No matter how many hours a day you practice, there still doesn’t every seem to be quite enough time! The best units are those that learn that sometimes, working HARDER means working SMARTER. Use these 5 strategies to maximize your practice time!
1. “Gush ‘n Go!”
Let’s do some math. Your “average” break during drill team practice is 5 minutes, right? “Take 5!” you hear constantly. But after you get everyone back on the floor and drilling again, we’re willing to bet that 5 minutes is more like 8-9 minutes. So let’s call that 10 minutes per break. Now, imagine you’re snapping and popping and really hitting it hard. You take 10 minutes off and it’ll take another 10 minutes to fire back up to that high level. Now, your 5 minute break has cost you 20 minutes. You take 2 breaks per practice because, well, it’s only 5 minutes, right? Now you’ve effectively burned 40 minutes. Let’s say your average practice is 2 hours long. By taking just 2 “5-minute” breaks, you’ve gone from having 2 hours of solid drill time to just barely over an hour. Now, multiply this by, let’s say, 5 days a week. That’s OVER THREE HOURS per week you’ve spent NOT drilling. Now multiply that by a whole season and you’ll have spent a ton of literally 24-hour DAYS just “taking 5.”We operate on a system of “Gush ‘n Go” breaks. You fall out, you run to your water source, you hydrate thoroughly, and you run back into your spot. This process should take no more than 1-2 minutes and should involve active motion 100% of the time. This eliminates down-time AND keeps the team focused.
2. Practice Outside of Practice
If you wanted to be the star basketball player, would you only touch a ball during practice? If you wanted to become the first chair player in the band, would you only play your instrument during class? Of course not. You would do everything you could OUTSIDE of practice to come prepared to focus on the team or the band or whatever metaphor you want to choose. For some reason, we treat drill as something we can only do during practice. Now, we aren’t talking about spinning rifles at home. There are plenty of habits you can implement to make sure practice time is team time and not individual time. Set the expectation, for instance, that each cadet perform 25 repetitions of each rifle manual movement found on the drill card each day. If we’re being honest, you’re already coming to the JROTC area and may or may not be doing productive things in that time. Make it a game: get a partner and for the first 5 reps, respectfully correct one another. Then, for the next 20 reps, challenge each other to see who can do them the sharpest and most precise. Walk down the hall with good posture. Sit up straight in class. Flank down the aisles at the grocery store. You must be willing to be a nerd about getting better at drill. When each member is prepared BEFORE practice, you have more time to spend working on things as a team instead of remediating individual skills.
3. Plan Your Practice
Many teams come to the drill deck and decide on the spot what to work on. When you do this, you have no idea how long it’ll take to meet the goal and you may be wasting valuable time deciding what to do instead of DOING it. Your practices should be scheduled and daily goals should be set in advance. Have a plan for if you accomplish your goals with time to spare. Have a plan if you don’t quite get everything you need done accomplished. Post and communicate the plan. Brief the plan before during and after practice. If you know how your time should be spent, you’ll know if you’re spinning your wheels or really making progress. Begin with the end in mind. By the end of practice, what do you want to see the team able to accomplish? Now structure your goals to reach this goal. Goal-oriented practice is effective practice.
4. Start On Time
When one of our Coaches says their practice begins at 1530, they mean, “Drill Team, Attention!” at 1530 and NOT show-up-grab-your-stuff-change-your-clothes-use-the-head-take-roll at 1530. Allot a reasonable amount of time before practice, given your school location, to do the following: leave class, put away your things, change into proper clothing, draw rifles, take roll, etc. This way, when practice begins, you know it’ll be actual time on the drill deck. Do everything you need to do BEFORE practice starts. Many teams burn hours a week on roll call and getting ready when the best teams have done all this in advance of the designated start-time. You want to minimize your time prepping and maximize your time DRILLING.
5. Eliminate Distractions
What does this mean? Well, a few things. Firstly, no cell phones should be at practice. This doesn’t mean putting them in your pocket. It means ensuring at the start of the season that all parents and/or guardians have the instructor’s number and then collecting phones in a single location before practice. Every time you glance at your phone is a moment you’re losing focus on drill. Besides, you don’t need to worry about Mom needing to get a hold of you because she already has the instructor’s phone number handy to make sure you get any emergency messages, right? It’s hard but lose the phones. Another major distraction is sitting down. Yes, sitting down. We like to say that sitting down is the enemy of getting back up. When you sit, you naturally tune out and lose focus. Avoid it at all costs. Lastly, avoid extended breaks (notice a trend) that allow for conversation to deviate from drill-related and productive discussion. If you notice it happening, immediately move to stop it. Remaining focused means you’ll spend no time RE-focusing the team towards the goal!
We hope this information is a good start! We want to hear from you via our Facebook page, our Instagram account (@drillteamdynamics), and via our website here!
Leave a Reply