Cavaliers Technique Question

[rmurrey74]

i still cant find it, is this a joke or is there seriously a video? im interested now.

ok here, for the sake of an explanation. ill do my best for you. but the reason you probably dont usually get straight answers is because the vis staff likes to make minor changes every year. therefore what someone told us the corps in 2000 maybe described completely differently in 2007. so what i say may not be current or correct but its what i can remember. so i would still recommend emailing jeff or some of the vis instructors if your really that interested.

ps. anything i say in the coming paragraphs is just paraphrasing because the technique is HEAVILY defined, as much as it may not seem like it, theres a few vis guys that i guarantee could write you a hefty reference book on it(and not even get to dots). should any of those vis guys read this... im just going by memory here, feel free to send me hate mail if i make a mistake. also its quite hard to explain without actually standing in front of you. (again.... paraphrasing)

to answer your above question. the knee is not defined. the knee is not defined because humans have legs of varying length therefore trying to define foot position by position of the knee would be a waste of time. the technique is defined from the heel. simple forward movement can be broken up into different steps in order to learn the overall idea.

-from a halt, movement is initiated 1/2 beat before one by peeling up the left heel as high as possible. (when i marched toes stayed on the ground, this could have changed) this is the same for all directions of movement.

-at beat 1, the foot moves in its intended direction and the toes move up into a roll in order to land on the back edge of the heel again. i say again, the techique is defined from the heel, so the heel stays as close as possible to the ground while still holding the foot in the heel-upright position. thats placement of the first step. it gets more fun from here on

-from beat 1 forward the left foot rolls forward and down as the back (right foot) begins to peel up heel first in the same fashion as before.

-at the "and"(+) of beat 1 the right foot breaks forward with heel peeled up and the left foot is rolled completely down. the right foot should line up with the left shin at 1(+), and be pointed toe down, again with the heel as close to the ground as possible while maintaining upright position.

-at beat 2 the right foot lands toes up on the back of the heel and rolls down as the left foor begins to peel up again, and the whole process continues in a circular progression.

the idea is to learn to do the above steps in one fluid motion with no jerks or speed changes. when this is achieved, weight and therefore the upperbody can be transfered from step to step with no varying movement at all. in other words, weight is centered over your feet at at halt, spread between your two fee as you roll and peel, centered over your one foot at the (+) count, spread between your two feet at the next roll and peel... and so on.

thats just forward. backwards is strikingly similar in that you do all the same except you land on your toes and roll down while you peel up with the other foot. i was not a horn player so i cant tell you about slides ord jazz runs. but i know they have their own set of directions.

also for percussion. when crabbing, or moving in any oblique direction, there is a pretty much a changeup of the technique for each of these 4 directions, forward-left, forward-right, back-left or right, and crabbing... and that gets modified often so i wont go into that either.

hope that helped a little, your best bet when asking a cav about marching technique is to ask specific questions about specific aspects and see what answers you get. because its kind of like asking someone to acurately describe the language of japanese just in a few sentances. and for other cavs, if i am innacurate in my above descriptions, please clarify...

THANK YOU! That's what I've been looking for and I'll probably have some more questions. After reading this, I can now understand what I'm seeing a little better now that I have a idea of how the heel is supposed to be moving. Again, I have nothing against the technique. While I personally prefer other styles, I think it's important that as a teacher, I understand how this style is defined. Thank you for not giving a vague answer like everyone else. I've seen the Cavaliers perform probably over 120 times in the last 14 years and I've always wondered. I just never started digging into it until recently.

Thanks again

Edited July 10, 2007 by rmurrey74

[rmurrey74]

i went to a few camps a couple of years ago, and the staff repeated over and over "it's not a bicyle step, it's a re-articulation of the foot."

on the "and" count the knee breaks the plane of motion by bending while keeping the toes on the grond and lifting the heel. on the "one" count the heel hits the ground and the toes are as high as possible. on the "one and" count the right foot should be perpendicular to the ground at the ankle of the left foot (with bent knee). and on "two" the right heel hits the ground.

the interesting part was the backwards technique, where the initiation is the same as forward, the left food breaks the place of motion by bending the knee and keeping the toes on the ground while lifting the heel. on "one" the foot is placed behind you. on "one and" the right foot does the same thing as going forward, perpendicular to the ground, at the left ankle, knee bent.

the staff said that if you took a picture on the "and" count, you shouldn't be able to tell if they are moving forward or backwards.

sorry to any cmm, or fmm if this is completly wrong, it's only what i remember from a few years ago, and only going to a few camps (then marching two years in another corps with a different technique).

