tizzizzailslf04

Ummm...What? So he offers up a THEORY, backs it up with FACTS, you guys immediately jump down his throat and brag about having enough titles to "share", and then point at him and call HIM "arrogant"? You guys are incredible.

This words needs to be retired. For good.

I don't really feel like the Cadets method of rehearsing (and life in general at the Cadets) makes them any more mentally tough that any other corps. Just a different way of going about things. I feel like at the Cavaliers, they treated us like adults. In my opinion, is it really necessary to haul butt back and forth to your sets all block? It's 100+ degrees outside, and you're already expending a ridiculous amount of energy just doing the show. How much time do you REALLY gain by running back to your sets during a block? If you added it all up, I bet it would only amount to like one or two extra reps of a show chunk....maybe. Yes, we got long water breaks, and the overall tone of rehearsal is much more chill compared to a lot of other corps. With that said, however, when it was time to rehearse, it was time to rehearse. They expected us to be 100 percent engaged and focused with rehearsal, and they trusted the members to be able to turn it on when it was time to. The staff gave us our time and in turn, we didn't waste theirs. I'm guessing that it's something of the same at the Blue Devils, and that those two corps are much alike in that aspect. My favorite thing about the "personality" of the Cavaliers (and probably one of the biggest differences I saw between us and the Blue Devils) is that the overwhelming majority of the members don't really give a crap about the scores. As most members would say, at the end of the day, it's just "band on a field." I remember semifinals night in 08, all the corps were sitting in the end zone stands while our alumni corps was performing. All the other corps are just hanging out and enjoying what's happening on the field, but the vast majority of the blue devils were passing around tons of cell phones amongst each other, all looking at the screen and doing a combination of cheering, and turning around to us smirking, etc. Clearly, we knew that they were all looking at the scores that had just been put up and saw that they were on top, but seriously? Is that really the measure of your entire summer? Whether some dudes in green thought that you were the best band of them all? When we found out that we had gotten 3rd that night, I never heard a word about it again that night after about 5 minutes. We got back on the bus, we joked, we laughed, we had tons of fun, just like any other night. No one said a word about the scores. Then we woke up the next day and did it all one last time. And I guarantee that if you asked any member of that corps whether they feel like their summer was diminished at all by not getting first place, they'd look at you like you were crazy.

Ohhhh the irony

Well, I think it's time for the highlight reel for this thread. What were some of you guys's favorite moments? I love the exchange a couple of pages back about all the different "rules" one needs to follow in order to criticize BD, lol.

Laughing my butt off!

Lol....this sounds like the DCP equivalent of bringing a new girl to the same party your ex-girl is at and being extra touchy feely to try to make the ex jealous.

