Drill Team Startup

[Sgt.Pain]

I am thinking about starting up a drill team in my squadron, but I don't know to much about them. Except that they loo awesome doing cool drill movements that you don't normally do on the drill pad. Anybody have some suggestion? Like what are some simple drill patterns to start with? and how often do we need to practice? Also does the drill team commander give commands like a drill sgt. or does he just conduct it all and have the team memorize it?

[jimmydeanno]

Actually, all of the drill movements are what you do on the drill pad, normally. 

I think the first step is getting people excited about it.  Talk it up, gain interest, recruit members if you don't have enough, etc.

As for practice, to be competitive, you need to practice more often than not.  When I was a cadet, our drill team would practice every Saturday for about 6 hours for about 6 months and we never won region.  When I was organizing a cadet color guard, we'd practice twice per week for 3 hours - those cadets won the Region Competition.

The drill team commander does give commands.  The standard drill, they are given a card with commands to execute as quickly as possible.  The innovative drill, most teams go silent, but there are a few oral commands that are given for reporting, etc.

Your best bet would probably be to read through CAPM 52-4 (http://members.gocivilairpatrol.com/media/cms/M524_BA28735E30531.pdf) to get a feel for the competition.

[BillB]

Did the National Board drop the inovative portion of the competition?

[jimmydeanno]

Not yet.  But the innovative portion has to include real drill movements.  The days of the dancing, etc have been gone for years.  So, the cadets can do nifty formations, etc in the drill, but can't make up their own movements. 

[DBlair]

The days of the dancing, etc have been gone for years.

Ah, the memories. lol

[Майор Хаткевич]

The days of the dancing, etc have been gone for years.

Ah, the memories. lol

Kadet Kelly anyone? *shudders*

[DBlair]

If interested in starting a competition Drill Team, there are some important things that must be factored.

Firstly, does your unit have enough members? Keep in mind that it takes 13 Cadets (the same 13 Cadets each time) plus alternates, plus several members of support staff. Essentially, you'll need about 20 members to dedicate themselves to this team- and not neglect unit activities in the process. Cadets tend to get bored with all the work and training after a month or two. You need Cadets to show up to every practice so they know their place in the flight like second nature. Also, it is tough to practice innovative routines without everyone there.

Can your unit afford it? There is an incredible cost involved with having a drill team. This includes new uniforms, insignia, shoes, team PT uniforms, volleyball kneepads, competition registration, hotels, travel expense, and much more. To field a competitive team, expect to spend spend over $5k per each year your team competes- not including extra costs if you win and go to region and nationals. It is extremely expensive, and along with the high number of Cadets needed to field a team, is why many units often do not send drill teams to competition.

Before you start putting innovative routines together, start practicing just the standard drill moves to be sure each member can execute them with perfect precision and polish.

Also keep in mind that there are 7 events, and not all of them involve drill. You need to practice these other events as well and really be sharp with everything.


I'm not trying to discourage members from attempting to field a drill team, but people do need to know what they are in for if they attempt this.




(Former member of the famed NJ Dragon Drill Team back in the 1990s)

[Sgt.Pain]

If interested in starting a competition Drill Team, there are some important things that must be factored.

Firstly, does your unit have enough members? Keep in mind that it takes 13 Cadets (the same 13 Cadets each time) plus alternates, plus several members of support staff. Essentially, you'll need about 20 members to dedicate themselves to this team- and not neglect unit activities in the process. Cadets tend to get bored with all the work and training after a month or two. You need Cadets to show up to every practice so they know their place in the flight like second nature. Also, it is tough to practice innovative routines without everyone there.

Can your unit afford it? There is an incredible cost involved with having a drill team. This includes new uniforms, insignia, shoes, team PT uniforms, volleyball kneepads, competition registration, hotels, travel expense, and much more. To field a competitive team, expect to spend spend over $5k per each year your team competes- not including extra costs if you win and go to region and nationals. It is extremely expensive, and along with the high number of Cadets needed to field a team, is why many units often do not send drill teams to competition.

Before you start putting innovative routines together, start practicing just the standard drill moves to be sure each member can execute them with perfect precision and polish.

Also keep in mind that there are 7 events, and not all of them involve drill. You need to practice these other events as well and really be sharp with everything.


I'm not trying to discourage members from attempting to field a drill team, but people do need to know what they are in for if they attempt this.




