How to march

During marching band there is so much work and time put into it. Most of it is even before school starts, usually the first week in August we start working. It starts with band camp, to the “basics”. The basics include several things that we use all marching band season, and out of season. And it carries with us most of the time no matter if we are on the field or in practice or just going to class.

The first thing you will learn is upper body; it is probably one of the easiest but most important thing we learn during basics. You have to keep your upper body facing the sideline and perfectly straight unless you are specifically told not to. It’s usually really easy unless we are doing an “8-5” facing the sideline. Most of the time it is really easy to tell if you are facing the wrong direction with your instrument. With some instruments it hurts to face the sideline, like flutes, we have to keep it straight all the time.

Then you learn how to stay in step which is the second most important thing in marching band. Being out of step is probably the worst thing you can do as a member of a marching band. If someone is out of step it is really easy to tell. So you have to really focus on staying in time even if that means not playing the music.

The next thing we learn is how to forward march; forward marching is the easiest thing to do. You pop your knee out on the “& of count 8” and take a step on count 1.  It might seem like you don’t even have to work on that, but there’s more to it than just taking one simple step. You have to keep your upper body straight towards the front with perfect posture.

The most important thing to forward marching is you can not bounce when marching! Or else it makes the whole form look funky. So upper body has to stay straight and stiff, and you roll through the step. It’s not like just walking normally, your heel hits the ground first and its one smooth motion. It can’t be choppy.

Then you will learn is how to back march, this one is a little more complicated. In order to back march you have to have a lot of balance. To start out instead of popping out your knee on the “& of 8” you have to get up on your toes. It’s kind of like tip toeing backwards, but harder. Your legs have to stay straight and you have to keep your weight evenly distributed between your feet or else you will lose your balance and probably fall over when we close.

Closing is hard to do back marching, because you are up on your toes, so you have to put your feet down softly or it will throw you off (Even upper classman lose their balance so don’t feel bad is you do). But with back marching, just like forward marching, it is even more important not to bounce. It look even worse when you bounce going back compared to going forward.

So all in all it is actually pretty difficult to be a marcher in a marching band. We just make it seem easy because most of us have done it for multiple years, and we really try our best to help the freshmen who can’t march, because we are like a family and it’s our job to help and take care of each other.