Color Guard: How a Being a Mom is like Being in Drum Corps

In the summer's of 1999 and 2000 (my age out), I was a proud member of the Carolina Crown Drum & Bugle Corps Color Guard. There were many details that were less than fun, and yet I never wanted to go home, and I marched two seasons (so clearly I liked it!).

Flash forward 14 years (eeeek!)....and now I am married and have a 7 month old daughter.

I was thinking about my time in drum corps, and realized "man, there are a lot of similarities to my life right now." As I went through a few band camp rehearsals, while simultaneously watching my daughter learn to crawl, I started taking note of specific similarities.

  Sleep:  

• You start to sleep in random places (like the couch, the nursery floor)
• You sleep whenever you can, like today, when I napped during her morning nap

  Eat:  

• You eat whatever's available, sometimes it's whatever's leftover or fast
• You have to stay hydrated (specifically if you're a mom who's nursing your little one)

  Schedule:  

• Your schedule is not your own, even though you planned to go to the grocery store at 10 AM, she may need a nap then unexpectedly
• You have sectionals (you and your little one), and ensemble (you, your little one, and your significant other), and each has their own purpose

  Injuries:  

• You're likely to have aches and pains

  Other Areas:  

• Repetition is the norm - what infant or toddler doesn't like doing the same thing over and over and over and over
• You have to think on your feet to answer questions or find a new way to solve an issue (dirty diaper during a road trip... too hard to stop and find a bathroom with a changing table...so you improvise!)
• You sing random songs (at least when I was in drum corps, we did..."we're here, because we're here, because we're here, because we're here....")
• You never want to mess up, but it's bound to happen

The most interesting similarity for me....I sing "You are My Sunshine" all the time!!!!!! Crown folks will understand!

What other similarities can you think of?

Color Guard: Food for Auditions or Long Rehearsals

Have you ever wondered what you should eat and drink before, during and after long rehearsals or auditions? Well here's the post for you!

  The week before (or the weeks between rehearsals)  

• Do not drastically change what you eat; it won't make much of a difference
• Do not drastically reduce portion size, or skip meals
• Stick to the same amount of food you normally eat

  The night before  

• Steer clear of anything that causes water retention, especially if you're required to wear all black form fitting clothing for an audition!! Minimize sodium intake, particularly by avoiding highly processed foods
• Stick to whole, natural foods like fresh fruits and veggies, legumes, salmon, brown rice
• Drink LOTS of water (see my water post here)
• Eat a hearty dinner since during rehearsals/auditions you'll have less of a chance to eat a larger meal

  The morning of  

• Don't skip breakfast!
• Some options include: Greek yogurt, banana, berries, granola, oatmeal egg and wheat toast
• Make sure you include a protein
• Bananas will help increase the potassium level and decrease cramping
• Drink at LEAST one glass of water before you leave the house
• Avoid refined sugar, since it will give you very short term energy

  Just before  

• Put something in your stomach about 1-2 hours before moving so you can keep up your strength
• Some options include: trail mix (no chocolate in it!), granola, banana with peanut butter
• If you eat a bar of some sort, get one with few ingredients and make sure there are no additives or preservatives; one I love is the Lara Bar
• Avoid anything with sugar alcohols because they tend to cause gas, cramping, and bloating. Ingredients to look for are sorbitol, xylitol, malitol and any other ingredient ending in "-ol" which are all sugar alcohols
• If you like cow's milk or soy milk, both give you protein and the energy you need but aren't hard to digest so they won't sit heavily in your stomach

  During  

• I like to pack a myriad of snacks so I always have something I can quickly grab
• Some of my standby options: fruit, granola bar, Lara Bar, applesauce pouches (no added sugar), fruit leather (no added sugar), raw natural almonds, dried cranberries, and raisins
• Stay hydrated throughout! Aim for about 8 ounces an hour, at a minimum

  Afterwards  

• If you ever talk to someone who works out a lot, the same rule applies: eat protein!
• Some options: edamame, hummus, nuts
• A friend mentioned her trainer told her to drink a glass of 2% chocolate milk! Make sure to get the good stuff though, so look for antibiotic free, hormone free milk
• Keep hydrating after your rehearsal or audition

  Avoid or Reduce  

• The sugar alcohols we already mentioned
• Caffeine: A small amount is okay, but only one cup of coffee will do the day of
• Alcohol (for those guard folks in independent groups and are older): it dehydrates you and will make you feel icky if you drink anything the night before
• Energy Drinks: most of them are full of non-natural ingredients, caffeine, and SUGAR

And to reiterate the point about water, you should drink half your weight in ounces every day, and more when it's hot outside or when you're highly active. For example, your baseline should be if you weigh 150 lbs, you would drink approximately 75 oz of water per day.

