My band pulls the whole heel up into a snappy prep-step, but the drumline can't do that because it tends to bobble the drums everywhere. So we lift our heels just barely off the ground. That way we don't rock from side to side but we still get a "feel for the beat", like drumnsax2 said.

I personally like the heel thing. I don't like when some of the kids can do it well and the other kids drums move around everywhere.

In my marching band the band front marks time with only their heels, while the battery uses our whole foot. We do this because if we used only our heels, we wouldn't have to control the movement of the drum, especially for tenors. When you mark time with your whole foot, you learn to control it.

-mikki-

MY band director tells us to only use our heels because if we lift our whole foot it will get us off beat some how..But MY personal preference is to lift the whole foot, it just gets me more into my music somehow.

Band wide we teach heel up to ankle.

I say just the heel because if u use the whole foot your doing more work than necessary you shouldn't have to do more work than necessary which I learned from Quad Logic by Bill Bachman

our director likes the drumline to mark time using our whole foot. and the band to use only their heels. i don't really care, but it seems to me that marking time with the heel of your foot is way easier, because you don't have to lift yourself up entirely like you do when your marking time with your whole foot.

Our school is just the back heel. If you rose your feet to mark time, wouldn't it be like a stepper?

Originally whole foot, but now only heel, 2 of our instructors are from drum corps(SCV and BD) and they told the line to just do heel because of how we look like "penguins" wobbling side to side

Granted lifting the whole foot is more work, but how much more work can it be. On average we are all carrying 20lb drums On top of that, you feel more of the beat when your whole foot hits the ground instead of just the heal.