Whether you are a soloist, part of a tandem, tetrad, or larger drill team, understanding and applying the concept of vocabulary in a visual performance is essential.
Visual Vocabulary
Arm, hand, and body movement, varied step technique, formations, and rifle manipulation can all be considered “words”. These “words” can be put into long and short phrases and the phrases can form paragraphs.
Word = A Movement
Phrase = A String of Movements
Paragraph = a String of Phrases, a Routine Segment
See the article The Seven Parts of an Exhibition Drill Routine for more on the segments of a routine.
The “Story”
See also Exhibition Drill Performance Levels.
Think of your routine as a short story. When you are first learning to write your story, you write with smaller words and concepts in short sentences. For example:
Beginning Level
Jane woke up this morning. Jane wore a red dress. Jane’s mother made her breakfast. Jane went to school.
There is nothing wrong with this beginning level writing when it describes what the writer wants to convey. After all, the writer is just beginning.
Intermediate Level
This morning Jane woke up with her alarm and put on a pretty red dress. Her mother made breakfast for the whole family and after eating and finishing getting ready, Jane went off to school.
Here, we see a bit more descriptive work as the writer writes more and understands
Advanced Level
It was a beautiful morning when Jane’s alarm clock went off at 6 am. She woke with a smile after such a restful night, ready to take on the day. She decided to wear her favorite red dress as her mother called for everyone to come to the table and eat a hearty breakfast. As the family sat down, her father was just coming in the back door after taking care of an issue with the fence. Now, Gilbert the dog would not be able to escape anymore. Breakfast finished, teeth brushed, lunches made, and now everyone was on their way to school and work. “See you later! Love you!” Jane called out as she headed out the door for school.
The Confusing Story
Your reader will have at least a sense of confusion if you write a disjointed story, a story with poor transitions between paragraphs, or a story that jumps between a beginning level paragraph and an advanced level paragraph.
Disjointed and Poor Transition
“There is no Dana, only Zuul” she said. “You must have a lovely singing voice” he said.
The carpenter will be here Monday.
Level Jumping
The sun was just breaking though the low-level clouds out on the ocean on this beautiful and slightly breezy early morning as Joe sat with his surfboard on the cold wet sand and waited for Jane to arrive.
Jane woke. Jane put on a red dress. Jane ate breakfast. Jane walked to the beach. Jane met Joe at the beach.
Joe was elated to see his Jane, the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. They met and embraced and then sat down to watch the seagulls overhead as the sun began to warm them.
Your Routine
Let’s tie-in the above with an exhibition routine. Layering is movement over movement, e.g., rifle work while marching.
- BeginningLevel writing has minimal layering. Everyone starts here! There is nothing wrong with this level.
- Marching at Port Arms.
- Marching with very simple arm and hand movement.
- Regulation drill movements (columns, flanks, etc.).
- The manual of arms while marching.
- IntermediateLevel writing has some layering.
- Marching while executing a stomp or other simple marching technique and working with your arms or rifle to create layered movement with some step technique and timing changes.
- AdvancedLevel writing has extensive and even complicated layering.
- Manipulating the rifle in very sophisticated ways and/or torso arm, hand, and head movement put together in different combinations while marching accompanied by intricate and varied step techniques, timing and direction changes.
With that information, let’s look again at Level Jumping in context.
Do you see how this does not flow well or make logical sense? You have only a few minutes to perform and you need to use them as effectively as possible.