Hi everybody, and welcome back to Season 3 of the Common Time podcast. We're so glad to have you here to continue bringing our conversations, insights, and inspiration for music educators everywhere. Each week, we'll highlight voices from across the music world and share ideas that you can bring directly into your classroom and to your ensembles. Before we begin our conversation today, however, it's time for our standing ovation, a new segment of our show where we shine a spot on one of our incredible colleagues that is truly making a difference in the field. This week we're recognizing Steve Fry and Michael Dixon from A&M Consolidated High School and College Station High School. Eric each shared that both of these men are true educators. Kids first, results second. But the results are happening at both high schools, Eric said. I love being their Fine Arts director. And we know that in our profession, it's it's not often that the teachers get the spotlight, but we think that you deserve 1. So to Steve Fry and Michael Dixon and to all the hard working music educators out there, this ovations for you. And if you have someone you'd like to nominate for a standing ovation, the link is always in the show notes. And now let's turn to our guest for today. Our guest today is Jenna Bookler. Welcome, Jenna.
Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Absolutely. So Jenna is a long time drum corps medical program manager. She's been with the Spirit Atlanta for the last nine years, the Blue Stars for the last three years. And today we are going to be talking with Jenna about something extremely important for all of us that are about to enter the marching band season and that is keeping our students healthy, making sure that they're taken care of during the March event season. So, John, why don't you get us kicked off here?
Yes, hi. Hi, Jenna, it's, it's so good to see you. So I'm just going to start off by asking from your experience, what are some of the most common injuries and physical challenges that you've seen students face during a marching band season? And then secondly, how can we as directors help to prevent those issues?
That's a very common question I get from music educators, because obviously you care about your students. You want to make sure that they're taking care of and that they can actually be on the field doing what they love to do. Unfortunately, with marching band and drum court, it's a very repetitive activity, so we see a lot of overuse injuries. So think about tendonitis. Any kind of joint in the body usually has tendons connecting to that joint. So there's a lot of ways when you're carrying your horn or with color guard, if you're doing different choreography, you're over using that joint to a point where it doesn't have the appropriate rest time in between rehearsals and the day-to-day activities that they're doing. And so those overuse injuries turn into pain and discomfort. And so those are hard to treat in the season just because there's not the appropriate time to actually recover from them. But I would say that's probably the most common that we see. You do see some acute things like ankle sprains, ligament issues in the knees to elbows, the wrist. And that's common just because they're doing a lot of activity that's not normal for the body. If you think about it, it's not a traditional sport. You do very weird positions that you don't ever have to do in any other daily activity. We're asking them to do the huge physical demand. So you do see some acute injuries that I'd say the most acute injuries are with color guard because they're throwing equipment and then expected to catch it. So you'll see a lot of confusion, some fractures of like fingers and wrists and things like that. But I think the biggest advice I can give to educators is that you need to talk to your students and tell them it's OK to have an injury or something that you're working through. Even if it's not classified as an injury, it could just be pain or discomfort, and that's OK. We just have to figure out, is it something that you can actually push through safely and do what we're asking you to do? Or is it something that we need you to see a medical provider about and get like a treatment plan or a brace or some kind of plan so that you're taking care of yourself as well.
Right. So then just as a follow up to that very quickly, how do we, how do we prevent these kinds of injuries? Is it possible?
You could prevent some of them, I think. I don't know how well some programs focus on preseason conditioning. That's something that you can put together, which of course we have 5 million things that we have to do and we never have enough time to do them. But if you have the resources and someone on your staff that has background in physical conditioning or bio mechanics specifically for marching arts would be preferable, they could maybe help you develop. It could be a simple program. It doesn't have to be anything extravagant. Obviously the students have busy lives with school and other activities, but giving them strengthening exercises, especially if they are predisposed and they've had a history of injury, you want to strengthen those things because typically if you're going to have an injury, it's going to happen to an area that you've already had an injury before. So if you know that you're prone to ankle sprains or that you have LAX ankles, like they turn in and out really easily, that's something that you should be strengthening in the preseason so that it's strong by the time you're asking them to do repetitive activity, so.