(Former member of the famed NJ Dragon Drill Team back in the 1990s)

Thanks for these wise words Captain :-). I don't think I will be getting into the competitive side to drill teams. I just kind of wanted to have some fun doing cool drill patterns and such. Maybe eventually get into cometition. But its hard enough in my squadron to get anyone dedicated to anything other then the tuesday night meetings. As a side note though, what would you need volleyball kneepads for on a drill team??

[jimmydeanno]

If interested in starting a competition Drill Team, there are some important things that must be factored.

Firstly, does your unit have enough members? Keep in mind that it takes 13 Cadets (the same 13 Cadets each time) plus alternates, plus several members of support staff. Essentially, you'll need about 20 members to dedicate themselves to this team- and not neglect unit activities in the process. Cadets tend to get bored with all the work and training after a month or two. You need Cadets to show up to every practice so they know their place in the flight like second nature. Also, it is tough to practice innovative routines without everyone there.

Can your unit afford it? There is an incredible cost involved with having a drill team. This includes new uniforms, insignia, shoes, team PT uniforms, volleyball kneepads, competition registration, hotels, travel expense, and much more. To field a competitive team, expect to spend spend over $5k per each year your team competes- not including extra costs if you win and go to region and nationals. It is extremely expensive, and along with the high number of Cadets needed to field a team, is why many units often do not send drill teams to competition.

Before you start putting innovative routines together, start practicing just the standard drill moves to be sure each member can execute them with perfect precision and polish.

Also keep in mind that there are 7 events, and not all of them involve drill. You need to practice these other events as well and really be sharp with everything.


I'm not trying to discourage members from attempting to field a drill team, but people do need to know what they are in for if they attempt this.




(Former member of the famed NJ Dragon Drill Team back in the 1990s)

Thanks for these wise words Captain :-). I don't think I will be getting into the competitive side to drill teams. I just kind of wanted to have some fun doing cool drill patterns and such. Maybe eventually get into cometition. But its hard enough in my squadron to get anyone dedicated to anything other then the tuesday night meetings. As a side note though, what would you need volleyball kneepads for on a drill team??

One of the events of the competition is volleyball.  Knee pads are required safety items.

[jeders]

As a side note though, what would you need volleyball kneepads for on a drill team??

As he mentioned, there is more than just drill in the competition. There is PT, academic challenges, and even a volleyball competition.

Edit: jimmy beat me to it.

[DBlair]

Drill Team Events:

1) Inspection (In-depth uniform inspection)
2) Standard Drill (Standard commands/movements executed from a previously-unseen list of drill movements)
3) Innovative Drill (Memorized routine, executed almost entirely without commands)
4) Panel Quiz (Jeopardy-style quiz game)
5) Written Exam (100 Questions, testing Aerospace, Leadership, Current Events, CAP Knowledge, etc)
6) Volleyball (Indoor Volleyball)
7) Mile Run (Timed, 1 Mile Run)




Sidenote- As a unit, I'd suggest looking into developing a competition Color Guard instead- fewer members needed and much lower cost.

[HGjunkie]

Seems like a real expensive time consuming endeavor. An awesome, expensive time consuming endeavor. May have to look into fielding a squadron drill team.

[DBlair]

Seems like a real expensive time consuming endeavor. An awesome, expensive time consuming endeavor. May have to look into fielding a squadron drill team.

Since you are in my Group, you should know that starting this year (now that the recent Comp has passed) in Group 3, Drill Team will only be done as part of a Group Drill Team and Color Guards will be done by the units. Having a Drill Team at the Group-level is much more competitive as we can pull from ~25 units in our Group, selected the best Cadets for the team. Expect further information to be released soon.

[HGjunkie]

Forgot about the group Drill Team.

[Майор Хаткевич]

Seems like a real expensive time consuming endeavor. An awesome, expensive time consuming endeavor. May have to look into fielding a squadron drill team.

Since you are in my Group, you should know that starting this year (now that the recent Comp has passed) in Group 3, Drill Team will only be done as part of a Group Drill Team and Color Guards will be done by the units. Having a Drill Team at the Group-level is much more competitive as we can pull from ~25 units in our Group, selected the best Cadets for the team. Expect further information to be released soon.

Can units still choose to field a team to challenge the "official" group team?

[a2capt]

In the rare case that it could happen, that seems a bit exclusionary now, if a unit below the group level had enough, and the desire to do it's own and the group wouldn't allow it, and then only cherry pick it's people.

[Майор Хаткевич]

In the rare case that it could happen, that seems a bit exclusionary now, if a unit below the group level had enough, and the desire to do it's own and the group wouldn't allow it, and then only cherry pick it's people.

