Jambando

You have to bus to the gate at Lucas Oil as well. Not to mention, as a performer, having a police escort is pretty cool.

Same here. The kids really like them, too. More durable, lots more arch support, flexible sole, rolled heel is the same - which I'm not in love with on either version. Like corpsband said, they are completely different shoes. I don't like the regular Drillmasters very much, but the Super Drillmasters are great.

Dinkles are incredibly uncomfortable, IMO. I dont care how they look on the outside if I cant perform the same way as I do in rehearsal. I loved my Vipers because of the flexibility. But the best performance shoes for me are the new System Blue Drillmasters. I really hated the regular Drillmasters in HS, so I was bummed when I heard we were switching over at BD. But the system blues are very different. If I'm not mistaken, Todd Ryan designed them from the ground up, and they are incredible. For rehearsal shoes, I like Pumas. At BD they are really popular - probably because it is so easy to point your toes, jazz walk, jazz run, all that ballet stuff we do. But it seems not many people on here like them as much as I do.

The "I Got Rhythm" section in BD 2009 was at 236bpm. Every horn player except tubas marched the first 72 counts at single time using a crab-step technique. Then there were sporadic tempo changes in the feet between single and half time that was different for every individual. I personally marched the first 72 plus 24, 24, and 16 cts at single time with half time sections between each. Not a single step of the first 72 was under 7 to 5.

Everyone on the new System Blue hybrids. I wish they had those before I aged out.

What I loved about marching Blue Devils is that you were always treated like an adult and a professional. Plenty of food, sleep, water breaks, etc. The philosophy is to work smarter than any other group. Obviously, you have to be in decent shape to do any drum corps, and BD is no different. They will take physicality into account at auditions. I'm not 100% sure what other kinds of questions you have, but just ask and I'll try my best to answer.

They still serve it, but we cant eat peanut things on the bus.

I would need to see it in person. It may be the way he's wearing it. But to answer your question, no. In previous years it lined up with the white stripe on the front of the leg. The blue definitely makes it more noticeable, though.

Ooooo. My bad. Thanks for the clarification

I havent seen this one up close, but the panel (that's what we actually call them) had gotten smaller each season from 08-10. This years looks just about as long as last years, but is more stylized with the slit in the side and will probably look really cool in motion.

Yes they are http://www.dci.org/news/view.cfm?news_id=ca2bdba2-269f-4f2e-8163-5e94762b0113#TOC

We only use demi plies. Level change = bad. For the second part, I'm not sure I'm fully understanding the question, so let me know if I miss the mark. For jazz runs, we keep the toe pointed and it stays as low to the ground as possible. The heel crosses through first position - not cou-pied. I'm not sure what you mean by kicking forward, but I'm assuming it happens when the toe disconnects too far from the ground.

I can't believe this is on DCP! I was just talking to my friend about this last week. Televators would definitely be the ballad. There's a breakdown in Miranda: B that would be a killer half-time section. I think it would be a much better show if you took your opener/closer and used an entire album as the music source. Say Francis the Mute for the opener and Deloused for the closer, then took snipets or melodies from multiple songs to write your brass book.

It's funny how much truth is in this. So far, people have only explained regular marching technique and jazz running, but at BD we have a 3rd style we call "gazelle runs" This is a type of jazz run for intermediate step sizes or for people who are pretty tall. Step sizes like 4 to 5 aren't quite big enough to warrant going into plie, but can't be done with normal marching technique. This technique eliminates plie but maintains turnout and toe point and sometimes requires you to leave the ground. Its extremely fluid and (I think) looks nicer than jazz running because it eliminates any sort of level change / height change - which is what many people dislike about bent-leg marching. The next show you go to, watch for this technique. It looks a lot like simple regular marching from a distance, but the individual doing it is most likely hauling ***.

What he said. I do "Up in 4, Down in 4 / High mark time" almost every day with my students. Todd Ryan uses those to stress time. You can focus on the met only, lining up with the people around you visually, turn the met down and put some drum majors in front - there are lots of ways to focus on time and getting the kids a strong sense of internal pulse this way. That being said, the next exercise I do is almost always something involving technique. But, like the previous poster noted, never stop harping on foot timing in your technique-based exercises.