When Adam Rabanal (11) was in eighth grade, he was in search of a hobby to begin in high school: a new activity for a new start. However, he lacked ideas as to what it could be. Unbeknownst to him, the answer would come when he wasn’t seeking it.
That July before his freshman year, Rabanal and his family traveled to Washington, D.C. for vacation. They weren’t far from the Lincoln Memorial when Rabanal saw the Marine Corps drill team. This sighting sparked interest in Rabanal, who soon after watched a video of a joint branch drill team competition. He was transfixed by the display and so inspired by the traditions in their disciplined routines that from that moment, he knew that he wanted to learn more about the armed exhibition he’d witnessed. When the school year began, Rabanal had his first opportunity at Westview, in the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC).
“I started armed exhibition my freshman year because I wanted to join a team,” Raba
nal said. “But we did not start competing until last year, my sophomore year, for my first field meets due to having too few people on our team.”
Rabanal said that his sophomore year with NJROTC also inspired him to pursue joining the Marine Corps after high school. The three field meets Rabanal and his team attended last year qualified Westview for the state championship in Los Angeles for the first time in five years. It was there that Rabanal met Oscar Arroyo, the owner and creator of California Independents, a mentorship program for high school and graduate students across the state to gain experience and critique from professionals in armed exhibitions.
“I approached [Arroyo] because I was star-struck,” Rabanal said. “He’s famous in the armed exhibition community and he competed at the World Drill Championships in Florida some years before. I kept in contact, and before the school year ended, I joined the California Independents.”
This April, Rabanal was accepted as a California Independents cadet and was coached online from their headquarters in Los Angeles. The mentors were able to give Rabanal tips on new rifle aerial spins and correct his body alignment.
After four months of training, Rabanal’s first drill rifle broke, but California Independents
sponsored Rabanal and bought him his own rifle. Four times in the summer, Rabanal met with the coaches at visits to Oceanside, where the mentees of California Independents practiced together for eight hours on the beach. Since the school year started, they have visited twice more.
“Every now and then we have a drill meet when everyone comes together,” Rabanal said. “We just coach each other and learn new things, and I’m taking information from their teachings to bring here to Westview so that we can hopefully make it to the national championships this year.”
As the only current Westview team member with outside experience in armed exhibition, Rabanal has taken the role of a student coach for his drill team. Current field preparations are freshman-oriented, focusing on teaching them before the first field meets in November when the competitive drill team will compete for a panel of 4-5 judges, all active military officers. The officers will score the team’s rifle aerial tosses and marching based on uniformity, military bearing (body and eye demonstration of attitude, confidence, and discipline), and difficulty of the rifle spins. In hour-long practices after school three days a week, Rabanal leads the team in warm-ups, reviewing drills and learning new skills. They plan to compete in three more regional competitions this year to qualify for state championships at La Habra High School in Los Angeles and the national championship in Pensacola, Florida.
“This year, we’re starting to get down to the finer details like matching the angle of the rifles and how we’re spinning them,” Rabanal said. “Coordinating how high you’re throwing the rifles up was an issue last year because everybody was on a different level where their rifle was either too far forward or too far back. We need to get everything just right and that’s why we’re taking so much time to prepare and receiving help from California Independents.”
Rabanal said he believes that this year, the Westview competitive drill team has a good shot at making it to Florida for the national championship, thanks to the new guidance from California Independents and persistent practices.
“[Going to nationals] would mean a lot to me because armed exhibition is a huge mental challenge,” Rabanal said. “Some days you pick up the rifle and do well, and some days, you’ll want to give up. It’s all up to you; to keep going at your own pace.”
