Marching Band. Developing Mental toughness

To be successful in marching band, band directors preach three things. Memorize your music, memorize your specific sets and movements, and do them both at the same time well. Mentally, marching band is one of the toughest sports invented.
Memorizing your music is just as tough as memorizing a play or formation in basketball or football. Now add your sets and formations to the memorization pot. That's a lot of work to do. Spending countless hours working on music as well as marching allows memorization to come a little easier to you but if you don't have some idea of how the music should sound or where you are supposed to go, you will be holding the rest of the band back. From day one, the band directors will beat every note, measure, beat, set, move, formation and articulation into your head. By doing so, being able to perform all of those tasks at the same time becomes easier, although still difficult. If you are able to march well, play your instrument well, remember where you are supposed to go every set, play your music with style, stay in formation and articulate each phrase, you are very capable of marching in a band. It is very difficult to perform these tasks all at once but when many people bring all of these challenges together onto one field, an amazing acomplishment will be performed.