championships, not just TwirlMania. Again, there are "very good" twirlers at TwirlMania, but the TRULY AWESOME twirlers go to Nationals. The twirlers who work really hard and are not afraid of competition go to Nationals.

I also must say that, with any sport, those who are good at their sport DO NOT necessarily make the best teachers. This is HORRENDOUSLY EVIDENT in some of the twirlers some of these twirlers have produced. I realize a teacher is only capable of giving a student what she/he can handle, but when the "basics" of baton twirling are not executed correctly, who cares how many spins, illusions or cartwheels one can do under a baton??? ANYONE can just throw the "stick", as Ms. Bauers put it (which annoys me to no end), into the air and do 900 body movements or spins under it, but the truly great ones actually TWIRL the baton and do a lot of INTRICACY (look on your score sheets ladies and gents in the "twirling world"--that's a word you'll find on it) and FULL HAND work--something Mark is quite good at. If we were "just throwing the stick in the air" than a gymnast could do that. It doesn't take any special talent to throw it in the air--it's HOW you throw it in the air and HOW you taught it to be throw in the air--IT MUST, MUST, MUST go OFF THE THUMB!!!!!

I advise Ms. Bauers to take a trip to Notre Dame in the summer. If you were dazzled by the Russell's, then honey, "you ain't seen nothin' yet"!!!!!!!!!!!

And with that being said, the best twirlers were back in the late 70s and early 80s and twirling has really gone DOWNHILL since then!! No one twirlers like those twirlers used to! Let's bring back the multiple elbow rolls--UNCHEATED please!!!!! Let's bring back the full hand work and the intricacy (there's that word again) of BEAUTIFUL BODY LINES WITH BATON TOSSES!!! Then the crowd will REALLY be impressed, so I will--THE TEACHER/JUDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!