Every Blue Day during sixth period, more than 60 focused freshmen are seen marching in unison across the expansive carpet-covered floor of M101 in the music building and practicing touching their toes on the ground.
They clap their hands and count in rhythm, in sync with the echoing metronome in the background. At the front of the room is percussion director Sean Clark while visual coach Olina Ing and visual caption head Timothy McAfee give the students occasional tips on their feet positioning.
Marching Band P.E. is taken by all marching band freshmen in the fall semester as their way to earn P.E. credit. The class is geared toward improving their marching performance technique during the marching season from early August to early November.
The class was created to meet state standards for Physical Education. and to ensure skills used in marching band are taught and learned correctly; since there is a high level of coordination involved in the activity, the class gives freshmen more practice to perform well in their show.
Like the usual P.E. classes, the period usually starts with a warmup to prepare students for drills. In this class, however, warmups focus on stretching the muscles specifically engaged for marching band performance.
“In our last class we were working on, we knew that tendus were in a lot of our body movement, so we took a longer stretch,” Clark said. “We spoke about bringing attention to the moments where you extend your leg or point your foot.”
After the warmup, the color guard breaks away with their coaches for specialized training, while the winds and percussion work on drill, visual fundamentals or choreography, as well as engaging in conditioning such as running to strengthen their bodies.
When time and weather permits, the winds and percussion go to the football field to practice marching skills. The field provides clear yard lines, providing students benchmarks in their vision as they focus on their 8:5 step technique — marching eight steps to cover exactly five yards.
“Marching band is a very new thing for freshmen as most of us have not done anything related to marching before,” freshman clarinet player Luca Perfetto said. “Because we are rehearsing and playing on the same field as experienced players, we need to learn a lot more, especially the fundamentals. Marching band P.E. helps a lot with that.”
When the band has busier weeks, often packed with several nighttime rehearsals and a full-day show on Saturdays, the class allows freshmen to have free time to catch up on homework and frontload their work for the coming week.
“The main goal is to make sure they’re successful in their first year of marching band,” Clark said. “The first time you experience something, obviously it won’t be great. But the next time you do it, and through training, there’s excellence built there, and then hopefully confidence, which is what we’re aiming to do in the marching band.”