Yeah. So we're and I think we're going to jump into some of that more specifically here in a moment. I'm curious. I want to jump backward though. You mentioned the students communicating if they have an issue, even if it's a small issue. Have you and, and speaking specifically to educators that's something they need to be looking out for. Have you seen where the musicians don't want to share that information or don't provide, you know, oh, this hurts or that's uncomfortable because they are afraid of what might happen or they might get taken out. I'm just curious, what's your, what have your experiences been with that?
I think musicians and performers in general, just as a general sense, they have this attitude of perfection, like they want to be a certain caliber because they want to perform at a certain level. And so I think unfortunately, we have to break that stigma of you don't have to be perfect all the time. You're going to make mistakes, not just with your music and your physical abilities, but also your body's going to breakdown. That's with any kind of physical activity. So I think it's really building that trust and rapport with your students as a music educator that you're someone who's safe to come to, especially if you don't have access to a medical provider on your staff, which I'm sure a lot of high schools don't. You need to be that safe place for them to come to if there's something that happens so that they can communicate to you and not be afraid of the repercussions of, oh, they're going to take my spot or they're going to change my drill, or I'm not going to be able to participate in this event or whatever it is. I think if you have that open line of communication, it helps immensely with them feeling comfortable to know that it is OK to go through an injury. You can still participate, you might just need some restrictions for a while.
Yeah, I think that's just important to note because I've not experienced it personally, but I have seen situations where a student probably, well, they had a more serious injury that had they said something at that earliest discomfort, it would have been mitigated early on because there could have been a small program put in place. But they don't want to be out, you know, they don't want to let the group down or maybe even the director down. So they just kind of keep it to themselves until all of a sudden it's too late and they're out for the season. So I think there's just a really good point you mentioned. So I just wanted to kind of reinforce that kind of move forward though if kind of looking towards, you mentioned training and so forth, I'm curious how can both high school and college, because we do have, you know, collegiate directors as well, how can we incorporate sort of the basic athletic, excuse me, athletic training principles like into a daily rehearsal? So that's something that you've worked with and provided before?
Yeah, so I mean, I did it more when I was the head athletic trainer at Boston Crusaders when I was touring directly with the core. I did help the staff develop warm up and cool down protocol for the beginning and end of the day. Because when you're doing your warm up, you don't want something super intense because depending on what you're going right into, if you're going to go to like a visual block and they're doing a ton of movement, you don't want to wear them out in the warm up. That's starting off on a bad foot. So you just need to think about what are your goals for that day and how can you get their bodies ready but not overdoing it to the point where it's like they're going to hate it, you know? Because like, I think students, they want their bodies to be ready, but they don't want to be like, oh, go run some laps. Like that's not appropriate for marching band and drum corps. Like that's, that's not equatable to what they're doing on the field. Like you need to incorporate cardio aspects, but doing dynamic movements and incorporating choreography. I loved working with visual staffs and with color guard specifically because those individuals on staff have such awareness of their bodies and then they know how to appropriately tell their students how to use those skills when they're doing just a normal warm up. So it's not like we're asking to do push ups and sit ups and like strength testing like that's inappropriate. It doesn't, it doesn't translate. So if you find things that they will think is fun, but it also warms up their bodies, that would be a great way to do a warm up. And then for the cooldown like you can play some fun music. Like it doesn't have to be anything, you know, intense at the end of the day, you just need to get their bodies — you can't go from repetitive activity to stopping. That is terrible for your body. Not only your cardiovascular strength, but your muscles and your tendons. Everything needs to calm down. Your blood pressure has to get back to normal. Doing breathing exercises, doing like root stretching and not just static stretching, dynamic stretching because you're constantly moving that body. So those two things are really important to incorporate. I can't tell you that one program is the tell all of all marching band. Like you have to know your students, know your demographics, know what they're capable of doing, know what they will think is fun, and then try to bring those aspects together so that you can make something that they're committed to doing. And maybe ask your team leadership. You can get the students involved and ask them how they want it done. You just have to make sure that you're giving them instruction that's safe.
