On our Saturday practice I've been noticing that the freshman have not been marching in time.  Its normal for them to mess up here and there. But every time I tell them or our band director does they never seem to understand.  So I thought and asked myself what can I do to make it easier for them?
I started to experiment with my own marching to notice what might be the problem, and some of the transitions that we do can put them on the wrong foot. I talked to the freshman and told them what foot they should start with for certain moves. After a while I still saw some of them messing up.  So I asked the freshman that were still having problems, what they were still confused about? One of them stepped up and said "Were not confused its just... we don't have confidence in our step.  Our feet glitch out and start on the wrong foot".  Now I understood there just not confidant,(which is the most important step in marching,)  So I told them what our band director always tells us "You don't have to be nervous to take a step the ground is always going to be there. If it isn't we have bigger problems than marching.  You just have to remind yourself you know what your doing."
They immediately fixed there feet, they started to make the drill better and better every time we ran the performance.