Football and fast passages

If you watch football, you've probably often seen a receiver drop a pass because he was looking for where he was going to run down the field before he had taken care to gain full possession of the ball. I think the same thing happens to us trombone players, especially in sections of the music that begin with fast moving notes. When passages like this occur, make sure to give full length and resonance to the first note of the phrase and let that serve as a springboard for everything that happens afterwards. Too often, we are so anxious about playing a million notes that we get tripped up before we even get started!