Have you ever worked hard, spending many grueling hours doing something for hours each day only to be told that you were just walking? I’ve seen marching be discredited as just that too many times so by writing this I want you to be able to understand that marching band isn’t just walking or playing an instrument, it’s a sport like any other activity.
Marching band is very physical, more than many might expect. Sports medicine physician David S. Edwards says in KTLA EIN Presswire, “The average marching performer can burn up to 5,000 calories per day and march up to nine miles in a day. These are significant demands on the body, and there’s a high potential for injury.”
The high demands required by marching band are similar to the levels of exercise that happen in other sports. Although it lacks the high bursts of physicality you might expect from a sport like football, it is similar to a sport like cross-country which also requires a long period of physical activity. It requires the active use of muscles in the legs and chest for multiple hours at a time. Marching band is often practiced under adverse conditions, like high heat levels which adds to the endurance requirements.
Like other sports, marching band requires practice time outside of standard school hours. Marching band at Woodbridge High will spend close to half the school year spending one hour before school during zero period practicing and two more three hour practices after school on Mondays and Wednesdays. There are also multiple weekend practices as we get closer to competition season. Marching band also has a summer camp which lasts around 2 weeks with each practice lasting 7 hours in preparation before the school year even starts. This level of preparation is comparable if not greater than other sports at Woodbridge High.
The goal of all this practice is to perform well at the regional and state competitions that take place every year. “Like most sports, there’s competitions, there’s teamwork involved, there’s practices, rehearsals, and there’s scoring,” said freshmen marching band member Steve (Sunghyun) Lee. This competitive aspect mirrors many other sports such as football, swimming, and tennis.
All of these activities share the same goal of, as sophomore Lucas Ranches said, “Perfecting your technique and perfecting your attitude while going in.”
One reason people don’t see marching band as a sport is because it isn’t viewed as being nearly as physically demanding as other sports, when in reality this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“We have an 8-minute show and it is like running five miles with a straw in your mouth,” N. Guy Lake, band director of Palm Desert High School says in News Channel 3 article “Study: Marching band as physically demanding as competitive sports.” This is a level of exercise that is very comparable and even above other sports such as golf and table tennis.
Another common rebuttal is that marching band isn’t a sport, but rather a performing art. I say, why can it not be both? Many other activities which are considered sports include an element of artistic performance. Sports like gymnastics and figure skating are very similar to marching band in this regard and are even included in the Olympics.
Almost every definition of a sport would agree that marching band is a sport, with Oxford Languages stating that a sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”
Not only does marching band require physical exertion, it also requires a team of people to work together to compete against other teams for the main purpose of entertainment. There is no reason marching band should not be considered a sport other than to pointlessly discredit something people put real effort into.
