Commander Issues

[Stryfe]

Basically I'm having some issues with my current Exhibition Team Commander.

Let me start off by saying he's a great guy. The problems occur when we start to drill. He gets extremely uptight especially when we do Armed Drill. This is my schools first year having an Armed Drill Team, and he was selected as Commander because he was really one of the only people who knew how to spin rifles at the time. Since starting the team, many people, including myself have started Rifle Drill and are progressing fast.

The problems occur when myself and another Cadet make posts on DC, (Drillers Consortium), posting videos of our self drilling and asking for advice. While most of the comments are, "Work on your singles, doubles, keeping your body straight, etc." He'll come in and say, "No, don't work on your doubles, you've been drilling a month and don't know how to do Doubles, you should do singles and singles only." While I respect that what he's saying is we should master our Singles first, that doesn't mean we can't do Doubles. This will usually lead to an argument between myself, the other Cadet, and our Commander who will always just pull rank and assume that he's always correct.

He gets extreamly hot headed on this subject because in the past month 3 Daisy's have broken, 1 by me, 1 by a female cadet, and another by another male cadet. Myself and the Male Cadet got chewed out, while no punishment was given to the Female Cadet, which is possibly because my current commander gained some of my former commander's sexist nature.

We know what we're capable of doing, and he believes that just because he's commander he knows our bodies better than we do. This issue has already broken up one friendship between my commander and his friend, and he's starting to just drift away from others who disagree, but are on the team.

I don't want to see the team get disbanded because of this, but you can't have good team chemistry if there's a problem like this going on.

Any feedback is welcome.

[armysc_25b]

Ahh, peer leadership at it's finest. The broken rifles are a setback, but similarily, they shouldn't tell you what they feel you can or can't do because of a "lack of knowledge". Has he even offered to teach doubles, or is he keeping all the "cool stuff" for himself?

[Stryfe]

Ahh, peer leadership at it's finest. The broken rifles are a setback, but similarily, they shouldn't tell you what they feel you can or can't do because of a "lack of knowledge". Has he even offered to teach doubles, or is he keeping all the "cool stuff" for himself?

Everything I know how to do is self taught. The only person I can think of who he's actually taught is the other Cadet on the site having the issue. I get most of my feedback, and learn how to do stuff from DC.

[TruBlu]

Drillers Consortium and Drill Nation are excellent sources for drill knowledge, they've got some of the best in drill in the nation there. Good for you for utilizing at least one of those. I do have one question about the situation, and you may want to pose this to your commander and see what he has to say about this logic: You practice what you want to practice on your time, at your house. When at his practice, on his and your team's time, he calls the shots and you have to practice what he instructs, after all, he is the commander. As you hone your higher abilities at home, you work on your basics at the practices, and eventually, your commander will realize you are capable of more, and will have to utilize you.

[Stryfe]

I do utilize both DC and Drill Nation, DC is just a better place to go for specific Rifle Drill oriented things.
I'll keep that advice in mind, TruBlu, and share it with some other Cadets.

[Stryfe]

I'll quote some of the conversations form DC. "Passer" is my commander.

**WARNING: HORRIBLE GRAMMAR/SPELLING AHEAD!**
Here is a quote from my commander making a thread on DC asking for Advice on how to Command
UOTE (DooDooButter @ May 26 2009, 05:02 AM) It's hard to advise someone without knowing the whole situation. Passer, If you could answer, we might be able to help you:

