Paintball Field Awareness Concepts

Video Transcript

"Hello this is Rob Rubin and you're watching Expert Village. An important skill that you can actually hone as you are playing is field awareness or at least knowing what is going on in the field. An air ball field is only so big. You should be able to see from one side to the other and you should be able to communicate from one side to the other. It is not like you are playing on a 15 acre wooded ball field, this is relatively small so you have no excuse not to know what's going on. Your team mates should be feeding you information constantly but there are things that you can do. For starts right off the break you can usually see the other team. As you are running out to your bunker, keep an eye down field. I mean you know where you are going, you are going to your bunker, but keep an eye down there to see how many people are going to be on the other side of you. You don't even have to get a rough number but if you can see most of the people edging this way, get ready to play. There are a couple of things you should know about your opponents, for the most part your opponents are going to be lazy because a lot of paintball players are lazy. If you see two people come to this side of the field, odds are they are going to remain on this side of the field until you eliminate them. That's just human nature. A lot of people don't want to switch from right to left constantly so they're going to find a spot, find their side, and they are going to stay on their side. So if you put a guy down on this side of the field, he's probably going to stay on this side of the field. Speaking of lazy players, a lot of players are also pretty timid. You would be surprised to even consider that word when you are talking about paintball players but a lot of players are not going to move up. They're going to get into their bunkers, they're going to plant and put up a white picket fence all the good stuff and they're going to stay there until they are 100% absolutely sure that nothing is in front of them. Use that to your advantage because they're going to expect you to do the same thing, so you move up on them. Also as I was saying air ball fields are only so big. You should be able to hear everything that is going on and everything that your team mates are saying so talk it up. Even idle chatter is going to be better than nothing because it tells your team two things. It tells them where you are and it tells them that you are still in the game. O'kay I've got one on the right and I've got about three guys on the left. Where, where, where? Right over there, right over there. Hey, I'm hungry, what do you want to eat? A half a pizza, pizza sounds good. Alright let's go. Pizza - go. There is nothing worse than having a team of five guys and nobody wants to talk to each other at least on the field. So what field awareness is is basically it's psychology. It is knowing what those on the field are going to do before they know what they are going to do. Also it's knowing what your team mates are going to do partially before they know what they are going to do and then making the right decisions based on that, knowing what everybody probably is going to do on the field. Now occasionally you get surprised and occasionally you get somebody who thinks outside of the box over here but for the most part most players are going to be predictable. Don't be that player!"