This has been on my mind, and it needs to be shared. I will brief this blog post by saying that evidence and examples are 100% based on BOA and DCI. However, non-advocates of the marching arts can still relate to the over-arching content and concept being explained in this topic:
There are a number of people in any given competitive activity who make it their life goal to win; it seems to be a common thought that if one could just win at something, that life would be a complete joy and endless success story. For those who actually succeed in this purely on the motivation to win, the realization that "winning" is not what we all perceive it to be can be a catastrophic culture shock. Be careful out there: It's the personal growth as a human being or with which ever organization you are a part of that lasts, not the prizes or the accolades or the trophies or the recognition.
Because it's often the center of my focus during the summer and fall, I'm going to use marching band and drum corps examples here, but these examples are certainly transferable to ANY competitive situation. At the time I'm writing this, Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps scored 2nd place in brass at two of their most recent drum corps competitions. A group of fans are shocked and even offended by this, as the corps has been known in recent years for their incredible brass performers and teachers, and the show they are performing this year is arguably the most demanding of any show in the history of drum corps. The expectation is that they win, and as a result, the celebration when they DO win is greatly lessened, and the resentment when they DON'T win is exponentially increased. Sad.
In 2011, DCI fans almost unanimously agreed that the Blue Devils were having a rough and "off" season, and were experiencing lots of trouble. The Blue Devils placed 2nd place in the WORLD in 2011, but since the expectation is that they spend most of their season undefeated and come out with a championship title at the end of the year, it was perceived that the corps was "out of it" that year. Amazing.
Perhaps we should think twice about the importance of winning a competition, yes? It's a moving target, with different judges with different perspectives, different venues with different acoustics, and different competitors. The result will inevitably be different every time in ways that you could never predict.
Be very careful about the importance you place on competition. If you allow competitive success to define the assessment of your experiences, not only are you empowering other people (judges, fans, and fellow competitors) with the ability to make or break all that you've aspired to be, but even if you manage to find that success, it's only for a brief amount of time, and now you've such an expectation that cannot be satisfied any way except by the pressure to win again, and again, and again, because all of a sudden, if you place second.....
Intrinsic motivation to be a better person, on the other hand, will always give you the opportunity to experience success on your own terms, no matter what happens around you. No judge, competition, or score can take that away from you. Try it sometime?
Marcus Grant
Teacher, Composer, Trumpeter
http://www.msgrantmusic.org
http://www.facebook.com/msgrantmusic
http://www.soundcloud.com/msgrantmusic
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