1) How did you get your command position (instated by the instructor, recommended by a former commander, voted in by the team, etc.)?
2) How long have you been the commander?
3) Have you had any verbal or physical run-ins with anyone on the team?
4) Have you had a situation where you felt that the team needed to be chastised for some reason? If so, did you do it? If do, how did you go about it?
5) Is there any person or group within the that the team listens to? Who and why do you think that is?
6) Be honest, is there anyone on the team better at drill than you?
7) Overall, is the team serious and/or passionate about drill?
8 ) Is it that they don't listen to you or that they don't care to practice?
9) How often do you practice?
10) Have you been to any competitions this year and if so, how did you do?
---------------(passer)
1) I got the position but recommended by another cadet XXXXX (hes on here) the ASI wanted the give the postion to XXXX (XXXX on here....)
2) since last month
3) yes with XXXX and XXXX (stryfe i think is his name on here) about the breaking of rifles and the use of their rifle (they were being $%^@ retarded and pointing there rifles at parked cars and randomly in the park i had to yell at them about it)
4) Yes the above quesion and also about not listening, moving on and doing stuff that could damage the rifle such as when they are finished one of them took their rifle and just threw it up as high and it could and make no attempt to soften the blow i told them that it weakens the rifle when they did that but no more than that
5) yes XXX, XXXX (hes not on here) and a few others dont seems to respect my opinions or what i tell of them for example XXXX started like amonth ago and is trying to teach another cadet how to do something when he himself doesnt know how to do it.. its just annoying
6) on the team no but XXX maybe
7) yes i do believe so
http://209.85.12.227/11950/106/emo/cool.gif the former the want to practice just not the simple basic moves important to know if they are going to be able to do the more advanced stuff
9) as of now once a week for an hour or two once summer break starts hopefully 3 times a week for the same amount of time
10) yes but only one armed preformance and it was a solo ... me and i got first
11) i hope this helps
And now here is a quote on the same thread from one of the cadets in question.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9XVIeQymjs&feature=related
^:12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzUDOArffAI...re=channel_page (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzUDOArffAI&feature=channel_page)
^ 1:10


I find that very hypocritical that you yell at XXXX, XXX, and I for throwing our rifles when you do it yourself....

[Stryfe]

Here is another excerpt from a thread where I posted a video of myself drilling, and asked for constructive help.

QUOTE (passer @ May 26 2009, 03:40 AM) QUOTE (Stryfe14 @ May 26 2009, 03:37 AM) QUOTE (passer @ May 26 2009, 03:31 AM) QUOTE (Stryfe14 @ May 26 2009, 03:25 AM) QUOTE (passer @ May 26 2009, 03:18 AM) QUOTE (xxxx @ May 26 2009, 01:34 AM)

You're going WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to fast when transitioning from one move to another.
I know I've said this to you IRL, but work soely on verticals, singles, and doubles until your ******* arms fall off.
Another thing I did that has helped my posture A LOT is to drill with your back against the wall. At first, you will fail miserably, but just keep on spinning until you're unable to spin anymore.
You're better than I was in my first video! : )

-----------------------------------------(PASSER)
no xxxx just singles hes been drilling for a month and the same for you alex you shuold still only be working on that stuff too...

------------------------------------------(passer)
and by the way this what xxxx said to me last video " Do port spins until your arms fall off everyday in order to get used to the idea of actually stopping the rifle. Do everything you can with your back pressed up against a wall to force your body to maintain a "T" shape"

hahahahaha
---------------------------------------------(me)
I can do doubles xxxx...they're sloppy, but so is everything else I can do, which is what practice is for isn't it?

My video is a lot sloppier than how I normally drill because about 5-10 seconds into it I reopened a cut on my finger, and by the end of it i had blood running down my hand. I just wanted to get a quick vid up here on DC. I put this one up because I figured i'd get more advice if I preformed worse in the video than how I normally could. Not making excuses for myself or anything, just stating some extra info.
------------------------------------------------(Passer)
umm xxxxi can do flying hawaiians lockjaws spinal taps OTH areials skip drill triple BTB and stuff that i cant do consistently but you know what i dont do them.. until i have the other stuff mastered i didnt do doubles until at least 4 months into me doing it soo umm do singles and sutff liek that first until you have that down and looking good... then you can move on
orrr you can do a bunch of stuff you can do have it drop a ton weaken the rifle and have it break but hey whatever you want
--------------------------------------------(Me)
I understand what you're saying, and respect your advice. Whos to say that everyone progresses at the same rate? I'm not saying my Singles or anything are completely mastered. If you took 4 months of practicing singles before you started anything else, then more power to you, I'm sure your singles are perfect.