So now, Jenna, just to kind of change a topic slightly for a second, because anyone that's involved in marching band will often be in intense activity for long periods of time in extreme weather. Now during the summer on tour or in the summer in marching band. Or depending on the kind of geographical region, you could be either in extreme warm or where, you know, you and I live in the north, extreme cold sometimes too. So how should we be considering or thinking about keeping students safe in either in the extreme, both heat and cold?
I mean, I would say in general, heat's probably more of the factor that most people are dealing with. Luckily, there's a lot of resources out there. It's not like you have to reinvent the wheel. There's every single state has state practice laws on what you can and can't do in athletics for heat policy. So if you look that up for your specific state, every high school sports has something for your state. So you can look that up online and they have like whole policies about that. But also if you go to the National Athletic Trainers Association website, they have position statements that we as certified athletic trainers have to follow with our scope of practice. They also have peer reviewed articles that are research based done by people like that are very involved in research on those topics and they have one specifically for heat and hydration. So it'll give you charts to follow for heat index. Not all of you are lucky enough to have the fancy equipment like in drum core. We use wet ball globe thermometers and that's typically held with the medical staff. We check relative humidity and temperature and then correlate that with a chart that tells us this is how much activity that they can do prior to getting a break. Not asking an educator to do that. You have too many things to worry about, but if you have access to an employee trainer or a medical professional, that's something that you could consider. It is kind of a large expense at first, several $100, but if you keep it for seasons at a time, it's worth the money. If you don't have the money for that, luckily we live in technologies, so you can access apps that directly tell you with where you're at. You can look up relative humidity, temperature, what the hottest point of the day is going to be. And then based on that, look at the charts, kind of figure out what you fall into for the zones because it's usually color-coded like green, yellow, reds. You'll know when it's dangerous conditions. And then based that, on how much hydration breaks do I need to give today? When do you need to be in the shade, that type of thing? I think the heat policies, as long as you do your research, you talk to appropriate people, you can find a good balance. You just might have to be more restrictive on your rehearsals for those days that are really hot and really humid. For colder temperatures, I mean, obviously you're going to be more worried about like hypothermia, like being outside for long periods of time. I think I'd be more concerned if it's raining or snowing because if you're wet and you're cold, that is miserable. So maybe as a director, just like making sure that they have changes of clothes, changes of socks, keeping them as dry as possible. I don't know if programs have the funding for like rain jackets or like tarps and like that kind of stuff. But you got to consider the elements because if they're outside for hours at a time and they're shivering, that's taking heat from the body and then they're going to be miserable. And then they're blowing into cold instruments. That was like the worst thing being in Minnesota. And I played saxophones, so we at least had to read. But you know, all the brass instruments like you're blowing into a cold mouthpiece, that's not good for your lips either. So just taking consideration how you would feel in their position and then try to give them the appropriate needs that they have, whatever it is or whether it's a break, extra clothing, extra time, whatever it is.
And I, I think it's important for all of us as teachers to acknowledge, and I'm not sure all of our colleagues are very good at this. So I'm just going to say it, it's it, it could be a bit controversial, but here we are. There's no performance worth student safety. There's no rehearsal segment worth student safety. Like if it's not safe, don't. It's just not worth it.
It is not worth it. I would say too that I mean, this is kind of just the reality of where we're at in the world right now. If you're the director who goes against those written and place policies that are out there that are very standardized across sports and states, you're going to be the one in the news where when your students are going to the hospital for a heat related illness or a cold related illness. So don't be that person. I mean, it's not worth the risk for the liability for you or your organization, but also don't put your students at that risk. I mean, it's one of those things that we can work together to make sure that you're getting the appropriate performance and rehearsal time, but don't do it at the risk of their health.
You know where I teach, there are two people that have the authority to cancel rehearsal, the weather person and the medical person. If they come up and say it's not safe, we change plans and that's just how it is.
Yeah, I want to jump backward just for a second. I keep jumping backward, but we talked about the warm up, cool down. And you just mentioned a second ago with John's question, some resources statewide for that question. But I was just thinking to myself, there are, you know, for, I mean, I don't know how to write an appropriate warm up or cool down. I mean, I can do it on a brass instrument. I can tell you how to warm up on a brass instrument, how to cool down on a brass instrument, but physically speaking, I wouldn't know anything. So do you have any resources or suggestions for those directors out there that aren't, that they don't have physical trainers, they're not doing CrossFit or whatever on their own that they can go to utilize for putting in place appropriate warm up, cool down exercises and routines.
