Water Is Not a Reward

“Let’s get through the next two pages and put this all together, and then we’ll take five for water.”

In that short, seemingly harmless sentence, you’ve done two things: made water a reward for work, and made hydration something that happens only after the lesson plan says it can.

Neither belongs anywhere near an outdoor summer rehearsal.

And I’ve said that sentence myself. A lot.

“I just want to finish this thought.”

“I want the kids to retain this information.”

“This will be a good place to stop for a break. It’s a good segment.”

We give ourselves good, responsible-sounding reasons. I certainly did. Finish the rep. Complete the teaching thought. Give them a goal to work toward.

Sometimes the kids aren’t rehearsing particularly well, and the thought becomes, “If I give them something to work toward, maybe they’ll push a little harder and we’ll get something accomplished before the break.”

You know why they might not be working that well?

They’re thirsty.

Quite possibly dehydrated.

And once their bodies start fighting the heat and lack of water, their brains care considerably less about dots. The body starts prioritizing basic needs, and “marching band” is not one of them, as much as we might wish otherwise.

Several years ago, DCI imposed on drum corps a devastating little invention called Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, or WBGT.

WBGT gives a much better picture of environmental heat stress than simply looking at the temperature on your weather app. It accounts for temperature and humidity, but also air movement and radiant heat from the sun.

And with it came zones.

Green? Rehearse normally.

Yellow? Start building in required breaks.

Orange and red? More rest, more shade, shorter rehearsal blocks, stricter work-to-rest ratios.

Black? Congratulations. Rehearsal is indoors.

In DCI, we hated it.

We were on tour to rehearse. We wanted to be outside grinding, getting better, cleaning more, getting another rep.

But we adjusted.

More breaks. More water. More recovery.

And, inconveniently for everything we thought we knew, the kids started rehearsing better.

A couple of years later, UIL in Texas adopted WBGT guidelines as well. Texas band directors reacted about the way drum corps staffs had.

“We need to be outside rehearsing!”

By then, I had already lived through the transition once on tour.

More importantly, I had changed.

They’re kids.

They’re young humans.

And it’s just band.

Over the last several years, especially during band camp, I’ve put myself on a timer whenever I run rehearsal.

At most, about 15 minutes.

As the temperature climbs past 90 degrees, that interval gets shorter. Sometimes well under 10 minutes.

When the timer goes off, rehearsal stops.

Not “after we finish this thought.”

Not “once we put these three pages together.”

Not “give me one more rep.”

The timer beeps. The next thing I say over the microphone is:

“Get off the field. Go get water.”

And I now plan for that time before rehearsal ever starts.

If I have a three-hour rehearsal block, I no longer write three hours of instruction and then act surprised when water breaks interfere with it.

The water breaks are already accounted for.

If I know the students are going to spend 30 or 40 minutes of that block getting water, recovering in the shade, using the restroom, refilling their jugs, and generally taking care of themselves, then I do not have three hours of teaching time.

I might have two hours and twenty minutes.

So that is the rehearsal I plan.

That changes more than the schedule. It changes the way you think about the breaks.

The water break is not interrupting the lesson plan.

It was part of the reality the lesson plan should have accounted for in the first place.

“But if they’re drinking that much, they’re going to miss reps because they have to go to the bathroom.”

Good.

That means they’re hydrated.

“If they keep getting water breaks, their jugs are going to be empty.”

They should be.

Set up somewhere to refill them.

Water is not a reward.

Water is not something students earn by finishing the rep.

Water is not a step in your lesson plan.

Water is an essential part of life.

Plan the rehearsal knowing the breaks are going to happen. Build that time into the schedule before you ever step onto the field. Put yourself on a timer.

When it goes off, stop.

The lesson plan waits for the water break.

The water break never waits for the lesson plan.

If your state, district, or organization does not provide specific heat guidelines, UIL’s heat-stress policy is a useful conservative model to follow:

https://www.uiltexas.org/health/info/heat-stress-and-athletic-participation

You can also use the University of North Carolina’s WBGT forecasting tool to see expected conditions for your location:

https://convergence.unc.edu/tools/wbgt/

A forecast is useful for planning, but remember that conditions can vary substantially even across the same rehearsal site depending on direct sun, surface, wind, and other environmental factors. If you have access to an onsite WBGT meter, use it for real-time decisions.

Take the water breaks.

Your students will rehearse better. They’ll retain more. They’ll recover better. You may find that you accomplish more with two hours and twenty minutes of productive teaching than you ever did trying to grind through three hours wall-to-wall.

But that isn’t really the point.

They’re kids.

They’re outside in the summer.

Give them water.