# data[].attributes.body
As an incoming freshman I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I signed up for the university marching band. My thought process was that it was just band so it couldn't be that hard, right? Wrong. The first day of practice we were told not to bring our instruments which I thought was weird. We spent the whole day learning how to do the step. There are a lot of things to think about like, stopping at the top, pointing the toes, keeping your thigh at a 45 degree angle and of course staying in time and in line. It took a whole day of practice for me to start to feel confident in my ability to march. I still looked terrible next to the upperclassmen but at least I could march in a straight line and follow the directions that were being yelled at me. The next day we were told to bring our instruments. I thought finally, we will actually be able to play and march like a real band. When I started marching and playing at the same time I couldn't do it. We weren't even playing a song just holding one note and I couldn't do both. This was very frustrating because not 24 hours ago I was feeling good about my marching.

This situation is a great example of The Resource Theory of attention. This theory states that there is limited amount of attention for which all the activities that we are doing compete for. We can participate in multiple things at the same time if they don't exceed the attention capacity. Because marching was a new skill it took almost all of my attention, so adding an instrument into the mix exceeded my attentional capacity. This forced me to decide to focus on one task or the other. No matter how hard I tried to play and march I could only focus on marching or playing; I couldn't do both. Luckily I figured it out with a lot of practice, this is what the picture below shows.

# data[].attributes.body
If you are walking by the marching band field around 3:45 on a fall afternoon you might hear an old man yelling "8 to 5" and "ball of the foot on the center of the yard line" at a group of sweaty college kids. As a member of the band I hear these phrases a lot, they are used to keep everyone in a line as they move down the field. Staying in line is critical for a marching band; without it the shapes in the show wouldn't look correct. There are two main types of marching in each show. The main difference between them is speed. The majority of marching we do is relatively slow. There are five main components to marching, locking the back leg, toe point, having the raised leg at a 45 degree angle, stepping the correct distance and "stopping at the top" as we like to call it. Because we march at this slower pace, most of the time our alinement is good and so is the form for most people. This all changes when we do the second type of marching. This second type is called run on which only happens in the pregame show. It has the same mechanics as the "normal" marching but it is almost at twice the speed. To get on the field you go out in lines of four through the percussion and proceed to your spot. This is one of the hardest things to master because it is so fast and there are a lot of things to watch out for.

I now know that this represents the speed accuracy trade off. Fitts' Law implies there is an inverse relationship between the accuracy and speed of the movement. The trade off in accuracy can be seen in the form and alignment during run on. In both cases it is worse when compared to the slower marching. In addition most of the mistakes that are made are during this time in the show because of the increased speed.

This video helps to show the slower, normal marching and the faster run on pace in a stationary practice session.

# data[].attributes.body
Before school starts each year there is a week long tryout. This is where they learn how to march and by the end of the week, they either make the band or are cut. As upperclassmen we are expected to help teach the freshman all of the steps and correct form. Every year I have a hard time teaching the freshman because I can't come up with the right words. I try to explain what to do but eventually I end up just showing them. This physical act helps me find the words to explain what I just did more than teach them what to do. I couldn't explain what to do because marching is in my procedural memory. This means it is an automatic skill for me so I can do it very easily and I don't have to think about it.

I thought this picture was helpful because it shows an upperclassmen, the one with the whistle, instructing a freshman on the marching step.

# data[].attributes.body
Because almost every week we learn a new show, most of them aren't memorized. We generally march with a flip folder that has all of our music and moves written in it. This is nice because you don't have to stress about memorizing shows. When we travel outside of Camp Randall, it is mandatory to memorize the show. Usually we have a longer time to prepare the show so we have many run throughs to get the show down, however, we do have limited time in the day to practice. Marching isn't something that you can practice when ever you want because you need the whole band and a field to get something out of it. One thing that many people do  before the show is listen to the music of the show and run through their moves. This consists of playing through your part with out a physical instrument and thinking about your moves and how they line up with the music. This is called mental practice, which is defined as the active cognitive rehearsal of a physical skill in the absence of performance of the full skill.

The type of mental practice I described above is a mixture of internal and external imagery. I use internal imagery when I am thinking about landmarks on the field and where I need to be in comparison to them. For example, we use the hash marks on the field. When you march by them, you should hit it with the ball of your foot. I use external imagery when I think about what part of the routine I am in. For example, if I am apart of the W in Wisconsin, or at the point of an arrow. Both of these help me perform my show better because even though I can't physically practice, I am thinking about my show and where I need to be.

I included these pictures because it shows a performance where I used my flip (bottom right), a performance where I didn't use my flip (top at Lambeau), and what my flip looks like (bottom left).

# data[].attributes.body
One interesting fact is that I play the flügelhorn and there are only eight of us in the whole band. When I was auditioning, I played the trumpet but the flügelhorn players pulled people they thought were good marchers to have an individual audition. This was enticing to me because as a flügelhorn, you are guaranteed to march every show which the trumpets can not offer. As the leader of the flügelhorns this year, I was tasked with the challenge to find the best freshman marchers on the first day and pull them over for an audition (see picture below). This is hard because we only have three days to decide who will make it and be in the next show. It's also hard because someone may look really good the first day, but then they plateau and people catch up.

Magill (8e) explains there is a relationship between motor abilities and stages of learning. They explain that the abilities needed to perform a skill in the beginning are different from those needed at the end. This means when someone is first learning how to march certain abilities are more important. When they have learned the style and have practice, a different set of abilities are important to perform the skill. This helps explain why it is hard to figure out who is going to be the best marcher at the beginning. They might not have the highest abilities needed in the beginning so they don't look as good right away. The opposite thing could happen where someone who has a high ability in the beginning will look really good on the first day but not in the end. This happens a lot so it is helpful that we have three days to watch them march and then decide who will make it.

This picture shows the upperclassmen evaluating the freshman on their marching.