I am not referring to young players but to the new players that just bought that brand new marker. That new guy that is so excited he can’t wait to start playing. That new guy that is quickly going to find himself drifting all alone on the open sea. It’s also that same new guy that’s sell his marker with the ad description “Selling - Brand new hardly been used..”
There is a huge problem within the paintball industry to retain and educate new players with the fundamental paintball skills and knowledge. There is no support or retention system in place to keep new players involved and excited. We are simply pushing gear unto new players and we are setting them up for failure because a lack of an educational network.
We mainly get exposed to paintball at birthday parties, bachelors or from friends. You have a great time and want to play again …so you buy a marker. Sounds familiar? So you phone your friends to organize a game. On the day, two of the five invited friends show up. You find “one-on-two” not that much fun, but you are enthusiastic and continue. Quickly you find yourself playing against a more advanced team. You are traumatized and oblivious to the pain afflicted on your body. The probability of you returning fades.
If players don’t get drawn into an organized group or network they are lost. No wonder the average paintball player length is a mere 6 to 12 months.
Maybe we should start looking at present growth models in our societies. Find the similarity in Rugby. They start training pre-school kids. The kids play for fun and don’t realize the fundamental training that the coach is drilling into them. Even the parents are involved and support the kids as they grow in the sport.
Take the modern Church of today. They divide their members into smaller “Home Cells”. In these smaller groups they can support and teach each other. Churches that adapted the Cell Model showed growth.
Okay bottom-line is we need to fix it and create structures.
Start with educating new players on the basic gun and gear maintenance. Example how to adjust the velocity, movement, general playing, chrono, etc.
Create the Friend group. Encourage by discussing paintball gear and tactics. Then go play together some social events and step it up to tournaments and leagues if that is your interest.
Be dedicated in promoting paintball safety where ever you go. Keep that barrel sock on and make it visible that you are serious about the safety of the people around you.
KUSTOM PAINTBALL is hard at work in creating a structure to educate and retain players.
We believe that Demo days will be a good intro. The players will know more before they take to the field. With our partner AWOL PAINTBALL FIELD we offer new players a free demo day at the field where we will go over the basics and teach tactics. We believe by adding purpose in the sense of tournaments and leagues we can retain players year by year. We are creating the MSP(Military Style Paintball) rule book. This will become the standard for all MSP players. Through forming rules and boundaries we can create a professional sport. We are also focussed on the recreational players and believe they should continue their education of technique and skill and not just the competitive players.
Please support us in what we are doing.
Fully support this and think it is an awesome idea, really want to watch this grow and get more people involved
ReplyDeleteAmongst our group of friends we have a Dad and Sons afternoon every now and then. We get together at a friends plot and we play various bushball scenario's. The kids ages range from 6 years to 14 years. When we get together we teach about the safety of the game, stalking, playing with your team, strategies and so forth.
ReplyDeleteWe get the kids to play against each other to warm up and then later in the day to play with the adults. However on many occasions they seem to be very hesitant when playing with/or against adults as there seems to be an intimidation factor. As soon as they play amongst themselves they tend be a little more "brave" and get more involved with the game.
The only drawback thus far is that many of the Dads battle with commitments and aren't always available to make it a viable afternoon. So it doesn't help if there are only 2-3 kids that pitch up for the afternoon.
I will gladly support any initiative where just the kids can be taught or coached, perhaps one session a month, where experienced players give there support to the kids to grow into the game.
I personally think there are many players on the field, beginners or more experienced guys that are doing the fundamentals wrong. Fundamentals being marker safety, maintenance, snap shooting, marker grips, etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying these guys can't go out and have a ball of a time, but you are setting yourself up for failure if you want to move up a gear by playing in leagues competing against more professional teams.
I think demo or training days would be of great value to many of the players to get their fundamental skills right. If we can get people doing the fundamentals right they are less likely to get annihilated when starting up in tournaments or in social games with more experienced guys, thus making the experience more enjoyable for everyone involved and thus keeping players coming back.
I support this 100%. Just the previous weekend i went to a speedball clinic day, not going to mention names but there was a guy with the right knowledge coaching new and professional players on the basic rules and gameplay in modern paintball. Not forgetting the new players he also gave them advice and coaching to help them grow as individual and also as a group when u play. So the idea is there it just needs to get rooted. Hope to see my favourite Paintball Range being the pioneer with this new movement, both speedball and woodsball.
ReplyDeleteThis movement is exactly were Paintball South Africa has to go.
ReplyDeleteI support it 110% and most of my fellow ballers does aswell. We constantly look out for the interested newbies , and bring them along to whatever big event are being held , and social games that we can pull-of.
Networking is going to be key and getting fields joined in this movement will surely help. Agreeing with Troepie. There is lot of us privelidged to be already involved with the pioneers of this movement , and this base for other players needs to be built.
It will also provide a bigger platform for competitions and league's. Proper divisions can be set up to even out "experience" levels when it comes to competition, and this would also motivate new players to improve their devision.(It will also help new players not be "eliminated" by the experienced guys) This has been implemented with MAJOR success in the speedball leagues ,and I see no reason why not for MSP.
I also think one should approach the guys who are currently doing this , who has also managed to take Professional Players overseas to compete and represent South Africa. That knowledge and participation would surely help.
To get the sport out there , I think demo play's are a good idea. More advertising would help as well as shop participation. How nice would it be if a new player can buy a marker , immediatly get the details around entering this new world of paintball. Provide participating fieldnames and telephone numbers to encourage these guys to come out, and not get stuck playing at floppy joe's down the street , behind some tyres and pallets. There is so many guys I have talked to that cannot believe the style of paintball we play and the environment , for them its simply unreal.
In essecence we help paintball to grow so that we as players can also grow.
This is a great Idea... will also support the best I can and in any means necessary. This is where the sport will get more players and get more teams to attend or compete in the leagues.
ReplyDeleteYou have my full support.
I agree with the fact that there is now a rule book for everyone to go with and it might just give this industry what it needs KEEPING people interested. If I can add you should look in to getting the SADF in shearing their stories in this sport and also maybe have a real infantry soldier present to shear there ideas for being behind a gun.
ReplyDeleteThe other day my crew and me talked about a one year event that this industry needs where the SAFD and all paintball fields come together and have one WAR. This allows everyone to see the impact its makes and the fields get to promote them self’s so people can know where to play. Reason for me saying we should get the SAFD involved is because if you want a military style paintball it’s best to have them know about this sport and you never know there might be perks. Young men might get to drive in tank or army trucks it can also better the relationship with the civilians and the ARMY.
I fully support this. Although i play a lot of paintball i have only recently acquired a paintball marker/gun and fear that the sport might fade away from me. I have a lot of friends that play and have their own markers and i wish to learn more about military tactics and strategy's used in paintball. I have already tried to make a team with my friends for the tournaments and so on... And i think these demo games and educational sessions would work perfectly. I myself need education on how to maintain my marker.
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