It's hard because I think the market is so saturated for where you should go, what you should do for specifically workouts like pre and post, especially like the preseason conditioning and stuff. I would say if you want something to start that you can maybe do on your own without consulting someone, you can try. There's a website called Medbridge and it is a subscription, but it's actually relatively inexpensive and I think they give discounts to educators and healthcare professionals, but that actually has exercises that you can like upload and make like a protocol. So like the strengthening exercises that I was talking about, it'll give you like if you click on shoulder, whatever, like it'll give you a whole protocol. And some of them are strengthening, some of them are range of motion, some of them are balanced. So it's kind of a good mix and it's something that we would use in like the physical therapy world. So you know that they're actually legitimate exercises, right? That's a good resource. Otherwise, my best suggestion would honestly, if it's out of your realm, I would try to find someone that you know, either through your staff, through your school athletic trainer, or anyone in general that you know that's connected and has some kind of semblance of music education background or at least music performance background that can kind of guide you. Because I think there's too many people who are like, oh, I only do CrossFit or I only do XY and Z. And so they try to put those principles in place and they just don't balance with what we need for this activity. So if you have access to a medical professional or a physical therapist or an occupational therapist, those would be great people to talk to or even athletic trainer because they know how to get all the aspects of rehabilitation put together. I don't have like a great resource to direct you to for educators specifically trying to put together like a program unfortunately.
I'm just curious, do you think, I mean we obviously use AI for lots of things today, are there any AI type resources that would help or are they not trustworthy enough yet?
I haven't tried it yet. I mean, that's a great question. I'm just curious if we try to create something with ChatGPT if it would actually be meaningful.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth a shot. I mean, you could try it and type in some like very specific prompts to see what it spells back at you. I'm sure some of it would be silly, but I think it's worth a shot and then you could take that to a trainer and say hey, how does this work?
Yeah, you could also just use it as a resource and kind of see what it gathers because it is going to take it from a fund of different resources online and then show it to someone who's actually qualified and be like, is any of this valid? Does this make sense, you know?
And even too, I mean, there are educators that may not have access to medical professionals, but on their campus, they may have a dance coach or teacher or trainer coach or teacher, you know, people with bodies moving because we consult a number of people in terms of designing specific routines for warm up whenever we have a marching tempo between this and this. I mean, we are very calculated in how we do that, but we've also asked our medical professionals, dance professors, kinesiology professor. I mean, even at a high school that has limited resources, you can talk to somebody there that would understand, you know, like, hey, how does this look? How does this feel? Does this seem right to you? That could be helpful.
Yeah, I mean you could, even if you're out of high school and you have limited resources, you could even ask other athletic coaches. I mean, I wouldn't ask like football, but like find somebody who has a background. Coaches usually have a background in either physical education, kinesiology, biomechanics, something. So those are good resources too. I would just not be pigeonholed to only use yourself as a resource and then get overwhelmed by like searching the Internet just because there's too much gimmicky stuff. There's too much stuff that they're trying to sell a product or sell a method, and then you're trying to fit your band into this mold and it just doesn't work. That's why I'm saying you have to develop what works best for your students. You also have to know the physicality of your students because that will change from year to year. Some students are going to be better at things than others, so you don't want to force a cookie cutter standard, and that's what I didn't do in drum corps. We didn't do the same exact program every year because that doesn't make sense. You have the general same population but each student is going to have different challenges with their bodies, with also mental health and all these other aspects of general health that you might have to change how you do things because you don't want warm up, cool down, pre season conditioning to deter someone from being in the activity. It's not that important. It's important, but it shouldn't override what you're actually doing in the activity.
I would argue that it's so important to be thinking about these things that these need to be a part of the rehearsal schedule. We should be thinking this through like there should be a part of the rehearsal that needs to be this, both on the front and the backside.
Yeah. I mean, if you don't have any time, cut into your rehearsal time that's specifically for warm up, cool down, hydration breaks, just breaks in general for your students. You need to do that. You can't just do rehearsal the whole time because they're going to get burnt out. They're not going to like it. Who likes to be instructed and yelled at and, you know, told what to do for hours on end?
