3 Proper Steps to Accurately Communicating on the Paintball Field cont...

Proper Steps to Accurately Communicating

Step #1

Make sure everyone on the team knows all of the team’s unique codes for kill counts, teammate losses, and time left in the game, bunkers, equipment failure, bunkering, game plans/breakout plans, etc. Practice making these calls over and over and make sure everyone is on the same page for this important information. Make these codes unique to just your teammates and not copied from other teams. Remember, the best way to do this is keep it short and simple and not more difficult then the codes need to be. There is so much usually happening in a real game of paintball that the last thing you want to do is have to worry about what a code for a certain part of the game is while actually playing a tournament situation. If you really want to take it to the next level you can learn hand signals that distinguish or portray what you want to happen on the field from your teammates. For example: doing a simple hand wave to represent you want yourself or another a player to go to the snake or you think an opponent is about to go to a key spot on the field before the game starts!

Step#2

Always remember, when a game starts and players arrive at their position on the field, to quickly communicate where the opponent is, the kill count if you have eliminated an opponent, an opponent in your mirror, or a teammate loss. This should be the first thing you do along with shooting your gun and looking for moves. This is very important because it could drastically change the outcome of the game very quickly, depending on which side the information favors. If you can affectively do this in the beginning of a game across your team, you might be able to act quickly depending on whether you shot an opposing player and can quickly make a move down the field. On the opposite side of this scenario, your team might lose one or two players at the start of the game and need to communicate that information to your teammates and act accordingly to the situation. You may have lost your whole left side and need to swing over to spread the field. When doing this don’t just start yelling to yell, you have to make sure your information gets to the rest of your team as I stated before. So many players just yell what they see once and think they did their job, but don’t actually get it across to others. Because the first 30 seconds of a game is the most important, it is vital to absorb everything that is happening on the field and getting it across to your teammates instantly.

Step#3

Another important communication note to practice, is too always quickly communicate any information to your teammates if the opponent has made a move to a “killer spot” on the field. This “killer spot” is a spot where you know is a very effective position on the field to eliminate players. Most of the time when you see an opponent move into this “killer spot” the opponent might not be able to kill you from there, but you know that if you teammate across the field does not receive the information, he will be eliminated. These “killer spots” usually include far positions up the snake, or Dorito side of the field and even the center X. This is why it is so important that you immediately get this information across to your teammate that could be affected by the opponent’s move, before he is eliminated and you are down another body that could have been avoided!


Gant MacLellan

New Train Hard Paintball Clinic Promo Video

What is Edging?

Edging is when a player shoots his gun at a target/player/bunker on the way to his destination/bunker. Other terms used are running and gunning or running and shooting. Xball was really the first format to utilize this skill in a dominate way. Players will use Edging either from the breakout of the game or during the game in order to get to their next position on the field. More skillful and experienced players will use Edging to get to far spots on the filed on break ex. Snake, Corners, or 50's. Edging is a very critical skill now and used in all formats of paintball.

Dave
TrainHardPaintball.com

Paintball Communication - How to properly communicate on the paintball field

Communication
Communication in paintball is one of the hardest things that you will have to learn in the game and to get right. Knowing how to communicate properly and affectively is vital to being successful in any type of paintball game. Anytime you can communicate information on kill counts, teammates lost, or where players are at, etc. across the field, the better your team’s chances of winning! While it is very hard to practice and drill specifically for just communication, there are several areas that can be focused on. The first thing to take into mind is, communication is a two way process. Meaning you are communicating information to a teammate and then receiving information back and interpreting it to yourself. As a tournament player you have to be able to effectively communicate information on the field but be willing and receptive to listen for communication coming from others. Too many players fall into what we call “Tunnel Vision” and let what is going on in the game and their individual situation on the field, consume them from communicating and responding to information. This style of play and lack of communication will almost always result in poor results for the team as a whole. You have to be aware of what is going on around you at all times and constantly thinking and managing instinct.
While communication should come from all players on the field, it is primarily the back players and back center players’ jobs to relay information from the left and right sides of the field! This is primarily due to their position in the back center of the field. Their position further back on the field, offers an easier way to see the whole field and relay information throughout the rest of the team. I have found that the best way to communicate with another member on the field is to call out that players name first, so it directly refers to who you are trying to communicate with. This is very important because just like in the real world, people usually pay attention and respond when their name is called out! Once this is done you then need to make sure they acknowledge you, and then relay them across the information until you know they understand. Once you establish this communication line with your teammate, you will know that they understand the information with some simple head nods or verbal recognition. A key point to practice when doing this is to not let your goal of communicating when playing, take you out of the game, off an opponent, or out of your teams game plan! You want to multitask and focus on the game at hand but still relay the proper information to your teammates without stopping what you are doing. Depending on the situation, you always want to do this because if you don’t it might allow the opponent to move and make advancement that you might not see on your side of the field, which could be disastrous. Additionally head nods are great when a teammate is so far up the field and does not want to yell and give away his position. Since most beginner players do usually take their selves out of the game when communicating, it is almost always a good opportunity to go crush an opponent when he does so. Most players will either stop shooting, turn backwards, let their gun down, etc, when doing this.