If my rifle breaks then it breaks. It happens to everyone at one point or another. I really don't want another argument to start, because it's unneeded. I respect you're advice, and will probably take some of it, but everything is also my choice.
--------------------------------------(passer)
okay im just saying your singles are no where near mastered .... i think other people can back me up....and if someone else told me to work on my singles i think the same should go for you...
i am your commander and trust me i dont want you working on stuff before you work on the stuff you havent mastered.... trust me or just whomever you want its your call......

[Drill for life]

First off you are very good, You have Nice composure and great control of your rifle. I was amazed, I can't do the rising sun (I can but not fast, it's do to a injury). To me your commander seems like he is going over board. He is right you shouldn't be pointing the rifle's at anything and you shouldn't just throw it up in the air. Those are the first thing's we teach in my unit, if you dis-obey one of them you get a warning, if you do it again you are kicked off the drill team.

[Stryfe]

First off you are very good, You have Nice composure and great control of your rifle. I was amazed, I can't do the rising sun (I can but not fast, it's do to a injury). To me your commander seems like he is going over board. He is right you shouldn't be pointing the rifle's at anything and you shouldn't just throw it up in the air. Those are the first thing's we teach in my unit, if you dis-obey one of them you get a warning, if you do it again you are kicked off the drill team.

Well, I didnt provide the link to MY video. The video's posted were of my commander drilling, showing his hypocrisy when he throws his rifle on the ground and such.

My video was alot worse :D To be honest we don't mistreat our rifles. 1 broke because a (female) cadet was doing extremely basic moves and dropped it on the ground. Another broke because another cadet in question dropped it after losing control while doing singles. And mine broke because a little kid got to it when I wasnt looking.

[TruBlu]

You need to point out to him what he does, respectfully. No one should ever mistreat their weapon or equipment, ever. Any good soldier will have his weapon in prime condition for use on the battlefield, why should a cadet be any different? Make sure he knows this, and make sure you and your team understand this, there are a few videos where you guys chuck your rifles. A weapon is worthless when it's broken...

[Psybadek]

One thing, rifle's will be dropped when you're learning how to do the moves. When I attempted armed drill I constantly dropped the rifle. I wasn't good at it, so I quit the team and stuck with unarmmed.

As far as diliberately throwing the rifle to the ground, it should never be done. The weapon is to be respected and need's to be kept in prime condition.

Though I don't know about your school, we had practice rifles for that reason. Cadet's will drop them. You do need to talk to your commander and explain to him what you think. Don't get into an argument about it, just speak to him about it.

[Stryfe]

One thing, rifle's will be dropped when you're learning how to do the moves. When I attempted armed drill I constantly dropped the rifle. I wasn't good at it, so I quit the team and stuck with unarmmed.

As far as diliberately throwing the rifle to the ground, it should never be done. The weapon is to be respected and need's to be kept in prime condition.

Though I don't know about your school, we had practice rifles for that reason. Cadet's will drop them. You do need to talk to your commander and explain to him what you think. Don't get into an argument about it, just speak to him about it.

Exactly. I myself have NEVER purposely thrown a rifle on the ground.

One point I brought up was if a rifle breaks when it hits the ground...shouldn't that prove to you that we HAVE been practicing? Because if the rifles that weak, it means we've dropped it a lot from practicing a lot.

[Drill for life]

You need to point out to him what he does, respectfully. No one should ever mistreat their weapon or equipment, ever. Any good soldier will have his weapon in prime condition for use on the battlefield, why should a cadet be any different? Make sure he knows this, and make sure you and your team understand this, there are a few videos where you guys chuck your rifles. A weapon is worthless when it's broken...

You may be the filthiest Marine in the desert but you can swear on your life that, that dirty Marine has the cleanist rifle in the desert ( I hope that made sense:D).

