Marching after Midnight

[CourtOfHonorMember]

I once knew this kid who really wanted to make the leaders happy. Well, the caption head told him, "When ever you mess again from now on just automatically drop and do ten." So when one of the other instructors was leading us the kid messed up, so he started to drop and do ten. The instructor was like, "What are you doing?" The kid replied, "I messed up, so I was doing push ups." The instructor said, "I don't waste time with such things. Back to the music." Talk about mixed messages. Poor kid!

[madscout96]

On the subject of pushups, I'm not sure that the physical act of doing a pushup in and of itself helped me correct my mistakes either. But I think it was more than just the physical act of doing it that made it effective. When I did pushups I felt that it partly was a way of letting the staff and your fellow members know that you acknowlege your mistake and are trying to make it better.

Did anyone's corps ever administer pushups for the whole corps minus the one person who broke a huge rule? And he has to stand there and watch his whole corps do pushups for HIM? Now that's brutal.

[84BDsop]

I've never believed (and still, absolutely, militantly, do not believe) in pushups, etc. as punishment. I always would hand out punishments that either helped the ensemble, or made the corps move more efficiently, and tried to encourage other section leaders to do the same. For instance, a particular guy in the contra line was consistently late for afternoon chuck truck duty last summer, so his punishment was to assist morning crew as well 5 days for every one day he was late. That way, he was punished while another job in the corps got done faster.

On the flip side of things, if a member of the section was blowing horn moves, stepoffs, etc., the "punishment" from me would never be pushups. IMO, doing pushups to improve marching is like going fishing to improve your neorusurgery skills. Instead, I'd take time out of my breaks and work with them on whatever the problem was.

Food for thought: If you're a dance teacher or a music teacher, and one of your students is messing up, are you going to give them pushups to make them improve their performance? Or are you going to work with them on the problem area? I probably did under 50 pushups in my entire drum corps career. When I messed up, I didn't hit the ground. I worked on what I messed up.

Oddly enough, when my corps was all about giving pushups, laps, and "celebrating" (i.e. 2000) we sucked. Once we started realizing that the best way to help a situation was to actually isolate and work on the situation itself (i.e. 2005) we got good. Coincidence?

Well, keep in mide the differing mindset here. We in BD never had 'shups handed out by the staff, at leastnot that I remember. We did it to ourselves...not as punishment, but to acknowledge to our fellows that we had made a mistake. We'd do the drill or play a section....finish it off, and when the staff saif relax, those who felt the need dropped and pounded them out...quite often we'd be done before the staff was done discussing any changes amongst themselves.

if you don't fart around and get 'em done, it doesn't interfere with practice.

'Course, that also depends on the corps' prociciency level....if you;re BD in 1974, it may get in the way....but when you;re BD in 1984, it doesn;t hurt at all.

[Galen]

Did anyone's corps ever administer pushups for the whole corps minus the one person who broke a huge rule? And he has to stand there and watch his whole corps do pushups for HIM? Now that's brutal.

Once or twice. I remember at Pioneer, it was customary for the guard girls to kiss various guys just before the show. One day, all but one horn player had to run because one of the vis staff saw that he still had lipstick on his cheek. I think that tradition died after that.

[Carl306]

How about running to where another section of the corps is practicing and telling them what you did wrong. Or even worse, in places like C-Ville OH, where more than one corps is at the school. Running to another corps drumline and telling them what you did.

Nice

"Air Only"

"DAHHH!"

"What part of air only dont you understand?"

"Sorry!"

"Once again, AIR ONLY!"

"DAH!"

"25, on the ground, lets go!"

*after pushups*

"For the third time, air only."

"DAH!"

"Go run and tell the drumline you're stupid. now!"

Even better

in 03 i can remember times the staff would say something like, go run and pick me a flower. if you got back too quickly they would tell you that it wasn't pretty enough and to go get another one.

or the infamous (among the members anyways) - see that stop sign over there? nooo... well you will when you get there.

Another variation to this one: "See that telephone pole all the way out there?" "Yea" "Go run to the next one!"

[liebot]

I love punishment. It's fun. Staff should do it more often, as long as it doesn't interfere with practice too much.

[Scadescontra]

In 2005, during All-Days we made an agreement with our brass caption head not to use the f-bomb on the field. The punishment if we did was that the whole hornline had to run a lap after ensemble rehearsal at the end of the night. The first night was 2 laps, the second night was 3 laps, the third night was 3 again, then the 4th night was 6!! So after a long day of rehearsal we had to run a mile and a half, but we made it fun by singing and telling jokes to keep moral high...after that we only did one or two at the most....

[DClifer06]

I love punishment. It's fun. Staff should do it more often, as long as it doesn't interfere with practice too much.

You're sick

But some can be really funny

Edited March 10, 2006 by DClifer06

[harmonics101]

One of our snares left his drum out at a show site...his punishment: He was sentenced to field lining crew for a week....

now, ask yourself?How does that make us field liners feel?...we are punished everyday we get up an hour early to line a field....

[PhantomFanT10]

I actually thought stuff like this would have been harsher in corps (I have never marched). But it seems less harsh than my HS band...pushups were the norm and I recall a day where the entire trumpet section did 1000+ easily (not exagerating). It was one of those things where, we could do what was being asked of us but for some reason, no one was into it. 20 for the whole section at every pause between exercises in basics block really tends to make people not want to be unfocused ever again. We had an official count of how many pushups we did over the course of the season as a section and it was too high that the kid lost track. We did 10-20 everytime we blew something we knew but no one forced anyone to do it. It was more of a physical reminder of why it's not cool to screw up. And everyone took it as such. Looking back, a lot of it was probably a waste of time in at least half of the instances, but being HS, it did instill self-discipline like none other. I'm assuming it's not as harsh in other bands. And I think the maturity of the members of corps would mean that everyone is on task to the point where punishment would be reserved only for extreme cases. I'm glad to hear that my days of non-stop pushing are over (although I enjoyed pushing...even as a section leader).

The mouthpiece flying out idea was awesome...we just used ungodly amounts of pushups for that. Like "Push until I get tired of watching you."

We had a kid miss a sectional and his total of pushups was over a thousand just for him. He, like the guy mentioned above, spend every break in drill, every water break, and a while after doing nothing but pushing. And he wasn't late ever again.

Edited March 10, 2006 by PhantomFanT10