I'm going to be honest....I didn't read this thread at all, and I'm probably going to say something that's already been said a million times, not just in this thread but every single year. I don't come around these parts much anymore, but...I saw the thread title and just had to chime in here because you sound EXACTLY like I did my entire life before '08 (thinking that I'll NEVER be good enough to march). As long as I've known about marching band (12-13 years old), I've wanted to march drum corps. Traveling all summer, sleeping on busses (which is actually way easier for me than in a bed), performing an exciting, challenging show for tons of people every night, etc...The whole thing just fascinated that crap out of me. So I reeeaaalllyyyy wanted to do it. Now I loved all the corps, but my absolute DREAM... was to march Cavaliers. I loved them from the very first show I ever saw. I can't tell you how many vhs tapes I ruined each year sitting there rewinding the pbs broadcasts I taped and watching the Cavalier's show over and over and over with my jaw on the floor. They did (and continue to do) some of the most amazing, extraordinary (had to, lol) things I've ever seen a group of human beings do. Now...I said all that to say that as you could probably guess, that is something that I would have given anything to be a part of. Unfortunately, I viewed marching Cavaliers pretty much the same way 90% of people view becoming an astronaut (Not in any way, shape, or form, saying that it compares. Just saying I personally viewed it in the same way): It would be the absolute greatest thing in the world to do, and it's cool to daydream about it, but there's no way that I could ever come close to achieving it, so don't even think about it. That was my view on the matter. "So...I can't make Cavaliers, but I still really want to march drum corps. Ok. I'm gonna audition for drum corps this year! Buuuuttttt.....what if I don't make it? I don't wanna go all the way to auditions somewhere just to get cut. Ehh...I'm probably not good enough yet. I'll wait until next year.....yea....next year I'll do it." *fast foward to the summer, at the Dallas shows* "ahhh...this is sooo cool. These people are incredible. They're so lucky, performing these sick shows, and they look like they are having the time of their lives. And now they get to get on the bus and go to the next city, and I get to go home. Ok, I'm auditioning for next season! I'm gonna march!" *november rolls around* "Ohhh look, auditions are right down the street. Ehhh...but they're all going to be so good, and I'll look like an idiot in front of them. Naahh...not this year." *next summer, dfw shows* "Ok, there's no way I CAN'T be out there next summer. I'm auditioning!" Hopefully, you catch my drift. I am not kidding when I tell you that this went on for 6-7 years! I would get so pumped up at the shows watching and talking to my friends that were out marching, and I would tell myself, "this next season is the one. I'm doing it." I would even order some audition packets and practice them. I spent a lot of time asking other people if they thought I had a shot. But then auditions would roll around and I would chicken out. Every. Single. Year. By the time I got to college, I had pretty much just given up on it. Coincidentally, the school I choose to go to (TCU) had quite a few Cavalier drummers at the time I got there. The bad news about this is that playing along side of them pretty much confirmed my suspicion: these people are INSANELY good at their instruments, and I was nowhere NEAR the level they were at. The GOOD news is that by playing and practicing with them and the other drum corps dudes there (and there were a lot), I began to get so much better, and really quickly. I was surrounded by great players and great teachers, but for the first two years, I STILL chickened out when audition time rolled around. So now it's Fall of 2007. At this point, I've only got 2 years left to march. And REALLY, I only have 1, because now there are other things (summer school, jobs, etc) that I really need to be doing with my summers. For almost half of my life, I've wanted to march drum corps, yet here I am, years later, and I haven't even so much as been to an audition. By now, I'm thinking "ok, I can atLEAST get a good year in. I want to do D1, though. A full tour. I'll go to the lowest scoring (from the previous year) corps. Maybe I can make it there." So I'm going into my junior year at TCU, and this freshman comes in who's fresh off a summer marching in the hornline at Cavaliers (by this time, all the Cavalier drummers had graduated, and now it was mostly Phantom guys). This dude is one of the most eccentric people I've ever met. By this point in my life, I don't even mention to people that I want to march Cavaliers. It embarrassing to have to explain that no I haven't marched anywhere else, and no I haven't been to an audition for any drum corps, blah blah. They would just look at me crazy, I'm sure. But...this dude can't STOP talking about the Cavaliers. On and on all day long if you let him. So one day during marching band I let it slip out, "yea I've always wanted to march Cavaliers...since high school" "No I haven't ever auditioned." "Yea, I only have 2 years now. I think I’m going to just audition for ________ and try to make it there.” This dude looked at me as if I had just told him that the capital of Texas was El Paso, lol. “If you want to march Cavaliers, then march Cavaliers.” He made it sound so simple. In his mind, it was a done deal. Fact. I was marching Cavaliers in 2008. Just days before, I was planning on auditioning for Pioneer, and now this guy is pretty much TELLING me that I’m going to be at Cavalier camp in November. And as crazy as it sounds, I didn’t have the heart to say to him “I’m not going to go because I don’t think I’m good enough.” So with him on my case every day, I bought a plane ticket to camp. Ok…story within a story (crazy, I know). For the first half of my life, I was absolutely terrified of roller coasters, and pretty much any theme park ride that took you more than 5 ft. of the ground, lol. One day me and my cousins went to Six Flags Magic Mountain. They knew I was scared of roller coasters, but I told them I was gonna ride some that day. I was gonna ride some little ones first, then maybe I would work up to a bigger one. Well, my cousins, naturally, wanted to ride the biggest one in the park first. Goliath (Titan, if you live in dfw). First drop, 255-something ft. I told them, you are guys are idiots but whatever. You guys can ride this first, then we’ll find some small ones for me. So we go up there. Just being up that high waiting in line scares the absolute crap out of me. Finally we get to the front, as you know of theme park roller coasters, if you aren’t riding, you have to walk through the roller coaster car to the other side to wait. So I walk in the car and JUST as I’m about to step out on the other side, my cousins (one next to me and two in the row behind) grab my shoulders, push me down into the seat and yank the bar down on my lap so that it locks. Needless to say, I’m about to s*** myself! These punks had it planned the entire time. Now, I want with everything I have in me to get off of this thing, BUT, I would look like the biggest punk ever to make the staff come over and unlock my seatbelt because I’m too scared to ride. So I just slam my eyes shut and sit there. I still have the official picture of myself that the ride takes at the bottom of the first drop, and it is the most terrified look I think a human can have. But by the time I got off of it, ALL I wanted to do was get back in line and ride it again. To this day, I’m a roller coaster FANATIC! I like going to different places just because they have a new roller coaster that I haven’t tried. The point of THAT story is this… buying that ticket is what really changed my mindset. It was me getting slammed down in that roller coaster seat and locking the seat belt all over again. It was so easy to give up back when It was easy to walk away from it. But buying the ticket really commits you to it. I worked practiced my butt of for the next few weeks. I would sit in my room with sticks and a pad and work on the most mundane, basic things. There were LOTS of times where I just wanted to shoot myself, lol. And sometimes those thoughts would come back that said “what are you thinking? You’ll never make it.” But there were other times where I REALLY felt like I was getting better, and that maybe I actually had a shot. Long story even longer, I went to auditions, and I ultimately ended up making the corps, and just like that guy (by this time one of my good friends) said, I marched Cavaliers in 2008, and it was the best summer of my life. Just as little as a year before, it was, in my mind, something that I would NEVER obtain, and then I looked down one day and it was ME wearing that uniform that I saw so many people before me wear, and do incredible things in. So now…back to you. It sounds like right now you are thinking that you can't do it. If that's the case, your opinion on the matter is NOT VALID. It's 100% wrong. Whenever that thought crosses your mind (and it will continue to pop up in the future), do whatever you need to do to erase it as quickly as possible. It's simply not true. Please believe me (and the dozens of others that have probably said it here) when I say that you CAN march drum corps. I promise you, you can. YOU have to work for it, though. Practice your butt off, all the time. If you get to a place where you’re burning out and getting those negative thoughts, take a little break, ease your mind, then come back in an hour or two. Just don’t ever let your self believe that you can’t do it. Do your best to surround yourself with people that are waaaayyyy BETTER THAN YOU. Yes, you will feel insignificant, but you will get so much better, so much faster! But most importantly, in my opinion, figure out some place you want to go, and BUY A TICKET to camp. No matter where you think you stand talent wise, get the ticket and commit yourself to going. And if you want to march insert corps here, then MARCH THERE. It really is that simple. If you show up to camp, you have a chance at making whatever corps you want. The more you prepare, the better your chance is. The ONLY time you don’t have a chance is when you don’t show up! I wasted so many years wondering if I had a shot, and asking if other people thought I had a shot, but by not going to auditions, I was doing nothing but making my own chances ZERO. At some point, you have to get slammed down into the seat with the seatbelt yanked tight. Do it NOW while you have all these years ahead of you. Even if you don’t make your dream corps the first year, your chances of making it the next year grow exponentially, because you know how the process works. I was already at a disadvantage going into auditions in ’08 because I had NO idea how a drum corps audition worked, period. Bottom line…It’s cool to sit on here and talk to people and ask questions, but man…you can mess around and waste your whole (drum corps) life/time asking questions and wondering about ifs and buts, and then before you know it, you’re out of time. If it’s something that you want to do, I promise you, you can do it. I told you that long drawn out story because I wanted you to understand just how much I felt like marching Cavaliers was out of reach for me. Something I would never ever be fortunate enough and good enough to do. Even now, when I open my closet every once in awhile, I’ll see that jacket in there and I get goosebumps every time, because I can’t believe that I did that. I urge you to turn off DCP, and Facebook, and whatever else. This stuff will be here when you get back from the summer, and nothing here is going to help you achieve your goal. Grab your instrument, and practice the crap out of it. Run, get in shape, all that stuff. You know what you need to do, so go do it! Then come back and let everyone here know how kick ### your summer was!