Oh, I love it. I live for it.
Well, I think to piggyback on that as a point of we need to be incorporating that. I think we also need to be thinking about that in our preseason planning. What's the demands of the show going to be this year? What are we going to ask the students to do that we may not have prepared them for in past years? So this isn't something that you just walk in on day one like here we go. That's something that — we're thinking about music and movement and drill back in November, December, whenever the last contest was. What are we doing for next year? And that's a really important time. I know we're recording now in July and August we're going to be starting, but it's not too late. But it is something that we really should be thinking about well in advance if we want to set our students up for success long term. Like what we're doing with their bodies is as important as well in terms of preparing them for that activity.
Something else I'd add too is think about your props. Your props cause injuries. They also cause confusion. So you have to think about how are your props going to affect your students' bodies and what is their visibility also when they're on the field, because if you have this giant thing that they can't see around and then they're expected to push it to somewhere and they don't have that sight line, that's important. So like you have to also think of those things in your conditioning program. Like if you're having — I don't know, there's like stuff in drum corps like they have to go down slides or like there's things they're jumping to and from — like where's their equipment going? It's kind of gotten crazy. It's cool with all the effects, but then for a medical professional, it's kind of a nightmare sometimes because all of those things are just extra factors that can cause harm to our students. So like, think of those things. If you're asking them to do some like weird position for pushing a prop or whatever, or standing on a prop or doing some kind of cool trick off of it, like you need to incorporate that into what they're preparing their bodies for.
That's a good point. So again, we're in July, but we just went to Southwest DCI last night and Blue Coats have these cubes. They stack and get in and do different things. But as they're moving them, I thought it's cool that they're not just going from point A to point B, but they're spinning them as they're going. And it's pretty tight out there sometimes. And I was literally thinking like, how many times have they hit someone because it's close, like or someone drops a piece of equipment and they have to get out of the way — this prop is coming at them. I remember thinking specifically last night, like, I wonder who their medical person is.
Just to kind of change topics just a tad bit. So there are common misconceptions about hydration and also nutrition that I think we should talk about because it's such an important part of what we do, right? To stay hydrated isn't just drinking water in the moment, right? And many of us think that it is. So I'm just kind of curious, what do you think about some hydration guidelines or nutrition guidelines that would help the students be at their peak performance ability both for a rehearsal day during the preseason camp or in the season, or on a full performance day of competition or something similar? What do you think?
Sure. Yeah, hydration is extremely important because like we said earlier, preventing injuries also comes with nutrition and hydration. I'm more than happy to share the policies and procedures that I've written and used for years with drum corps, which is going to be very translatable to collegiate and high school marching bands. Most of my resources have been the National Athletic Training Association, like I said earlier, since that's who I'm certified under. They make national position statements. They have one on hydration, so I pulled a lot of information from that, but there's been a lot of research on hydration recovery, what numbers we should have for like ounces based on how much activity you're doing. I won't go through all that right now because it's a lot to take in, but if you look at the documents that I can give you, it'll make a lot of sense. But the biggest thing with hydration is that you want to make sure that they're not only intaking water, but they're also taking in electrolytes. So they need those sodium and potassium supplements in addition to water. And I'm saying more so in like drink format. So that can be like Gatorade or similar — there's tons of different brands out there. I'm not saying you have to go with one or the other, but something that's going to replenish their bodies because they're sweating. So all of that sodium and potassium is coming out in the sweat. And then when you're drinking water, that's great, you're getting yourself hydrated, but you're not replenishing the rest of the nutrients that are coming out when you're actively doing what you're doing. So you kind of have to have a balance.
I don't know if high schools and colleges would do it the same way as drum corps — they have the big gallon jugs. Is that pretty common?
Some do, yeah. Some do and then some have like an individual, like each kid has their own little two gallon jug.