[Stryfe]

You may be the filthiest Marine in the desert but you can swear on your life that, that dirty Marine has the cleanist rifle in the desert ( I hope that made sense:D).

Makes perfect sense.(To me anyway :P)

[Drill for life]

Exactly. I myself have NEVER purposely thrown a rifle on the ground.

One point I brought up was if a rifle breaks when it hits the ground...shouldn't that prove to you that we HAVE been practicing? Because if the rifles that weak, it means we've dropped it a lot from practicing a lot.

Well you also have to take into account that these new Daisy Springfield's aren't as good as the original demilitarized 1903 Springfield's ( that is through my own personal experience). We had a whole thread on the old-forum devoted to how weak the new Daisy replica's are.

[Stryfe]

Well you also have to take into account that these new Daisy Springfield's aren't as good as the original demilitarized 1903 Springfield's ( that is through my own personal experience). We had a whole thread on the old-forum devoted to how weak the new Daisy replica's are.

On DC its actually the opposite that's been found haha. That's why hybrids rock!

[Drill for life]

On DC its actually the opposite that's been found haha. That's why hybrids rock!

PM inbound.

[Stryfe]

For the rest of everyone who doesn't know what a Hybrid is, it's just a Daisy stock with Demil internals, and the other way around Rifle. They're great for drilling because a Daisy stock + the equal weight distribution of Demils is awesome.

[TruBlu]

Demils are just that, demilitarized. They are built to withstand the shock of hundreds and thousands of rounds through them, but not being dropped on the pavement/dirt/whatever hundreds and thousands of time. These older rifles are probably going to be replaced because so many of them are snapped in two or three parts every year. Want to phase out a weapon, give it to the JROTC, they'll take care of 'em. These newer rifles, especially Daisy's, are built for the punishment of exhibition drill and don't snap like 50, 60, and even older, year-old rifles or dinky plastic parade rifles.

My unit should be replacing our 24 demil M1s with 18 new Daisy's this summer, a move that has me bitter sweet. I'll like the toughness and balance, but I'm an IDR kind of guy, and I've always loved the "inspection arms" and sound of an M1...

[Stryfe]

Mmmmhmn, I love the crack of the M-1, especially when a whole team uses em.

Now I don't mean to be a hardass here guys...but could we also get back on topic? :D

[TruBlu]

Now I don't mean to be a hardass here guys...but could we also get back on topic? :D

What, wanna gripe some more lol? JK JK :p

Have you confronted him thus far? What's been going on?

[Drill for life]

Stryfe what happened after he got owned on the the internet? Have you talked to your instructor's about him.

[Stryfe]

We haven't talked to our instructors because they're not in charge of our Drill Teams, and they don't assign Commanders, (Only recommend them).

My commander in question did exactly what we thought he would do after being told he was wrong by Andrea(Professional DT Coach), and Matt Wendling, he got all "I'm so sorry, I could've handled this better, etc."

I think the situation is resolving itself though, next time we have a team practice we're going to have a big talk about all of this.

[TruBlu]

My commander in question did exactly what we thought he would do after being told he was wrong by Andrea(Professional DT Coach), and Matt Wendling, he got all "I'm so sorry, I could've handled this better, etc."

OMG! You have Wendling as your coach! That's freaking fantastic. I just double checked, 'cause I caught wind of it earlier that he was the Exhibition Individual World Comp. Wish I had talent like that through my drill team, or training for them... Have you gotten to do one-on-one with him and work on your drill with him directly?

[Stryfe]

Hahaha I wish Wendling was our coach. He's the T.I.C coach. Him and Andrea are just part of DC and posted on our thread, I can PM you the pic I took of it if you want. And yea Wendling was at the ISIS comp this year.....he got 1st.

[TruBlu]

Ah I see. Wow, that would have been amazing. Yeah, I heard about ISIS from a former Spring Valley High School student some time back and got word that Wendling hit the top later on. Pretty cool stuff. I've never had the desire to spin, but I really, really respect those that do, especially up to national and ISIS level competition. Those are the true Drill Gods.