Here we go! *gets out popcorn*

He has a life?

Makes sense

Not so much "not allowing Crown to win", but not allowing BD to lose the way they did year. But in this case, I'm just talking numbers.

I've never really paid attention to the numbers, other than "this is what we got tonight, ok". But BD jumped .45 from quarters, and crowned jumped 1.45 from quarters. If this repeats itself tonight, Crown wins. It seems that everyone is pretty sure that BD is gonna take it all, though. Do I think DCI will allow what happened to BD last year to happen again this year? Highly doubt it. But just as far as numbers go (because like I said, I'm not well versed in that area), is it really such a longshot? (just want to mention that I have absolutely no bias or preference between those two corps. I'm still rooting for the green machine!) *edited for grammar*

This was, in fact, a Carrier (more specifically, the j-bars) issue. In 08, we spent a few winter/spring camps going back and forth with XL testing out different types of carries to fix that problem. This year they switched companies all together. I haven't paid much attention but I think that problem is fixed now, or atleast significantly less of a problem. The only good think about those XL carriers (in my opinion) was that they didn't stick out under the uniform like every other carrier. To get back on topic though...I definitely think the Cavalier technique is much more natural and feels much better than straight leg, and does much less wear on your legs. In my opinion, though, it's harder than straight for the simple fact that you have to exaggerate the movements so much more (especially the backwards march). The whole "look the same going forwards and backwards" is something the staff mentioned, but more specifically, it prevents that ridiculous looking level change going forwards to backwards and vice versa. Also, going backwards....you have less balance and control of your body weight when you are up on the platforms of your feet, not to mention the inevitable bouncing that is bound to occur. I could go on and on. The technique was design to fit the rigors of marching a Cavalier show, and it works. One of the great things about the staff is that they will only do it if it makes sense. And if they find that something isn't working out, or can be done better in a different way, they're not just going to keep doing it the old way because it's tradition.