Yeah, I think the jug rule is actually really great across the board. I wouldn't encourage students just to bring like a 12 to 16 ounce water bottle because you have to refill that so often. You don't get enough breaks for that. You also can't track your water really well with that. I think the one gallon jug or two gallon jug is great because you can pick it up, you can see how heavy it is, how much you actually drank, or even you can put tape marks after each break to like track how much water you're actually drinking. But with the policy that I put in place, I actually told students you have to — if the rehearsal is 3 hours, you have to drink this much of your one gallon jug. So it's not even that they have to think about it. It's like, have you finished your mark or have you not? So that's an easy standard. That's why I like the jug method. You don't have to do it that way, but you also as a director have to have accessibility to water. So that's something you have to think about. They need to be able to refill. So you need to give them time in rehearsal to refill their water. And they also need access to get the water, and then hopefully it's not like a 10 minute walk. That's unfortunate for you and unfortunate for them. So having the accessibility to water is huge. And then I don't know how you want to do the replenishing — you might just have to tell the students to buy Gatorade or whatever it is that you're using for their sodium, potassium, nutrients. But that's really important, especially post activity. You need that pretty much right away. And then after activity too, it's really important to have a snack right away, preferably something that's high in protein, and that could be really anything. I'm not going to say you have to have XY and Z, but high protein meals, especially when you're doing extended periods of activity, that is going to help with your body getting back to a regular kind of homeostasis level after activity. Carbs are also great. You want something that's quick that your body can kind of get in its system when you're feeling faint and you're like, I overdid it, I didn't drink enough water. Carbohydrates are going to be something that'll quickly get you back to your regular state. Whether that's a granola bar, peanut butter, crackers, whatever, that's fine. So it's kind of having that quick accessibility.
Yeah, you need things that are easy to access and not expensive, right? Because students just don't have access to things that are like the fancy nutrition protein bars.
We're not expecting that. There's so many things that you can eat that are pretty cheap and easy to grab. And the other thing too, you need to eat enough during the day. You have to consume food. Well, especially in the mornings because usually they have breakfast on their own and then they're coming to rehearsal, right? So you need to harp on them. Like I understand I'm not going to sit there at your breakfast table with you and make your meal, but you need to prioritize that you have a balanced plate of proteins, carbohydrates, fruits and veggies, intaking some kind of liquid. Preferably you're drinking at least like 2 to 3 glasses of water before you even come to rehearsal so that you have some sustainability to get you through that first part of rehearsal. So breakfast is really important. You got to harp on them. I can't tell you how many times we've had in drum corps where kids would come to rehearsal and they were just feeling crummy. And then I asked them, like, did you eat breakfast this morning? They're like, no. It's like, what do you expect? You have to eat. You can't run on empty.
What I think is so important about this is that what we're talking about is intentionality. You have to be intentional and you have to encourage aggressively, I will say, your students to be intentional if we want them to be safe. And as teachers, that should be priority one. So if we're not doing that, we're kind of dropping the ball a bit. In fairness, remember we got into some issues with some of our previous drum corps experiences when this did not happen.
I don't know what you're talking about. We were adamant that the students were well taken care of.
One of my favorite stories anyway.
Well, we shouldn't talk about that.
Tell me. I want to hear it.
Oh no, it was just one time where we were with a specific corps and the students weren't fed enough for dinner and a colleague of ours expressed some concern.
Make more ham. That is one of my favorite stories ever. That's a great story, but we were rationing ham that week for some reason.
I was just going to say it's important for us to advocate for our students. If they're not getting enough water, if they're not getting enough food, stand up and do something about that.
I will say a brass team with that corps was advocating strongly that they needed more food. We were really running them to death and they were ending the day with not enough food. One story I was just thinking about when we were at the Cavaliers — you mentioned like Gatorade — we had a water crew. And I don't know if high school bands can do this or not, or if it even still happens in drum corps because it may not be as efficient. But we had a water crew that would make the Gatorade and we had a little wagon or cart with two big Igloo Gatorade jugs and we would rate the quality of the Gatorade. So then we would know like which team makes the best Gatorade because some of it would be like, OK, this is too watery, this is really good. So then you know, like, oh, team three, that's the one. And then the members would start and say, who's in the water crew today? And they would know like it's going to be a good day just because of that. But I was thinking just as a high school manager, I did not think as much about replenishing the nutrients as much as just make sure you have water. So I think that is something to consider, finding some way to create a solution for that. For Cavaliers, it was obviously having jugs that just followed us around everywhere, but we also had a team of members that took care of that on a daily basis.
