I was reading an insightful post by Gray Cook recently: http://graycook.com/?p=791 It reminded me of teaching drum corps in many ways:

Practical activities employ functional patterns, but always offer a variety of daily twists that produce adaptability by offering a wide array of perception.

I am teaching a group of 150 members who rehearse 6-10 hours per day for 90 straight days. Despite all these hours of work, they only perform a 10-minute show. Thus, my task is to provide them with functional, practical instruction while also continuously challenging them with daily twists to enhance their ability to perceive.

Our collective opinion was that we talked more movement than we actually taught. We loved the sounds of our authoritative coaching voices.

Yes! I need to constantly remind myself of this. Here’s how a typical scenario might span out:

“Drumline, Play this part of the music.”

*The line plays it, 10 times in a row without any stopping for instruction or comment.*

“Okay, great. You just learned more about how to play that part correctly than I could ever tell you in words.”

This also reminds me of the “macro-micro-macro” approach from Chris Spealler on the CrossFit Journal: http://journal.crossfit.com/2010/09/cpc-macromicro.tpl