We’re at the point in the season where more reps don't necessarily mean a cleaner show. If you're just running the opener over and over, you're spinning your wheels. Here is how to actually move the needle before you hit the arena.
1. Clean the "Seams" Most dirt lives in the four bars before and after a big move or a meter change. Stop starting at the beginning of the movement. Start four bars before the transition and stop four bars after. If the hand-off between the battery and the front ensemble isn’t locked, the judges don't care how fast the rest of the feature is.
2. The "One-and-Done" Mentality In Dayton or at State, you don’t get a warm-up rep. Start implementing "Cold Runs." Walk into the gym, set the floor, and do a full-performance run immediately. No hands-in, no stretch, no "check-pattern." See what falls apart when the adrenaline is high and the muscles are cold. That’s your real baseline. And most importantly, did the rep feel like a "performance" rep, not just another rehearsal rep?
3. Stop Cleaning from the Sideline If you’re a tech or designer, get off the floor. Go to the top of the bleachers. You’re likely obsessing over a stick height issue that a judge will never see, while missing a massive spacing hole in the tenor/bass logic. Clean for the perspective of the audience and the people putting down the numbers, not the person standing three feet away.
4. Reset Like a Pro Time your resets. If it takes your ensemble minutes to get back to their dots after a run, you’re losing precious minutes of productivity every rehearsal. Turn the resets into a track meet. It keeps the energy up and stops the "mental fade" that happens in the last hour of a rehearsal block, especially if we're talking about long weekends or full days.
5. The Logistics Audit Spend ten minutes this weekend checking the "dumb stuff."
- Is the floor tape peeling? Fix it.
- Are the vibraphone wheels rattling or frames scuffed up? Fix/paint them.
- Have you checked your cables lately? Replace bad ones.
A broken caster or a dead cable during a finals run is a potentially avoidable issue in the hands of the adults in the room. Fix it now so the members can focus on putting forward their best performance.
The Ultimate Goal: Stop practicing until they get it right. Start practicing until they can’t get it wrong.