How to Teach Exhibition Drill

You may not “know the drill”…

If you have my books, Exhibition Drill for the Military Drill Team, Vols I & II, you probably have an idea of the process of writing drill, (here is a simple “Boxes of Three” method for creating drill) but might not understand the application of taking what has been written on a DrillMaster Routine Mapping Tool (RMT, available for download here)  and then having your team actually march what was designed. The key to this is the grid that I developed and put on each of the RMTs. This helps us translate what is on paper to what is on the drill deck.

Read Here to learn the Eight Things Every Driller Needs.

Cones

Painting a giant grid on a parking lot at your school is not necessary, but you can do it. It is just as easy to create the, in this case platoon/flight, drill deck by using cones. When I teach, I use small cones that are designed for sports and if they get stepped on or run over, they just pop right up.

On the Drill Team (100′ X 100′) RMT, there are numbers across the bottom of the grid (1-20) and letters going up the left side (A-U). You will want to identify your cones with the same numbers and letters. You can use cones that are all the same color or, you can color-code certain areas of the drill pad to show where the “Power Section”.

Lay out your cones in a large L-shape. If you choose to use the color coding, you can lay the cones out like in this picture, below. The red ones on the side are a little difficult to see and I did not lay out all of the cones, but this is the general idea.

Before the team goes out onto your practice area with the new cones laid out, go over the routine’s drill sets (each page is called a “set”) with the team so they have a general familiarity of what is happening. Now, go to the field and begin setting the team up to enter (read this article about The Seven Parts of an Exhibition Drill Routine).

Once at the entrance, being to set everyone up in their positions of the first set, march it a couple times. If an armed team, learn the drill unarmed first, then add the equipment (rifle, guidon, sword/saber). If unarmed, learn the drill first and add the body work (hand, arm, head torso, leg and foot work). If only the drill is written and the equipment/body work needs to be added to each page, as you create the equipment work, write it down.

Continue to learn each set learning the drill first, and then layering over it body movement and/or equipment

Are you a soloist, tandem, squad/element? The same applies to you.