╒═══ Any help is appreciated :) even small or dumb, because there's not really any resources out here for this haha ═══╕

I'm a drum major, and my school this year is trying to do a movement largely in 7/8...... including marching hitch step. I have a few questions about it if anyone could help!

(there's tl;dr at the bottom if no one wants to read lmaoo )

➥ Background:
• the song is 160 bpm by Hans Zimmer (cadets played it in 2011!)
• It's written 7/4, but we're conducting it in 7/8 and feeling it in 7/8. Basically, it's 7/4 on paper, but it's really 7/8 everywhere else.
• The 7/8 is felt in a 12-12-123, so in 3 with a long beat 3

➥ question 1: how would you guys conduct 7/8 at a fast tempo? We're taking it at 168 but realistically it will be slowed down to 160. Currently we're doing stop-time/deadbeat 3/4 with a long beat 3, so the hypotenuse of the triangle is slower than the rest. When I was talking to one of the Madison Scouts dms, he brought up a good point that this might be confusing for the band as it's both inconsistent (even flow of time iykyk), as well as we do the exact same deadbeat 3 pattern except in normal 3/4 later in the show. It would be confusing for the band for the same shape conducting pattern to have different timings and differing time signatures at different times in the show. What other conducting patterns would be possible at that tempo?? and for 7/8???

➥ question 2: does anyone have any experience with marching hitch step? Especially drumline. We're marching like how the music feels, so 12-12-123, with every third step being slower. Our percussion captionhead doesn't think drumline will be able to do so, but I'm curious if anyone can personally say if it was really that terrible. Or does anyone know of any shows that use hitch step?

╚═══ thank you guys for any help! ═══╝

➤ tl;dr for those who are lazy:
• what are conducting patterns for 7/8 at 168 bpm?
• do you or anyone else, especially drum line, have experience marching hitch step?
• do you know any shows that use hitch step for odd time signatures such as 7/8, 5/8, 9/8. etc.?