Teaching parade marching and corners

[nafmeadmin]

We are marching in a parade in a couple of weeks. My marching band’s corners are horrible! How do you go about teaching them how to turn a corner. I stand on the of the row and they can do it. I step away and the students on the end are veering in towards the rest of the row. Any help would be appreciated.

[nafmeadmin]

I take some upper classmen and show it in class extremely slow so they can see how the inside works and the outside works. Letting them see it in slow motion does tend to help.

[nafmeadmin]

Parade turns take lots of practice. We use ropes to help, so the students can better see how much (or how little) they need to step to keep the line straight.

[nafmeadmin]

What type of turns are you doing? In Junior High, many years ago, we did both pinwheel and square corner turns. For both the pinwheel if you have them watch the people around them and keep the line straight it should be no problem as long as they have the picture in their heads. For square turns it was always a matter of knowing that you are just marching next to a new person until it was time to turn and than you are lined back up with your old partner. I think the key is to have your best marchers on the outside of the formation to be a guide.

Hope this helps it has been a while since I parade marched.

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