Corps-Style Marching/Technique/Sliding

Sliding is a technique used by brass and woodwinds when moving sideways (the drumline has their own special technique, crabbing, which is used because of how drums are carried).

Like backwards marching, sliding is a consequence of the desire to always face the audience regardless of which direction you're traveling. The principles of sliding are employed for any sideways movement, including marching diagonally.

Sliding can be done forwards and backwards. The basic motions with your feet are identical as they were during the forwards march and the backwards march; the only thing that makes a slide different is what you do with your hips and upper body.

Stand up straight, with your feet together and both your toes pointed forward. Using only your hips, try to turn your upper body 45 degrees to the right. Now use your shoulders to turn your upper body another 45 degrees to the right (imagine pushing your right shoulder behind you).

Your toes should be pointing at 9 o'clock while your upper body is pointing at 12 o'clock. This is how a slide works—the toes remain pointed in the direction of travel, and the upper body faces front thanks to rotation from the hips and shoulder.

Now try the other direction. Return to your original position, with your feet together, toes pointed forward. Using only your hips, try to turn your upper body 45 degrees to the left. Now use your shoulders to turn your upper body another 45 degrees to the left (and imagine pushing your left shoulder behind you). Your toes should be pointing at 3 o'clock while your upper body is pointing at 12 o'clock.

Remember how we've talked about good separation between the lower body and the upper body? It's not just for achieving a smooth sound, it also comes in handy when we're slide marching! The techniques used for forwards and backwards marching, whether straight-leg or bent-leg, are the exact same as they were before. The only difference is that now your body is rotated.

Nevertheless, that difference can be impactful. We will practice some examples to get a feel for it. As always, we will assume a left foot step-off, but the same concepts would apply for a right foot step-off, just mirrored to the other side.

When you're doing a forward slide, you will use the exact same forward marching technique that you became familiar with. The only difference is that now your spine is rotated, so you will not be facing the direction that you're traveling.

Because we start our march with the left foot, sliding to the left is an easier startup motion. Begin in your Posture. Instead of stepping in front of you, you will instead step towards 9 o'clock. Let's practice taking one step with a metronome at 100 beats per minute:

One and Two and Three and PUSH and ONE

Make sure that your toes are also pointed towards the 9 o'clock direction. This first step should be fairly easy. You are stepping outwards, and your body does not need very much rotation yet. The rotation will come into play with your right foot. So try taking two steps and freezing:

One and Two and Three and PUSH and ONE CROSS TWO

Here, when the right leg swings around to your left, is when your upper body and lower body become separated by 90 degrees. So during the transition between steps One and Two is when your hip/shoulder rotation occurs. Take stock of a few important questions:

• Are both of my toes pointed towards 9 o'clock?
• Is my upper body facing towards 12 o'clock?
• Am I twisting my hips and pushing my right shoulder back?
• How is my marching? Did I keep my toes up? Did my ankles cross one another precisely on "Cross"? Am I achieving my straight-leg or bent-leg technique?

Great! However, the drawback for an easy startup is that coming to a stop can be tricky. We have to return to our Posture with our toes in our usual 45-degree separation. This is a problem, because we initiate our halt with the right foot (stab or rolldown). Our upper body is facing towards 12 o'clock, our right leg is in the 9 o'clock direction, and our right toes need to end up in our 45-degree foot placement facing a bit right! This is too much rotation for most people.

So, instead of going all the way to the halt position immediately, our right foot will initially split the difference, and we'll swing it into place once the left foot comes around. Let's move to the left for 4 counts—on count 4, place your right foot in the stab or rolldown position facing the 11 o'clock direction, and freeze.

One and Two and Three and PUSH and ONE CROSS TWO CROSS THREE CROSS FREEZE

In this position, your right toes should be facing near the 11 o'clock direction in either your stab or rolldown position. Your left toes are facing towards 9 o'clock. Your upper body is still facing towards 12 o'clock.

On your own, without a metronome, imagine that you've just stomped on a bug with your right foot, and now you're grinding that bug into the ground. That's the kind of spin your right foot should be experiencing in this transitory motion.

Once that feels comfortable, add in the left foot (still without any metronome). When you swing your left foot into the halt position, use that momentum to grind the bug and spin your right foot into the correct direction.

Now let's put it all together, by moving 4 counts to the left:

One and Two and Three and PUSH and ONE CROSS TWO CROSS THREE CROSS STAB and HALT

Take stock of a few important questions:

• Were both of my toes pointed towards 9 o'clock?
• Was my upper body always facing towards 12 o'clock?
• Was I twisting my hips and pushing my right shoulder back?
• How is my marching? Did I keep my toes up? Did my ankles cross one another precisely on "Cross"? Am I achieving my straight-leg or bent-leg technique? Did I maintain separation between my upper and lower body?
• Did I place my right foot in the intermediate position?
• Did I swing my left foot into the halt, using the momentum to spin my right foot the rest of the way?
• How is my posture right now? Am I standing up tall, with my feet in the 45-degree angle?

Keep practicing until you can answer all of these questions with "Yes." Congratulations, you can now forward slide to the left!

This first case comes with the largest explanation. Much of the principles will hold the same for other directions and backward sliding.

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By far the most common mistake is not rotating deep enough. If your toes are pointing at 9 o'clock, maybe your upper body is only making it to 11 o'clock when you should be facing 12 o'clock. This can cause problems with not only the visual consistency between marchers, but also with your sound, because it means you aren't pointing your bell directly at the audience. Try focusing on really rotating from the hips and pushing that shoulder back. Spine stretches are also helpful to improve flexibility, like lumbar rotations and washing machines.

Another common mistake is neglecting the rotation from the hip, instead focusing too hard on rotating from shoulders. The hip should be the primary point of rotation, because that has the least amount of impact on the integrity of your upper body. Overreliance on the shoulders can negatively impact your breathing and therefore your music. Focus on the hip rotation as much as you can! Practice rotating 45 degrees in either direction using just your hips, to become more accustomed to what that feels like.

It can be uncomfortable to rotate the full 90 degrees. Some marching groups specify a technique where the front leg sort of cheats towards the facing direction. If a forward slide travels in the 9 o'clock direction, and the upper body is facing at 12 o'clock, perhaps the left toes are at 9 o'clock while the right toes are at 10 o'clock. This is a perfectly acceptable way to relieve some of the torsion, as long as all marchers do it.

When should you do a forward slide, and when should you do a backward slide? Usually this question is easy to answer, because at least some component of your motion will be diagonal. In that case, it's as simple as whether you are moving diagonally forward or diagonally backward. But what if you're moving exactly left or exactly right? There are two considerations:

• In general, you always want your upper body to be biased in toward the center of the field. If the 50-yardline is to your right, and you are marching to the right, you will probably want to do a forward slide. If the 50-yardline is to your left, and you are marching to the right, you will probably want to do a backward slide. The reason why is because you want to point your bell near the press box where the judges sit, and having this bias in toward the 50 makes that pointing easier.
• The other major factor is what the other people near you are doing. If everyone around you is doing a forward slide, you don't want to be the odd one out who's doing a backward slide. Sometimes this can even be more important than your diagonal; if you're sliding towards the 8:30 direction, you'd normally do a backward slide—but if everyone nearby is doing a forward slide, and you can handle the extra rotation, it's probably a good idea to also try doing a forward slide to maintain visual unity.