Bruises trace into the divot of senior Amy Sweet’s thumb, the purple-black welts blooming across her arms. Her sleeves of injury have been caused by the repetition of a star-tipped baton pounding against her.
In fact, one of the common word-of-mouths Sweet had been told was “you can’t be sacred of the baton.” And in a year and a half of baton twirling, she knew that it was going to hit her.
“I was definitely discouraged at first. I was like, ‘Wow, everything’s falling on the ground, everything’s hitting me in the face. This is not what I thought it would be,’” Sweet said. “And eventually you get it, and it’s like, ‘Whoa, I can do this now.’”
Handing the baton to Sweet
The first time Sweet held a baton, the Whitmore Lake High School baton twirling coach Tammy Lee Wolfe handed the wand to her with the instructions: “Try some things.”
“I have friends in the [Whitmore Lake] marching band. My friend was colorguard, and then she was the drum major,” Sweet said. “So I was supposed to be watching her conduct, but I was actually watching the baton twirlers.”
In the Whitmore Lake ensemble, there are a fleet of baton twirlers with a smaller colorguard cohort, while Huron marching band has a larger colorguard with Sweet as its only “feature twirler.”
Wolfe allowed her to join the Whitmore Lake baton twirling team, but Sweet had ideas of bringing baton twirling back home to Huron, for a new section to be found on the football field.
“She [Wolfe] helped me figure it all out, to the counts and the music,” Sweet said. “She came here. She came to our band camp. She talked to our band teacher, trying to figure out where to put me on the field.”
And there’s more — Sweet wanted to add an “s” to the end of “baton twirler” at Huron. To make it plural.
“And even now, I was like, ‘Oh, we could start a club at Huron.’ And she [Wolfe] was like, ‘Absolutely.’”
Handing the baton back
On April 8, in room 7124 from 6 to 8 p.m., Sweet and Wolfe are commencing a baton twirling club through the Parks and Recreation center, taking place on Huron campus, for a fee of $225 for a 10 week package and batons for $40.
On every Wednesday, like how Sweet was welcomed to participate with Whitmore Lake’s team, she extends the baton to other Ann Arbor Public School (AAPS) students.
“You can just come and try out the baton, see if you even like it before you commit,” Sweet said. “But it’s definitely so much fun. Everybody should try it.”
It was surprising how baton twirling didn’t relieve the same tension of competition to Sweet, like how dance once did. Baton twirling was a sport that could be shared with others — and that was a new community for her.
“Everybody was willing to teach and to show you things and share their experiences, even people I was competing against,” Sweet said. “It was so satisfying to see people be polite to each other and want you to succeed.”
The competitions held by Twirling Unlimited (TU), have six sections to compete in: baton solos, baton duets, baton groups of five to 10 people, baton marching, advanced baton marching and modeling. Sweet has only experienced the solo division, but contestants can participate in one event to all events.
The bruises on Sweet’s forearms have healed. Now, practicing on her driveway, Sweet continues to toss the baton into the sky.
And sometimes it collapses back onto the ground.
“It’s no secret, you drop the baton a lot when you’re learning, and it gets tiring picking it up 1000 times [just] to get discouraged,” Sweet said. “You’re going to drop the baton. It’s going to hit you in the face. It’s going to fall. Just pick it back up.”
