Overview
Drill team is about uniformity: taking a group of dissimilar individuals and working to become a single machine.
But how we go about this can vary greatly. In this article, we’ll tackle the difference between creating a drill team that stands out vs. one that blends in.
Blending In
The traditional approach to drill team is to bend everyone together by ensuring that cadets match one another in terms of timing, approach, or style.
When we attempt to blend in, we are working to make everyone the same by creating multiple reference points on the team. For example…
- Team members could be attempting to match who they can visually see
- Less experienced team members could be attempting to match more experienced team members
However, the natural outcome of attempting to match one another is that there is not an objective, firm reference point and as a result, the team often “shrinks” as each cadet works not to stand out from those around them. While this can create very precise drill, it’s often difficult to bring a team focused on blending in to a level of snap & pop universally recognizable as intense and powerful.
Standing Out
Rather than attempting to create cadets who are constantly focused on one another, we should attempt to create cadets who…
- Thoroughly understand the standard for each movement being performed
- Can confidently perform those movements on their own in isolation
- Have been trained with an objective source of time (such as a metronome or music) they are consistently trying to achieve when drilling
In the “stand out” approach, cadets should perform each movement to the best of their individual ability regardless of whether this matches those around them.
Then, rather than attempting to blend everyone together, leaders can identify differences in individual performance and work to eliminate those issues in isolation with each cadet.
This means that if you started the year with 11 exceptional, experienced senior drillers and 1 brand-new driller, the new one would be instantly identifiable. They’d probably be a little less confident, a bit less sharp, etc. Rather than attempting to get them to blend in OR reducing the overall intensity of the 11 experienced drillers, we would work with the new driller until their ability improved to the point where they no longer appeared different.
The Benefits of Standing Out vs. Blending In
Creating cadets who are confidently standing out in the same ways at the same times is difficult. But the “ceiling” for excellence is also greatly heightened. This approach creates amazing individual drillers who happen to be moving in time with those around them.
And because they are individually competent and confident, there is more brain-space left over to be situationally aware of those around them.
A team of individually amazing drillers trained to a single standard with objective sources of time on a consistent basis will ALWAYS outpace teams attempting to blend in together in the long run because this approach emphasizes individual mastery of craft OVER the appearance of the entire team. At first, this means the TEAM might appear less than ideal. But over the haul, the differences will continue to disappear as each driller improves their abilities.