3 Proper Steps to Accurately Communicating - coming next week stay tuned

Article by Gant MacLellan
www.trainhardpaintball.com

Paintball Atlanta Clinic Review Saturday March, 7

Gant MacLellan and Dirty Dave Pastore hosted a paintball clinic at Atlanta's hottest paintball field Paintball Atlanta on Saturday March, 7. Ran by a great group of people including Mel, Jay Green, Tito and the rest of the staff. They offer an assorment of fields including hyperball, huge mounds fields, lego type structures, castles, woods and more. www.paintballatlanta.com

Overall we had a great group of players that attended the paintball clinic. As the weather shifts to spring we look forward to hosting our next paintball clinic at Paintball Atlanta. www.trainhardpaintball.com

Wetumpka Paintball Clinic

Dirty Dave Pastore and Gant MacLellan of Train Hard Paintball hosted a paintball clinic at Wetumpka Paintball this past Saturday Feb 21. The Wetumpka Paintball facility was top notch with 3 excellent paintball fields including a new Xball field to choose from. Paintball players from all parts of Alabama attended the paintball clinic making for a great showing. Train Hard Paintball would like to thank all the players that attended including Barney and JJ for putting the event together. If your in the Alabama area or passing through definitely stop by and check their paintball facility out. Learn more @ www.wetumpka-paintball.com

Preparing for your next Paintball Tournament - Game Plans, Harnessing Nerves & more

So your preparing for your next tournament, whether its your first, second, or twentieth tournament the paintball butterflies will always start hitting you the night before the big day. The good news is no matter how much experience you have this is common in all professional sports. The way you harness your nerves distinguishes you from your competition.

Preperation is always key (here are few things that will help)

Practice:
the more you practice with your teammates the more confindence you will have going into the tournment. Practice, practice, practice....

Game Plans:
experinced teams will go into a tournament having a tenative game plan. Players will have tenative positions snake, doritos, corners, back etc... This is expecially helpful when fields publish the filed layouts prior to the event. Experienced teams will practice the field layout before going to the event. If you dont have this ability no worries, generally most tournaments will have the field avail. online for you to print out. Try and go over the field the night before and place players in tenative positions. This is key*** this will allow you to make sure players know areas of the field to mainly focus on.

If for some reason the tournament doesnt make the field layout avail. before hand you have 2 options: My favorite and highly suggested if possible is to go up to the field a day early to walk it(sometimes even practice it). If this isnt an option then show up to the field as early as possible the morning of and be prepared to walk at the beginning of day light.

Final Game Plan:
the final game plan should never be finalized until you arrive to the actual tournament field. From professional experience I can assure you the actual tourny field layout is always slightly different from your practice field or print out (angles, bunker locations etc). Spend your time wisely walking the field(s) and make sure all players on the team are aware of all changes. Trust me... this will help build individual and overall team confindence going into the tournament.

For those walking the field the day of, make sure you have a chart or dry erase board with the field layout. All players should have the game plan charted out.

***Always plan for alternative routes and game plans especially when the tournament is played on only 1 field.

Paintball Jitters/Nerves:
Like I mentioned earlier there is really no cure for the paintball jitters, exceptional players like Oliver Lang to Todd Marinez have them. I've even seen some pro players throw up before matches in a tournament. The true pro players have learned how to master these nerves and use them to their benefit. Ipods, stretching, team stretching, and field/position visualization are all great ways to build mental focus and harness those jitters.

Contact me with any questions

"Dirty" Dave Pastore
Train Hard Paintball
www.trainhardpaintball.com
Paintball Clinics that Rock!



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