Thank you too

[luvs me sum mello!]

Hate to be blunt, but if you asked your "staff friends" about marching technique the same way you asked on here, they may not want to explain every little detail to you.

[rmurrey74]

Hate to be blunt, but if you asked your "staff friends" about marching technique the same way you asked on here, they may not want to explain every little detail to you.

....

Changed my mind. I don't need to respond to this.

Edited July 10, 2007 by rmurrey74

[rmurrey74]

Karl, do you have more insight into the first step? I'm confused on why the weight isn't equal between both feet on step one. This wasn't the picture I was looking for, but last year or the year before they had a camp video of the corps taking step one and none of the weight shifted. It stayed completely over the planted right leg.

Thanks

Edited July 10, 2007 by rmurrey74

[Marlin Hunter]

Sorry...but no. You should be able to explain a technique that you've performed all season. Maybe some people would not be able to teach it well but you should be able to explain a technique that you've been taught if the staff is giving you the information.

A good staff should be teaching each member as if they would a future teacher.

Call Feidler!! The Cavaliers have been doing it wrong all along!! get rmurray74 in as a consultant asap to teach this corps how to do it right!

maybe it's not that the members can't explain the technique....rather than they'd rather not explain it to an internet poster with an attitude.

[karl E. Hungus]

Karl, do you have more insight into the first step? I'm confused on why the weight isn't equal between both feet on step one. This wasn't the picture I was looking for, but last year or the year before they had a camp video of the corps taking step one and none of the weight shifted. It stayed completely over the planted right leg.

Thanks

well what your seeing is a teaching excercise. remember i explained earlier that in the teaching process the right foot deos not peel up until the left foot rolls down, thereby transfering weight between the feet. but in reality if you were stepping off for a set your weight would shift slightly at 1 and then continue on towards your dot. so for teaching purposes we practiced just taking step one without shifting weight, so we could better understand the peeling up prep befor the stepoff and rearticulation of the left foot into beat one. also practicing the first step whithout weight transfer helps with learning to lead with your feet and center of gravity rather than leaning into stepoffs. worked for me anyhow.

its just like learning to do any other complex smooth movement. you learn it in tiny jerky mechanical parts then expand the parts into larger portions while gaining fluidity, then put it all together using smooth and consistant movement. the above picture is an exact representation of the first to bulleted steps i mentioned in my earlier post.

Edited July 10, 2007 by karl E. Hungus

[rmurrey74]

Call Feidler!! The Cavaliers have been doing it wrong all along!! get rmurray74 in as a consultant asap to teach this corps how to do it right!

maybe it's not that the members can't explain the technique....rather than they'd rather not explain it to an internet poster with an attitude.

No, I didn't say the Cavaliers are teaching it wrong. I was disagreeing with the point saying that a person that marched drum corps may not be able to explain their technique to someone. Anyone that marches in a decent drum corps should be able to explain the details of their technique. It doesn't matter which drum corps.

Sorry if asking questions about something that no one really talks about comes across as having an attitude. I'll chime in on one of the 10 threads about how much the Cadets narration sucks.

Edited July 10, 2007 by rmurrey74

[rmurrey74]

well what your seeing is a teaching excercise. remember i explained earlier that in the teaching process the right foot deos not peel up until the left foot rolls down, thereby transfering weight between the feet. but in reality if you were stepping off for a set your weight would shift slightly at 1 and then continue on towards your dot. so for teaching purposes we practiced just taking step one without shifting weight, so we could better understand the peeling up prep befor the stepoff and rearticulation of the left foot into beat one. also practicing the first step whithout weight transfer helps with learning to lead with your feet and center of gravity rather than leaning into stepoffs. worked for me anyhow.

its just like learning to do any other complex smooth movement. you learn it in tiny jerky mechanical parts then expand the parts into larger portions while gaining fluidity, then put it all together using smooth and consistant movement. the above picture is an exact representation of the first to bulleted steps i mentioned in my earlier post.

Makes sense....thank you!

[karl E. Hungus]

dig it, homie.