PAINTBALL
When playing with paintballs was first envisioned, professional players and well-organized international tournaments were the last possible thing in the minds of the founders. The founders were thinking survival. Could they survive if the government collapsed and they were on their own in a lawless land? Could they survive if the U.S. and the Soviet Union launched civilization-destroying nuclear strikes at one another? Could they survive if they were lost in the wilderness? Paintball was simply a way of testing themselves. It was a very personal, very individual thing.
But shooting balls of paint proved to be so much fun that the playing philosophy and venue evolved rapidly. Individual survival became team survival. Camo jammies in the woods became radical team colors and high-tech clothing on a playing field surrounded by high nets, bleachers for spectators, huge inflatable bunker-balloons and even television cameras. Paintball has become a much more varied game or sport than its founders imagined. Today, there is room for everyone (except people who will not play by the rules!) and every style of play. This chapter is all about how the pros do it … and yes, there are professional players in paintball.
Much of the coverage of paintball in national and international magazines such as Paintball 2Xtremes , Paintball, Paintball Games International and FaceFull is devoted to following the professional circuits, the NPPL, PSP and collegiate venues. Less than five out of a hundred people want to play at this highest level of competition … or maybe a lot higher percentage than that want to but won’t because it’s out of their reach. It’s sort of like wanting to win the lottery. Logically, we know that somebody is going to win, but let’s be honest, it won’t be us.
To the victor belong the spoils. JT USA’s Team Dynasty takes the 2003 World Cup in Toulouse, France.
What does it take to play professionally? Well here is what is unnecessary and may actually not be helpful. Spouse. Kids. Wealth. A lot of time spent in school beyond high school. It doesn’t take a steady job, either.
Great pro players come from all walks of life. You read their names in every magazine: Chris Lasoya , Rich Telford, Bob Long . Former greats include the likes of Oh Pawlak, Eric Felix and Shane Pestana. Oliver Lang , who plays professionally for Team Dynasty, says he loved skateboarding growing up as a California kid, but now he takes on the responsibility for getting his teammates pumped up before a game. He screams at them. He chants. He roughs them up … and they respond. They win. Not because they are in better shape or they want to win more or they have better equipment, but because, in the final analysis, Oliver says, it may be “all mental.”
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
Playing paintball at the highest level takes Personal Commitment. It takes something mental. Your mind first. Your body follows. Understand this. It ain’t easy. Many are called, but few are chosen. Many begin on the path, but few go the distance. Can you go the distance?
To become a pro player, you need to find a way to make that goal #1 – numero uno – primero in your life. Everything else will need to take a back seat for a while. Girlfriend, school, job and even your family. Here are 12 “thoughtful spots” (yes, we ripped that off from Winnie the Pooh), places you can go mentally and physically to prepare for being a pro player once you have made the personal commitment. Six of these “thoughtful spots” are actions you can take and six are mental preparations. The mental side is the foundation for the action.
Six Actions
1. Read everything you can about paintball and playing paintball. You will learn about the equipment, other pro players and the pro competition circuits. Your sources will be magazines, books, company catalogs and the Internet.
2. Buy good gear. When you begin, you want good gear. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive or the very best … yet. You want to be able to take your marker apart and learn to fix things. You want to make upgrades yourself. You want to learn your gear inside and out and that includes some screwing up.
3. Play. That’s it. Play paintball every chance you get. Go to every rec field and scenario game you can possibly get to and check them out. Experience every situation. Immerse yourself in the paintball lifestyle and culture. Talk the talk. Walk the walk.
4. Get in shape physically. The best paintball players are fast, have extraordinary reflexes and good hand-eye coordination. Run. Swim. Lift. Dedicate your body to … well, not purity exactly, but health. No smokes. No chews. And if you drink … think moderation.
5. Travel to every event you can afford. Watch how today’s pros play, how they study shooting lanes, map out the cover and work as a team. Watch how they act on the break, how they communicate and how they react when they are sent to the dead box. Since paintball is played around the world, if you learn to read and speak a foreign language like French or Spanish or German, you will become invaluable for other players and companies.
6. Get to know everyone in the game. Become a part of paintball. Get autographs. Meet the KAPP girls. Ask for Bud Orr’s autograph. The more you belong, the faster you will approach your goal and the more you will hunger for it.
Six Challenges
7. Envision yourself as a pro player. Be a pro inside your head and your chosen path will appear. It’s a “Build it and they will come” thing. Be very careful here, however, that it does not become an ego thing. No one was ever the fastest gunfighter in the West for very long. The real pro becomes a servant to the game rather than expecting the game to be his (or her) servant. It truly is a Zen thing.
8. Write everything down. Personal commitment is meaningless if you only keep it in your head. After all, think about how many thoughts move through your head every day. Thousands. Millions maybe. If you will only take the time to write down your goal, maybe make a poster for your bedroom, you are half the way to your goal.
9. Minimize other commitments. If you want to be the best, you have to give up things that get in the way of that goal, whatever they are in time or money.
10. Live inside your dream. Expect that many people will want to turn you aside from your goal, and they often have good reasons for what they say and do. Your parents will want you to get a good education. Your girlfriend will want to spend Saturday at the beach rather than at the rec field or your boyfriend will want to go to the movies and then out for a party before a tournament. Your buddies will want to play computer games rather than field-stripping and cleaning your marker. Expect pressure and prepare for it mentally. Don’t get angry; get focused.
11. Decide what kind of pro player you want to be. Emotional or cool. What will you do to win? You will see some pro players lose their minds on the field. They argue with the refs and lose their temper. You will discover “that fine line” between what is right and what is wrong. Your job is to decide what side of the line you are going to walk.
12. The best pro player develops personal integrity. These are very basic principles of life and it takes some people, whether they are pros or not, a lifetime to learn them. Play fair. Be responsible for your actions. Treat other people the way you would want to be treated. Play with integrity
