Drill Team Technique

To Pin or not to Pin, That is the Question

DrillMasterInstructional Leave a Comment

It’s all about Purposeful Movement “You must pin your free hand!” Not necessarily. In this picture below, a still from one of Adam Jeup’s (pronounced “jewp”) training videos, you can see that Adam has purposefully pinned his right arm while executing a rifle toss with his left. There is a reason he did this: “military flavor,” enhanced power to the …

Muscle Memory

DrillMasterCommentary, Drill Teams, Honor Guard, Instructional Leave a Comment

When executing drill and ceremonies training do you know that you are training your muscles to feel “right” when they reach a certain point? At right is a color bearer’s movements from Attention to Port Arms. Muscle memory helps me get my left forearm to the exact position in which it needs to be each time I assume this position: …

Learning by “Word of Mouth”

DrillMasterAsk DrillMaster, Commentary, Drill Teams, Honor Guard, Instructional 4 Comments

This year’s seniors were taught by last year’s seniors who were taught by the previous year’s seniors, etc., etc., etc. This is common in high schools across the country- unfortunately. No one reads the manual and the idea creeps in that we do it this way, meaning that at our school, we do “XYZ” like this. Where “XYZ” could be …

15-Count Manual Arms and Moving One’s Head

DrillMasterAsk DrillMaster, Drill Teams, Instructional Leave a Comment

A question I received: how can you not move your head when your doing the 15-Count Manual of Arms? Answer: The 15-Count Manual of Arms (the command is: “15-Count, Manual, ARMS“) accomplished either stationary or while marching is, from Order Arms: Right Shoulder (1, 2, 3, 4) Left Shoulder (5, 6, 7, 8) Present Arms (9, 10, 11) Order Arms (12, …

Why do we Practice the way we do?

DrillMasterAsk DrillMaster, Commentary, Instructional Leave a Comment

Sometimes students have a hard time understanding why it is we spend so much time working on individual skills, when it’s easy to see that most of the team can do the skills. I tell them it’s a lot like a sports team. Every experienced baseball player has skills – they already know how to run, how to hit, and …