Marching Band Loyalty

Tennis and marching band are two extracurricular activities that require both dedication and commitment. Prior to entering my first year of high school, I decided that I wanted to take my love for tennis to the next level and make the O’Fallon high school tennis team. In 5th grade, I committed myself to playing the alto saxophone in the school band and all that entails with lessons and practice, with an eye on playing in the high school marching band. During high school, I made a commitment to participate in the Rose Bowl Parade in California. After making that decision, I found out I made the tennis team. Practicing both these activities in the summer and playing during the fall semester put me at odds with my parents on what should come first tennis or band. The amount of time needed for both activities to succeed was monumental and would be an uphill battle compared to the actual time I had. This caused internal conflict knowing that one will not get as much attention as the other. At that moment, I decided to come up with a solution to my problem then put it into action. One way or another I had developed two answers. I realized to become good at band and tennis something had to change.
At first, I thought about equivalency. I would spend the same amount of time playing tennis as I did playing my
instrument. Therefore, I set up private lessons equivalent in time and length. In addition, I did group lessons for tennis as well as O’Fallon open court while band still had the normal 2-4 hour practice excluding band camp. I was always going from one to another either from band to tennis or tennis to band. I also set up a schedule to keep my mom and I organized. For a while this worked, however I realized the time needed to do both was insufficient. Juggling my grades with both band and tennis lessons drained me physically and mentally. In addition, my mother squawked at me as my grades began to slip. The amount of time needed for both practices and private lessons was to over barring for me to handle. Even though this failed I was stilled determined to find a solution.
If equivalency did not work then maybe, “the bare minimum” would. I decided to withdraw from my private band and tennis lessons. In addition, my time would considerately increase. The extra amount of time spent for lessons I used to improve my grades. Instead, I focused on using the time had at each practice more diligently. I also made a checklist of things I want to accomplish before the practice ended to keep me in check. After this, I realized to solve the problem my third alternate idea needed.
Finally, I concluded that a sacrifice had to be made tennis or marching band.
I knew the amount needed to succeed was monstrous and that I could not handle that with everything else. I also realized that this was going to be my final year of marching band. By the end of the year, my passion to continue both was lacking so I decided to go with tennis. I the flame I had for marching band had burnt out. The next year the amount of stress that I had voluntarily signed up for had been lightened considerably. Even though I missed some aspects of marching band, I realized trying to do too much at once of anything was never a good idea. I learned this the hard
way.
Concerning my decision, I still miss marching band; however, my grades and social life have expanded due to this decision. Do not get me wrong the experiences I had with just one year of marching band enriched my life and added to my basic knowledge of music, which I will soon not forget. Having so much going on at once has taught me better time management and decision making skills that life can only improve on. For me working through these tough choices on the activities I voluntarily committed myself to help me realize that life is a balancing act and sometimes I need to relook and reshuffle my priorities.