Marching on a grass or artficial turf field

[twirlgirl]

we practice on a field that is used for gym class it is really small and has holes where they play little kid ball... the school won't even let the band/guard on the real field and if we do it's still grass...

[290Piika]

Dry, healthy grass without major imperfections is lovely.

I hate marching at half-time on normal grass because the football players rip it up. There are holes and such from cleets. But, I'd take moderately ripped-up grass over turf, because turf tends to be slippery and has less gripping for the foot, especially at fast tempos and large strides.

I've been on some terribly muddy football practice fields with more mud than grass (in white pants and shoes). Those suck.

[tromboneking87]

Our practice field is...well...not quite a field anymore, right now it's basically a giant mud pit. We've taken the south quad and made it our home, but the university hasn't reseeded the grass in, oh, 4 years. We only had 2 rehearsals on it the week of the Halloween show because the conditions were just terrible. However, on occasion we are allowed to use the team's indoor practice field, which is nice, except it's a shortened field (Full endzone to opposite 20 I think?).
And then we have an amazing turf field in Memorial Stadium. Except you get those stupid black rubber things in your shoes, and they get EVERYWHERE. No joke, I found those little rubber things in my home at Christmas. I have no clue how they got there.

[KUguardgrl13]

yeah, when it's cold or the stadium is being used on Saturday mornings, they let us use the indoor football field. we just got new turf in KU's Memorial Stadium and it's awesome i actually prefer turf over grass because it's easier to see the yard lines and you don't have to worry about mud.

[290Piika]

^ True dat. I love the bright lines and consistancy of turf. I just hate the traction and the little rubbery pellets that get stuck in shoes (and one time, ended up in my mouth because we put our instruments on the field...yucky >.<).

[KUguardgrl13]

yeah, those rubber bits stick to everything, particularly when it's wet. oh well, the turf with the rubber is better than the old green carpet stuff where you get the little green fibers stuck to everything. i think i still have some embedded in my socks from freshman and sophomore year...

[uscsummermusiclvr]

We practice on a grass field, and a parking lot, so we're used to BOTH.

But when we went to Ohio for BOA Regionals, it was ASTROTURF (the fake grass). And, right in the middle of the field was a giant MS or something (for Massillon HS) and it literally had NO yard lines where it was. So, I could NOT find my opening dot, or some of my dots that fell right smack dab on the yard line; I had to literally guess where it would be.
And at State, the field was so horrible. I wanted to run away when I saw it. The grass wasn't even grass, it was mud with grass clumps all over it. So NASTY. Mr. Pence told us that when he was just walking on it he was like "OMG I want to GET OFF OF THIS."

[Phoenix Wright]

^^Yeah i've had that same problem a couple of time. On turf, the home team usually has a couple giant letters, so the lines are hard to see near the fifty.... just where judges look the most.

And also, have you ever marched during a hard rain, on a normal grass field, AFTER the football team has litterallt taken every bit og grass with them? THat happened to us this year... it SUCKED. >.>

[claribeth]

We have band camp on the parking lot and the back of the girls softball field is our practice field during the school year. We have practice Mon, Tues, and Thurs from 3:15-5:45 until we finish our last competition then we just have Thursday practice and it gradually gets shorter till the season ends.


This year we missed 6 performances because of the rain. 1 Competition, 4 half time shows, and the Jamboree. Only 1 game was played had turf. I HATE it! Especially with all the rain and it being slick as ice. Although I guess it would be better considering one our shows we were in a complete mud hole, but my school is to poor to get turf.

[the_sousabone]

TURF TURDS!

[KUguardgrl13]

Nov 10, 2009 19:37:17 GMT -5 uscsummermusiclvr said:

We practice on a grass field, and a parking lot, so we're used to BOTH.

But when we went to Ohio for BOA Regionals, it was ASTROTURF (the fake grass). And, right in the middle of the field was a giant MS or something (for Massillon HS) and it literally had NO yard lines where it was. So, I could NOT find my opening dot, or some of my dots that fell right smack dab on the yard line; I had to literally guess where it would be.
And at State, the field was so horrible. I wanted to run away when I saw it. The grass wasn't even grass, it was mud with grass clumps all over it. So NASTY. Mr. Pence told us that when he was just walking on it he was like "OMG I want to GET OFF OF THIS."

yeah, on the center of the KU field is a giant jayhawk. our band director is constantly on the people who march over it in our pregame show because it's easy to get out of line. we don't have the jayhawk on our practice field and the numbers are also a different size.

[bluescalesdragon]

What's so great about turf?

People fall down on turf just as much as on grass. I prefer grass, even when its a muddy field. Somehow, my band manages to stay upright in mud puddles, but not state of the art turf.

[stixrox]

We practice on our schools back parking lot. We only had a chance to practice on the football field three times. I hate grass, but only because most of the grass fields i've marched on have been torn up or really muddy. I prefer turf

[mthsbandrocks]

We practice on the parking lot but every Friday we have afterschool practice on our astroturf football field [which is on campus for us since it's a private school]. We are kinda use to marching on grass fields for games since most private schools don't have a big sports/arts program like we do. It's always interesting on grass fields.
I obviously prefer turf but I think it's good to be prepared to march on anything. At least for our band. We had to march in a DOWNPOUR on a grass field. Let's just say many shoes were left on the field. The mud literately pulled the shoes off our feet. But we were prepared. :]

[altoclarinets]

One of the main things I love about being in a 5a Texas school: I have never had to march a game or competition on a grass field, except for the state championship games in the pro stadiums! We had a grass practice field my freshman and sophomore years, now we have a concrete one, but our district stadium, where all varsity games are played, is AstroTurf (AstroPlay, actually), and all other HS fields I can recall (except maybe A&M Consolidated) were as well. I actually prefer well maintained grass: it supports the foot better (APlay is very squooshy) and it doesn't get AS all over your shoes. However, it rains too much for that to be a reality around here...