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Cadets/Why so long to compete this year


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This is mildly off topic, but has drum corps in general been starting later? I seem to remember late May early June shows back when DCM was around. I see in 1991 we started on June 9th in West Bend WI. By today, we were on our 7th show.

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Back when I marched in Garden State Circuit in the late 70's, we started around mid june and finished with either NJ Legion or VFW labor day weekend.......

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back when I marched we usually started the second weekend (sometimes friday) in june. Madison, Pioneer and sometimes Blue Stars would start a week before with what used to be a judges evaluation (practice) show.

However the Season used to end on the third saturday in August and now it's the second saturday.

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It really comes down to several things.

1) Corps aren't as localized anymore, therefore they can't really start rehearsing on a regular basis until school is over

2) and on that note, school ends in June for a lot of high schools (at least on the east coast)

3) Shows are more complex and difficult than they were 'back in the day.' It just takes longer to learn them. Is this a bad thing? Not in my opinion because the 'Wow factor' of a really hard show done really well outweighs the tradeoff of having a shorter season.

As for the reason the Cadets are so 'late' coming out of the gate, it's probably because that after last year they realized it would be better to take an extra week to get their act together so they wouldn't have to stand still at the end of their show for the last minute and so they could get their props working correctly and under control.

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Two things about everydays always crack me up:

1) The mess in the gym - moving around every night helps curtail this, but when leaving your home from everydays....frankly, its disgusting, lol.

2) I couldn't imagine spending 4 weeks+ doing 5-hour blocks at Cadets, I'll admit that their three 5-hour blocks are probably tougher than my four 3-hour blocks were. However, I don't know how you couldn't have the show done in this time frame, that in itself would make it that much more frustrating to be a member.

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Two things about everydays always crack me up:

1) The mess in the gym - moving around every night helps curtail this, but when leaving your home from everydays....frankly, its disgusting, lol.

2) I couldn't imagine spending 4 weeks+ doing 5-hour blocks at Cadets, I'll admit that their three 5-hour blocks are probably tougher than my four 3-hour blocks were. However, I don't know how you couldn't have the show done in this time frame, that in itself would make it that much more frustrating to be a member.

Unless it's something new this year they don't do three 5-hour blocks during spring training. Last year it was more along the lines of two 4-hour blocks and a 3 hour block with variations on that here and there depending on what needed to be done.

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This is mildly off topic, but has drum corps in general been starting later? I seem to remember late May early June shows back when DCM was around. I see in 1991 we started on June 9th in West Bend WI. By today, we were on our 7th show.

Some of the older vets on here can recall seasons where the first competitive show was just before Memorial Day, and the last show typically in Mid Sept. Not entirely unheard of were the VFW and American Legion National Championships that generally took place in August, but on more than one occasion took place as late as October. Thus it was not uncommon for Corps to have as many as 12- 16 weeks in their field competitive season. Today, it's more like 7-9 weeks of competition.

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Some of the older vets on here can recall seasons where the first competitive show was just before Memorial Day, and the last show typically in Mid Sept. Not entirely unheard of were the VFW and American Legion National Championships that generally took place in August, but on more than one occasion took place as late as October. Thus it was not uncommon for Corps to have as many as 12- 16 weeks in their field competitive season. Today, it's more like 7-9 weeks of competition.

But...we competed primarily on weekends pre-DCI. The number of shows today seems to be roughly the same as when I marched in Garfield.

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One of Crossmen's winter weekend camps was canceled because we had a 20 foot snow storm that weekend. Weather does play a factor when it comes to Eastern Corps practices.

California and Florida have an advantage... it's mostly sunny and they can practice outside as opposed to Eastern corps who have to practice indoors most of the time.

Indoor football feilds are hard to come by around here unless you a Philadelphia Eagle!

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