Corps marching technique/style

[kickhaltsforlife]

I love those two pictures of BD and Cadets. I love how everyone is maxing out the toe height with cadets.

[fsubone]

Regardless of "mechanical superiority" the geometry of individual marchers legs will always make the 'Cavies' style look dirtier than straight-leg. Which is why I agree with you -- "looking" cleaner *is* cleaner.

I agree with you to a point. A huge part of the Cavaliers/SCV technique is that it eliminates the differences in leg length, geometry, what have you. We all had the exact set of checkpoints for every 16th note, whether you were 5'1" or 6'7". The guy in the Cavaliers picture is doing something really weird, where he's rolled his foot all the way up past vertical, where the actual technique dictates rolling up the back foot to a 90 degree bend at the platform of the foot, then moving it through to take the next step forward. Not saying one technique is better than the other, but I do prefer the Cavaliers style technique, not only for its health benefits over the other techniques, but for its ease of use and ease to clean, both technique wise and drill wise. If I remember correctly, during one point of FInals week in '09, I know popped a 9.9 in Individual Marching, so there must be something good going on with that technique, and it must be pretty clean

[soccerguy315]

To the first question, yeah, it's a little awkward the first time, and for most guys, there's a certain degree of trepidation the first time they tell you to try it. You actually crank your left leg over your right, into the new pathway. So you roll all the way through count 8 with your right foot forward, then move the left leg over, with the foot facing 90 degrees into the new direction. And to go left, yeah, one foot stays in the old direction, and the left leg and foot is facing to the left. It's just one of those things that takes practice to understand and grasp.

On stop and goes, or the variation on it, yes, the left foot lifts up just the slightest amount, then is placed back down. It's almost a re-plant, but not quite. At fast tempos, you can usually get away without lifting the foot up, as it's really a very small movement, but at slower tempos, it's required.

Any other questions, I'd be more than happy to answer for you

just wanted to let you know I saw this response and appreciate it... I will march around my living room some more to practice, lol.

[soccerguy315]

With the band I teach, we do a 'cheat' step on count 8 in your box example...we turn the right foot half way in the direction we are going on count 8 so that the next left is not trying to cross over a completely straight right foot. In your bottom 'stop and go', we leave the feet on the ground and do a lift kind of move to go from forward to back, going from a roll step forward to up on the toes backing up.

appreciate your insight on applying technique at the HS level too, MikeD.

[corpsband]

If I remember correctly, during one point of FInals week in '09, I know popped a 9.9 in Individual Marching, so there must be something good going on with that technique, and it must be pretty clean

It can be clean in the sense that the technique is implemented consistently performer to performer (which is what the field visual judge is assessing). But when you compare just the visual picture it looks "dirty" to me because the lines between hip and ground are all over the place. IMO modified straight leg presents a much more uniform lower body picture. I know it's just a preference and that both techniques are perfectly acceptable but IMO if it doesn't look the same, it's just not clean :-)

[fsubone]

just wanted to let you know I saw this response and appreciate it... I will march around my living room some more to practice, lol.

Glad to be of help. Marching around my living room in between camps is actually how I grasped the concept, and really got what they were saying down.

[vanguard87]

ok... I have been attempted this a few times, and have an issue. How do you go from marching forward into a right slide? Like, if you are doing the box exercise (or whatever name other people use for it, forward 8, right 8, back 8, back left 8 and you end up in the same spot that you started). If you roll through count 8 of the forward move, then your right knee is like, in the space that your left leg should be swinging through to take the first step to the right. Also seems awkward for a box to the left also on count 8+1, with the right knee pointed straight ahead b/c you already rolled through, and the left heel on the ground in the new direction. I like it a lot for changes of direction that are less sharp though, hrmph.

The technique I learned (in SCV, in the mid-80s, so YMMV) is to load your body weight onto the ball of your right foot (what they call the "platform" these days, I guess) on count 8-and, then pivot on that to change direction. That minimizes the amount of "friction" with the ground, but it's still much harder to slide right than to slide left. The key is to think of the pivot as coming from the hips, rather than thinking about your feet whipping around or whatever. The rule of thumb we were always told is that if you took a snapshot of count 8-and right before the pivot, you should not be able to tell a direction change is coming, and if you took a snapshot of count 1 after the pivot you should not be able to tell a pivot just happened. Cheating with the last step before the pivot or leaving the back foot in the "old" direction was a good way to get 25 push-ups.