Yeah. In any case, I mean, if you have accessibility to the big coolers that you can put water and Gatorade in and then like a cart that you can bring it out to the field, that would be great. I know not every school has the resources to do that. I would encourage schools to reach out if you don't have a lot of funding, which most of us don't, reach out to companies and say, hey, just like nonprofits, we're a high school marching band. We have minimal funding. We'd love to use Gatorade, Squint or whatever the, you know, powders, electrolyte thing is and reach out to them and say we'd love to use this product. A lot of times we'll send you stuff for free or they'll give it to you severely discounted because they want to be that for you. They want provided resources, especially if it's helping students and it's helping activities. And then you can put that out there and advertise for them. It doesn't cost them anything. So don't be afraid to reach out to not just that kind of stuff, just like anything medically related that you know you probably don't have resources for. There's plenty of places that will donate to nonprofits, to high schools, to colleges, because they understand that you have limited funding and they're willing to do it for students. So it's not begging. It's not like asking for free handouts. It's just it's smart and I've done it a lot in drum corps and it's been successful in the past. So yeah.
That's a good point that there's a lot of corporate sponsors that are willing to help all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
So OK, I'm thinking about another just going back to being in rehearsals and yeah, we have water out there that's helping them rehydrate. How do we as directors and staff, how do we look out for, you know, a student that might be physically overworked or at risk of injury? What should we be? Obviously we can say hey, go get water, but what are the things that we can do to make certain that we are, I guess scanning for possible, you know, problems?
Yeah, like I said, you hope that your students will come and actually chat with you. If they're having something that's persisting through rehearsal that they feel like they can't push through or if it's causing them enough pain where like they physically are showing it on their face, you would hope that they come out and tell you. But a lot of times they don't because they just want to get, they want to be in the rehearsal. They don't want to be letting anybody down. But if you're actually seeing someone struggling like they can't make their dot and they're struggling to do the drill that they normally can do, or it looks like they're limping or like you guys know exactly what you're looking for with the drill. If it looks like they're not performing to their normal level, just pull them aside and be like, hey, are you doing OK? And it might not be physical, it could be mental. You have to remember the whole physicality of this activity is huge in terms of mental health too. So don't overlook that. Some students, I will say in the last few years with drum corps, when I've done health history review, the most significant health history issue that I've seen has been ADHD, some kind of autism spectrum type thing or they've had IETs at the school, some kind of mental health issue that they've had medications for. So it's not necessarily all the physical stuff. The performance aspect of this activity really hurts some people mentally and then it completely changes what they are able to do in rehearsal. So if you see those aspects where like they look confused, they look drained, they also look like they might be in some pain, don't be afraid to pull them out. And if they're, like, refusing and they're saying, like, you know, everything's fine, you can't really do anything about it, right? They have to take some accountability for themselves and how they're feeling. But I think if you're approachable and you kind of notice things, they tend to respond to that better. Don't just ignore things because you think that they should be up to par with everybody else.
That's a great point. I'm glad that you brought in the mental health capacity there because that is significant. I hadn't really thought about how that could affect someone physically as well, just how they're moving. I mean, there's a lot of connections there. So thank you for bringing that up.
Of course.
So now, Jenna, just to take a bit more of a holistic approach for a second, if you could give one piece of advice to us directors who are planning a marching season in terms of student health and wellness, what would you say? What would be your piece of advice for us?