The thing that soured me on the whole event as a cadet was when one team would cannibalize the loosing one at wing in order to increase their chances of victory. Kinda makes the whole teamwork aspect go out the window.

[a2capt]

That is exactly where I was headed. It should be "the same" cadets, not a merging of cadets.  Otherwise it's really a group/wing only competition. When the politics tear up the intent. that just blows.

[Ron1319]

I'm ashamed at the content of this thread.  Drill team is about learning excellence in drill, not about the details of the competition.  Think big picture, people!  For reference, I was the Great Lakes Region team commander in 1997.  We worked for four years to beat Illinois at region competition to go to NCC and we were all very proud of our accomplishment.  I rejoined CAP recently and we were able to field an NCC team that did respectably well without having all of those problems!

To the OP (original poster), the nay saying is purely nuts and I can understand based on the contents of this thread why national is throwing their hands up in the air not understanding why more cadets do not get to participate in one of the greatest non-ES activities in the cadet program.  All of the reasons why you seem excited about it are exactly what excites me and why we took a team to NCC last year.  The talk of months of training and budget and all off topic entirely.  You need to encourage the cadets to prepare a great uniform, practice enough to go and have fun and enjoy the competition, and not sweat the details. 

I would be nothing short of astonished if any group were unwilling to make an allowance for a team to come and compete with fewer than the NCC required number of cadets.  We ran our group competition last year and we encouraged anyone to bring what they had and come learn about the competition.  We did not expect a brand new team to have an innovative routine.   At the CAWG "Cadet Programs Conference" last year, I ran into the same objections when I was trying to figure out if the rumors of us going uncontested at wing were true.  Alas, because of the same objections in this thread, there were multiple squadrons that were afraid to try.  They didn't know where to start when it came to an innovative routine.

My answer was simple.  Go out on the field, report in, report out, and go onto the next event.  Forget about innovative for the first year.  Work on the basic drill movements, academics and physical fitness.  You could still very easily walk away with a victory, especially with many levels of competition having so few teams competing.

The other possibility and the one that I would encourage the most would be to work with other squadrons in your group.  Not only would this be building STRONG bridges between squadrons and between cadet staffs, but it would also mean a more powerful team and better cadets.  We are doing exactly this (2nd practice on Dec 5th) and we're going to have cadets from 6 squadrons in the group and we're aiming for an all officer team at NCC this year.  This is a HUGE leap forward from the level of competition presented at NCC by CAWG in the past, and a huge stride forward for the group.  Is it the chicken or the egg?  A year ago when we joined the squadron there were no cadet officers and now we have 5.   There were few in the group and now we're looking at fielding a whole team of officers by next summer who are really excited about the competition.  I believe NCC is a catalyst, a rally point, and a way for the cadet officers in the group to start competition with one another.  As I wasn't about to let my friends get their Spaatz and not me.. I'm seeing that here as they're comparing their dates with each other for when they'll be able to take the exam.  It's not magic.  It's taken proper encouragement of the right key people and the right fostering of a competitive spirit. 

Now if only we can have as much success with ES in this area..  One problem at a time I suppose.  We're working on that one, too, though..  with 0 -> 15 General ES/UDF Trainee qualified cadets in the last year.

To specifically address the points above, we went to NCC with a total of about 10 6-hour practices.  We spent around $1000 (<$100/cadet) to have respectable uniforms (I can provide photos if needed).  National picks up much of the bill.  Granted, the cadets had to travel to a central location, but they were excited to do that.  We could have done it on less budget if needed.  This year we'll do a little more fund raising and step it up a bit more.  The cadets now understand the level of the competition.  That was for NCC.  Go get involved at a group, wing or region level competition.

I hope more people than just the OP read this and are encouraged to go make it happen.  I'll happily counsel anyone who would like more insight, but I'd prefer to do it in a public forum where others can benefit and become involved.  We have to watch it because NCC is expensive for CAP to put on and this type of exclusiveness or discouraging others to participate could cost us the event that I consider the absolute best of my cadet career.  And I was fairly active and attended a lot.

Ron

[Ron1319]

Sorry, I forgot to include one more point.  What has ALWAYS happened for us is that priority has been given to cadets who competed and performed well at the previous level of competition.  Many of them are unable to compete at the next level (schedule conflicts, family, etc) and the best replacements are found.  In the case where a cadet severely under performs at a competition, they are told up front that they are competing for spots and they can lose their spot at any time.  We have at least 17 cadets from our group who are competing to be on our team at wing competition.  The best cadets have the spots based on their performance at practices.  We're doing it how I think it should be done.