"Keep the fire burning...." - Francis Lucena Kiko

The ONE Basic Paintball Course

21 February 2010 – 36 serious participants made their way to Red Dynasty Paintball Park at 10am on a hot Sunday morning. So serious that some turned up at 9am and that one came after his night-shift work without catching a wink. All were very serious; serious in attaining their common objective, ie. to learn from the best and friendliest instructor in Singapore – Mr Kiko. Mention the name Kiko to a local paintballer and most would know the humble gentleman at Red Dynasty Paintball Park but do not let his smiling face mask his extraordinary skills in the field. The moment anyone lets his guard down in the field against Kiko, they can only be home nursing their bruised body and ego.

The Basic Paintball Course is set up with the aim to introduce tournament paintball to the locals and provide an avenue for keen participants to learn paintball from the very fundamentals. A professional player from NBA, Larry Bird, once quoted – First master the fundamentals. Strong fundamentals were the emphasis of the day as Kiko strongly believed that one could only be good and successful if one focused on the fundamentals, always. The course started with a nice round of warm-up runs and stretching led by Sofie, player from Team Red West, for all which probably served as a reminder to some that they might want to work on their fitness. After a good round of explanation on the importance of adopting a good shooting posture, the participants were divided into groups which were co-led by some of the volunteer members of Red Sevens. On-the-spot adjustments of the participants’ postures were made which led to a marked improvement in the new participants and gave the rest a better awareness of their own postures. Kiko, assisted by Ben, Gerald, Paul and Jane, went on to introduce the concept of snap-shooting to the participants of the course. Snap-shooting was a critical fundamental to teach, to learn and to constantly work on in paintball. The drills ended off with some jousting and the final segment of the day was the surprise.

Kiko tossed some freebies sponsored by Paintballers World and Red Dynasty Paintball Park to the participants. There were much camaraderie amongst the participants as Kiko closed the course in high spirits with a traditional paintball cheer and group photo.

Words by Jane Koh