Marching styles

[kinigit]

thanks for the post. we had many visual (and brass) staff at capital regiment that marched/taught cadets. we adopted the straight leg technique in 2004, and also our feet were parallel that year. after 2004 we changed back to first position. we added the slow roll in 2005, not sure if they kept it in 2006.. i'm teaching a band that marches this technique. we are in the middle of our first week of band camp and i wanted to see if anyone had anything to add. it's nice to know that i know what i'm talking about! i do have something to add, and it might just be another way of saying it but... initiate by pushing on the platform (with cadets that's the left, with most other ensembles, the right) and lead with the heel of the leading foot. everything else seems to line up with what i say.

[euponitone]

thanks for the post. we had many visual (and brass) staff at capital regiment that marched/taught cadets. we adopted the straight leg technique in 2004, and also our feet were parallel that year. after 2004 we changed back to first position. we added the slow roll in 2005, not sure if they kept it in 2006.. i'm teaching a band that marches this technique. we are in the middle of our first week of band camp and i wanted to see if anyone had anything to add. it's nice to know that i know what i'm talking about! i do have something to add, and it might just be another way of saying it but... initiate by pushing on the platform (with cadets that's the left, with most other ensembles, the right) and lead with the heel of the leading foot. everything else seems to line up with what i say.

Pushing off with the platform seems like a good idea, just make sure they have their weight forward already, and they dont pop up when they push off the platform. Sounds like youve got it under control :)

[kinigit]

Pushing off with the platform seems like a good idea, just make sure they have their weight forward already, and they dont pop up when they push off the platform. Sounds like youve got it under control :)

yes.. i teach that their weight should be 60% on the platform, 40% on the back of the foot, so they are projecting forward before they initiate.

[ouooga]

I have a few friends that march(ed) Cavaliers, and I went to a camp a long time ago. My impression of why they are similar to BK is the use of the knee. They really embrace knees a lot more than most corps. The forward may not be as noticeable to some people, but the backwards especially. The nice thing about the knee bend, from what I've seen working with visual programs at a few schools and being in a few drum corps, is that it blends very nicely with a plie jazz run. If you're doing a straighter leg jazz run, like BD, obviously it wouldn't, but I know a few corps that march straight leg and jazz run in plie. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's definitly more noticeable when your end points have their knees bent because they are bookin it. A lot of corps have just gotten really good at either masking that, or working it in so that it looks intentional.

The differences between BK and Cavies is a lot though. Keep in mind, I'm getting a lot of this from one Cavies camp and talking to friends, so if I am wrong I apologize. Moving forward, on the beat, Blue Knights keep their weight over the front foot (so the body makes a straight up and down line from the top of the hed to the heel of the leading foot, with the back leg straight and back at a 45). Cavaliers are basically the opposite, with the weight over the rear foot, straight line, with the lead foot at the 45 from the body.

The actual movement between the two is incredibly different. At BK, when moving, the foot takes all four parts of the beat to travel forward, "pulling" at the knee. On the "and" count, the toe is completely pointed straight down and the knee is extended forward, giving off that knee impression. (This following part never actually made sense to me, but it was how it was taught to me and I'm sure I am missing something...) At Cavaliers, the four parts of the beat are spent rolling the back heal upward, and nothing else. This is what confused me, because it doesn't seem like they would be traveling between the beat(which they obviously do). A visual tech at Cavies told me once "yes, Cavaliers are known for having some of the best toe height in DCI, but we are more proud that we have THE BEST roll up in DCI." So basically, a Cavalier would take a step forward with the front foot, and "e and uh" would roll the heal upward and extend the knee forward, while the weight remained over that back leg. Then on "two," they "flick" the read forward, toes high, and the process starts again on the other foot.

It's my opinion (which also could be wrong...I'm way too afraid of fights on DCP) that this is why many people say Cavalier technique is different between one marcher to another, yet DCI still scores them very high. A visual instructor, one of the best in the activity in my opinion, told me once that there are two types of choreography in drum corps....visual and dance. The difference was that a visual everyone would do the same "image," so all of the images would match. Dance, rather, is based on "effort." So if everyone is putting the same "effort" into it, even if the angles are different, it is right. A visual would be "everyone point your left leg at a 45," and therefore the person going at a 55 would be wrong. A dance would be "everyone lift your leg as high as it can go." So everyone lifts their leg, and because of flexibility it's angles all over the place...but everyone is doing the exact same thing, because they are going to their absolute limit. And I am fairly certain (again, speculation) that DCI judges are trained to know the difference and judge for what it is supposed to be.

So going back to Cavaliers, because everyone's knees are at different heights from the ground and bodies are built differently, this is a matter of "effort," as the angle of a knee at the mid point of heel flat and heel as high as it can go is going to look very different between each individual marcher.

K, I've been writing too much. Time to get back to work. Man, I like visual too much....

[horndevil]

bump...

just cause i wanna

anything new to add?

[general_tso_chicken53]

love how straight leg looks, hate how it feels

hate how bent knee/bicycle looks, like how it feels.

I think I like BD's technique best , but I never marched it, so I have no idea how to teach it.

[BigSnareline]

Straight leg looks generally bad all around.

[KingJoeVII]

Straight leg looks generally bad all around.

sorry,

now that I got that out of my system, I am very interested in drumline movement and how exactly it differs from hornline movement. Not crab stepping, but forwards and backwards...what are some of the techniques they teach you?

[euponitone]

Straight leg looks generally bad all around.

Lol...those devils really cant march can they...

(not sure if they use straight leg per-se, but it looks pretty close to me.....)

[Buick]

I have a few friends that march(ed) Cavaliers, and I went to a camp a long time ago. My impression of why they are similar to BK is the use of the knee. They really embrace knees a lot more than most corps. The forward may not be as noticeable to some people, but the backwards especially. The nice thing about the knee bend, from what I've seen working with visual programs at a few schools and being in a few drum corps, is that it blends very nicely with a plie jazz run. If you're doing a straighter leg jazz run, like BD, obviously it wouldn't, but I know a few corps that march straight leg and jazz run in plie. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's definitly more noticeable when your end points have their knees bent because they are bookin it. A lot of corps have just gotten really good at either masking that, or working it in so that it looks intentional.

That's what we did last year when I was in Reading Buccaneers. We would prep the jazz run on the last count of the previous move by pointing the toe and bending the knee, and then proceeding to haul ###. If you saw our show it started out with everyone jazz running (which we defined as a 4-5 step) in succession from a halt, where at 180bpm we would go to a plie on count 7 then push into the first step. We made it look intentional as far as I know. And regular marching was straight leg and backing up was Cadets style heel-to-toe (for slow tempos.)