Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Judge Training”
In recent decades, military drill teams—particularly those performing exhibition drill—have increasingly adopted visual elements commonly associated with pageantry arts. Audiences often see this overlap and assume the two are functionally equivalent. They are not.
Although exhibition drill may borrow tools from pageantry arts, the two are not the same discipline. They differ fundamentally in purpose, authority, design intent, and evaluation philosophy.
For decades, the military drill and ceremonies community has struggled with a persistent and often unspoken problem: who is actually qualified to judge drill and ceremonies.
Judging regulation drill requires a fundamentally different evaluative lens than judging exhibition or performance-based disciplines. When that distinction is not explicitly defined, even experienced judges can unintentionally reward behaviors that fall outside regulation doctrine. This article clarifies what regulation drill is asking you to evaluate, what it is not, and how to avoid common visual traps that distort scoring. Regulation …
In regulation drill, excellence is not demonstrated by visibility—it is demonstrated by compliance. Yet in competitive environments, a recurring behavior has emerged: teams introduce subtle pauses before flanking movements, exaggerate foot sweeps on facing movements, or add slight timing accents that are not prescribed by doctrine. These additions are often intentional, designed to “stand out” to judges when technical execution …
Time and space. Drill competitions across the country are underway each school year. School campuses are taken over for one day out of the year with different drill decks on various grassy fields, the football field, and even inside the gym and field house.
So, just what are judges looking for? In general, they don’t know. Drill meet judges are not trained, they are briefed about an hour before the competition. Some get their briefing a day prior. It’s still a briefing, it’s not training since no one involved has enough time to readily digest and process the new information and then practice applying the info. This includes drill meets that I’ve run.
We all have certain knowledge and experiences that define how we view circumstances around us. That’s called our bias. A bias isn’t necessarily bad but if you only rely on your knowledge and experiences and are closed off to learning something new, that is the bad part.
When I was a cadet at New Mexico Military Institute, we had a yearly inspection competition between each company. It was called the Sally Port Inspection. A sally port is a controlled entryway to a fort or even a prison. In the image below is the entry point or Sally Port for Hagerman Barracks. What cadets call the “Box” at …
What argument would this be? It’s about using the other two service manuals. It gets a bit complicated, but bear with me as we go through why the AFPAM has so little information and what to do about it. We need to understand that all three drill and ceremonies manuals are lacking in certain aspects and using ones best judgment …