Deja Vu!!!! Same shit again!!!!

Poor planning again...teams with poor planning...dont even think about playing paintball ever again, it just makes everyone frustrated and stranded. Playing paintball is all about proper planning, without good planning everything fail. From day one when a few players decided to come together and formed a team...planning starts! Team name? Training schedule? Team recruitment? Sponsors? Skirmishs? Competitions? and the list goes on and on... in all these planning comes team dynamics. Plans on where to eat? where to meet? what gears to buy? I have the honour to form a paintball team which travels up North for competition. Part of this planning process includes planning for the trip...which is actually 50% of the planning process. Planning where to stay? which transportation mode? how much money to bring? So so many plans. And most important of all, dissemination of these plans to everyone in the team. That's 50% of planning when a team commits to joining a competition.

But when there is a screw up in the planning process....everything becomes shitty!!!! Real shitty!!! Can you imagine this? A team not knowing when their next competition is, who's going...how much to prepare? When to take leave? How to go? Where to stay? No training?...see what I mean? Things become shitty!!!

So for teams out there...do proper planning before you !@#$@uck up your team mates! Cos right now. I am damn piss off!!!

And lastly...everyone is busy, everyone is tie down with their own committments, so you are not alone. Definitely not alone...remarks such as I am busy...is so naive and unfair! A shrunk of responsibility..."Ohhh...I am so busy...." Come on...Red ASS! Wake up your ideas.

Seems stupid...but I think its a deja vu...

Paintball in Singapore?

Yes, that's what this blog is all about. 1 year and 7 months into the promotion of paintball in Singapore...and what do we have so far? Media coverage...not bad, a paintball tourney under the wing of PBAS...not bad indeed...15 paintball teams...hmmmm....not so good, awareness....maybe.

The bottomline is there is still so much more to be done...We need to bring paintball out of Red Dynasty! We need to showcase more of paintball to the public's eye. And how do we go about doing that? Posting results on forum? Awareness clinic and roadshow? International events? Sports exhibition? So much more...hmmm...but where do we get all the fundings to do all this? I have no idea. It is good that we have a couple of sponsors for Leg 2, a beggar can't ask for more...but definitely, we need more, More, MORE...

These are some of the things that we can do by the end of this year:

1) Roadshows. Paintball will be featured during the NUS Sports Bazaar in August 08. We have done something similar in SMU before but this can certainly help us raise more awareness about paintballing in Singapore. A unique community that is tuck somewhere around the corner.

2) Get ourselves in for Sports Expo! Every year just before the Standard Chartered Marathon, thousands of people head towards the Expo to register themselves for the race...hey, talking about target audiences. All sports people out there...surely there is a room for us. But then again, each booth cost about $5000 over the 3 days exhibition and this is excluding the amount of effort we have to put in to man those booth...hmmm...expensive.

3) Formation of a proper national team. Being very much involved in the local basketball scene a couple of years ago, I realised that a national identity is very important...Someone to look up to, somewhere for people to excel in their sports and perhaps international representation. So far right now, Red Sevens is the only local team that has been participating in overseas tournament, some people, not all look up to us. But we are definitely not the national team, we are a nation representative. National team? Ney! not yet.

4) Regular paintball league as I have mentioned before....something more regular but doesn't cost much...keep playing, keep improving.

5) International exposure...I will be lucky to have 5 Singapore teams playing in the MPOC by this year!!! I hope!!!

Post SPNS Leg 2

Singapore (23 June 2004) - PSG Warfreakz, a group of Filipino expatriats walked away with the champion medal for the Singapore Paintball Novice Series (SPNS) 2008 Leg 2, which was held in Red Dynasty Paintball Park. A well deserved champion indeed where they have to battle 10 games before reaching the finals. The morning event was greeted by a mild rain that was lurking around the night before, however this did not dampen the mood of the participants as they have long anticipated for the home coming of SPNS Leg 2. After months of training, it is finally the day where they put their practices to the test. A double fold increase from SPNS Leg 1, SPNS Leg 2 welcomed the participation of 15 paintball teams. New to the competition were Carnage, PSG Bravo, PSG Charlie, Wargh! Birds, Red Shadows, Shinpu, Kamikaze and 20th Legion.