Reference:

• http://pointemagazine.com/issues/februarymarch-2012/your-best-body-audition-day-diet?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=justdance&utm_term=auditions&date=080614

Color Guard: Teaching Jazz Runs to Marching Band

This past week I had to teach the band members (winds and percussion) how to jazz run because one of their drill moves requires them to move quickly and cover a large distance. It got me thinking about how I was able, in only 30 minutes, to get them all looking infinitely better than when we started...and I wasn't the first one to try to teach them this season!

Here are the elements of what I taught:

• Start with the left foot back, so that you step with that foot first
• Take one step all together first, and explain that you have to take a very large step and push off the back leg
• Then explain that you have to stay in plie (which we explained meant "fold" because you're folding your legs...and oddly enough they already knew what a plie was!)
• Then we sprinkled the guard members throughout the band so they could watch around them
• I had them add in their arms at their attention position (similar to below, but our band actually touches finger tips together instead of the traditional fist, because it requires even more stability)

• We gave them the rule that when they get across the stage, they must turn around and watch the people behind them (i.e., the rule isn't that they don't talk, but no talking is a result of them watching)
• Then we repeated multiple times with each line leading off every 8 counts, so they get the hang of it; each time I gave them ONE thing to think about and told them to make ONE thing better (See my post about Rule #7: Make One Thing Better)
• Then, because there were just THAT many corrections I needed to give, I had one line go at a time, all the way across; I gave them corrections and then had the next line go
• We then showed the band director a few times and he was impressed by their improvement!

Have you taught jazz runs to your marching band before? How'd you go about doing it?

My Week in Reflection - Aug 10, 2014

As always, I'm excited for this week, but had such an amazing week last week that I wanted to reflect a bit. 

1. Dinner #1: A friend came over for dinner (take-out from our favorite delivery Thai, Chao Phra Ya) and washed her car here, because she lives downtown in DC where washing your own car is kind of a pain. 

2. Dinner #2: Two friends come over and we had "Sunday Gravy" which is the Italian American tradition...usually on Sundays (duh). I made a tomato sauce with italian sausage, meatballs, and some sort of meat with a bone (I used a marrow bone from the farmers market). Then I cooked it ALL DAY in a slow cooker. It was so delicious and had that umami flavor you can only get from cooking something like that with meat for so long. Plus, you throw everything in a pot (more or less) and you just let it cook. Not much work involved.

I served the pasta with the sauce (no meat) first for the Primi Piati (first course). Then the meat separately as a second course (or you are lazy like me and serve it like the picture illustrated below). The sauce freezes beautifully, but I bet if you freeze the meat it would completely fall apart because it's so tender. I vote eat the meat in the next couple days, and freeze the leftover sauce.

Here's a Cook's Illustrated page that explains more along with their picture:

http://recipes.cooksillustrated.com/stews-recipes/italian/pork/hearty-italian-meat-sauce-sunday-gravy-recipe/ 

3. Peach Picking: I went with a friend to Stribling Orchard to pick peaches and a few of their first available apples. So delicious! And my daughter seemed to enjoy it. The drive, not so much (but she's teething...can't really blame her!). 

4. Band Camp: It's that time of year again! I went in on Thursday to Stonewall to teach...not just the guard but the entire band! I taught the guard for about 1.5 hours and then taught the entire band how to jazz run! The whole thing was entertaining because I had my 7 month old daughter with me, and this is the first rehearsal she's been to now that she doesn't sleep 24/7 (I brought her when she was between 1 and 2 months old to teach Stonewall in the winter). I'll start working on a post about how to teach jazz runs to non-dancers!

5. Hershey Park: My dad retired in June and instead of a party, he took the family to Hershey for the weekend!! It was such great fun to stay at a lovely hotel, enjoy the amusement park, hang out at the hotel pool, and eat tons of food and, of course, chocolate. We actually enjoyed the park Friday night AND Saturday because you get to go in Friday night if you're staying at the hotel with a Saturday ticket AND you get to go in 1 hour early Saturday. We also ate delicious BBQ on our way in on Friday at Shakedown BBQ. If you're ever in town, we highly recommend it! And if you see a Reese's Funnel Cake, GET IT!