Good question. I don't think of one thing that I would say. I think like we stated earlier, trying to establish early on in the preseason some kind of plan. And it doesn't have to be just related to the preseason conditioning, but having the students, whether it's in like a welcome packet or just like your preseason talks with the students, whether that's virtual or in person, especially with parents, if you're at the high school level, let them know that those aspects of health and safety are going to be very important. So if you hit it hard and you explain that's like what you're achieving in this organization, it's super important. They start to understand that's part of the culture. I think that's what I've struggled with the most over time with marching arts and medicine is that you have to bridge that gap, that they're not separate. You need to make it a cohesive aspect of your organization. Like that's just a caliber thing. Like you need them to understand like yes, we take health and safety extremely seriously here and we are going to take care of your physical health, your mental health. We're going to have fun, we're going to do great performances. But if your hydration, your nutrition, your injuries, all these things are taken care of, then you can't actually do what we're asking you to do on the field. So I think if you make that kind of like that blanket statement from the beginning, it kind of initiates and the students like, oh, OK, like this isn't just an activity that I'm expected to show up at every day, be perfect and not have anything go wrong. Like they understand that you're willing to work with them. And I think setting that groundwork in the beginning has been really successful because, again, it goes back to those students trust you. They know that you care about them. You care about their physical health. And then when something does pop up, it's emotional for them. But they can go back to that thought. Oh, yeah. In the preseason, they said they're going to take care of me if XY and Z happens, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I think it's really helpful. That's great. Thank you. So now this has come to the time of our conversation where we ask everybody a set of questions that are formalized throughout the episodes for each season. So I'll take the first one. Do you have a soapbox topic about wellness and health in the marching arts?
Well, I wrote my master's thesis on drum corps, so like I spent almost three years on one specific topic and I've kind of interweaved it in our conversation a little bit. But I studied a qualitative study, which was looking at the aspect of trust and what factors medical professionals need to have in order for students in the drum corps setting to feel comfortable with their care. And so I came up with seven different factors that were really important so that students actually felt heard, but they also felt like they had good quality care while they were being taken care of by medical staff. So that's why I harp a lot on setting up expectations for students because I've found through my research in the past that if you are someone that a student can trust, they, whether you're an educator or medical professional or just a staff member, they're going to have so much more respect for you and what you're doing for the organization because they feel like they can connect to you as a person, not just as a higher authority. And I felt like that's what's led me to get to where I'm at in drum corps at the top of a medical program, is that I've had the trust of my staff, my medical staff, but also the students because they know that I have their well-being in mind. And there's so many different factors that you as a person can take away from not just doing the job that you're set to do for your organization, but actually instilling like what you would normally do as a human being. Like having compassion and then having accountability for yourself and your students and having good listening skills and empathy. Those are things that people care about. But I think we let those things kind of slide sometimes. And those are just as important in your work and your work ethic as the actual technical parts of your job. So that's kind of my soapbox because I spent a long time on it.
That is a great soapbox. Like, yeah, I would shout that one from the mountaintop. Like, yeah, for every, like the idea of building trust and culture it affects literally everything we do, every student, everything we do. John, you got the last one.
Yes. So Jenna, our final question and arguably the most important. So what's your favorite time signature?
Oh my gosh. OK, that's a good question. It's been a long time since I've had to think about time signature because I haven't played my saxophone since grad school, but I'm going to say three quarter time.
OK, 3-4. Interesting. We can go with 3/4.
Yeah, we can go 3/4. I mean, we do like 3-4, but the obvious correct answer, Jenna, was common time.
No!
We just do it for fun. But it's really funny because we have gotten some interesting answers from individuals on over time. Has anybody responded common time?
A few. A few have and I think they were in on the, you know, the joke. Listened previously.
But hey, Jenna, thank you so much for your time today. This has been so enlightening and helpful and I, for all of our listeners, if you've never thought about this, it's time. If you have been thinking about it and haven't set something in place, it's time. If you have something in place, maybe it's time to review those things and look at those state level documents and see like are we in line with those kinds of things? But ultimately, this idea of taking care of our students is so important and this aspect cannot be overlooked when we're talking about the amount of, I just watched these guys and girls running around the field last night and doing things that 10 years ago we would not have asked them to do. It is getting more and more physical. So, Jenna, thank you again for your time and helping us dig into this and getting this out there for our listeners. We really appreciate it.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
That's it for today's episode of the Common Time Podcast. And thank you for spending time with us. We hope that today's conversation will give you something useful to take back to your students and your program. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribed so you don't miss what's coming up. And if you know another director who might benefit from this, please share it with them. Also, don't forget you're able to nominate a music educator for our Standing Ovation program. The link to submit is in the show notes below. Thanks again for joining us on the Common Time podcast. As always, keep making music and keep making a difference.