New to SPNS Leg 2 is the collaboration between Paintball Association (Singapore) PBAS and the Malaysian Marshals (MMs). This collaboration has indeed raised the standard of officiating in SPNS and provides an opportunity for Singapore Marshals to learn a thing or two from our neighbours. The introduction of PSG Charlie, an all female team from the Philippines, has certainly raised the public's eyebrow on their misconception of the paintball being a male dominant sport.

As the rain subsided, the wet ground becomes the perfect playground for paintball as participants slided their way through the muddy soil with most players perfecting the ideal paintball movement of sliding and dodging. After 8 gruelling qualification games, the top 8 teams can advanced into the 2nd round. Among the 8 newly established teams, 5 teams qualified for the 2nd round with PSG Warfreakz, which was the eventual champion, White Death and Death Mavericks. A well deserving note to Carnage which only lost 1 game during the qualification rounds and emerged as the chart leader.

As the competition rolled on, PSG Warfreakz clinched the Champion Title of SPNS Leg 2 by beating Red Shadows, who had to settle for the 2nd spot. At 3rd position was White Death.

The icing of the cake was given to Thomas Lee, a SIM 2nd year student who was awarded the Most Valuable Player (MVP) for SPNS Leg 2. The winner of the MVP award was selected through peer nomination from opposing teams.

SPNS Leg 2 concluded with an exciting exhibition match between Carnage and Red Shadows. During the process of the competition, footages of the match was captured by reporter from the Channel News Asia and photographed by representatives from The Straits Times. Talk about media coverage...

SPNS Leg 3 will be held on 12 October as "The Final Showdown"...

BTOed and not playing in tourney?

Recently had a discussion with folks from the SPNS committee...something that I have strong views about: People going through the BTO and eventually not taking part in tourneys. If I can remember correctly, the aim of the BTO is to ensure that paintball tournament can be conducted in a safe way in which players are competent to comprehend game rules and understand the safety aspects of the game. Before the BTO, there was not a single paintball tournament in Singapore, there were no rules governing paintball tournament and obviously there is also no way that the centre line can be removed. Painstaking efforts have been put in placed to review adopted rules, players checklist, meetings with the authorities, organizing BTO courses, etc.

Objective: To allow players to participate in paintball tournament alike to rules and regulations by tournaments held overseas.

For once, I would like to set this straight...BTO is for the purpose of allowing SPNS to promote paintball in Singapore in the most similar way as compared to how it is done overseas without the constraint of the centre line, which is a regulated by the SPF. Sir! I respect the rules, and understand that education and awareness is important. We will work with you to ensure that no rules and safety will be breached.

But of late, I also noticed that there has been an increase of people wanting to go through the BTO for the sake of going through the BTO (I could be assuming). But I cant help thinking that the objective of them going through the BTO is play in Field 3 without the line! This is not right...definitely not what we want when we first came up with the BTO. I would like to urge all to forget about playing tournament paintball if your aim is to get BTO-ed and never to appear again. You are not helping us, you are not helping yourself. You are not helping paintball in Singapore. You are not helping us to convince the authorities! Paintball dont grow in that way...understand the math?

However, having said this, I am not against people who have gone through BTO-ed but continue to have a physical presence in the paintball community, be crew for teams. Thats okay...you can still help in many other ways, refeering, event organizing, publicity....you need to know something in order to start somewhere right? But I am totally against people who have BTO-ed and then play the vanishing Houdini....hello? Anybody home?

I would like to suggest this to the committee:

1) Players should play at least twice before enrolling for BTO. How can we do that? Hmmm...I have no idea. Course fee vs time? Maybe...

2) Players must have a team before going through BTO. Recommendation must come from team captain to commit player to at least one leg of the tournament.

3) BTO players having missed 2 tournaments, must return for a refresher course (FREE) else have ID revoked.

4) Another extra practical session after the BTO.

Things will changed...