What is paintball?

When it comes to promoting paintball, we always try to promote the positive aspects of the game. It is the same when you go for a job interview and your potential employer ask you "Tell me your best qualities" And you go on ranting about all the good things that you have done and experienced. Likewise, when someone asked me "What is paintball?" You can see the lights in my eyes with these few thoughts coming through my mind: "Hmmm...here's my chance! let him know all there is to know about paintball" or "should I go all out and bored him with stuff that he has never experienced before?"

Usually, I will start off by saying that paintball is an excellent teambuilding game which focus on self confidence, communication and people working together. But really, if you have never try paintball before, its really hard to explain to you the positives of playing the game. I will then elaborate on the different kinds of paintball, from recreational game, scenario woods game and speedball. And by the time I reach this part of the explanation, I realised that 80% of the time, they get pretty bored with the information overload. So this is when I will take a step back and just tell them to try the game and experience for themselves.

I was reading the latest copy of FACEFULL with great interest as the famous XSV paintball icon, Rich Telford brought up an important point about creating paintball awareness and getting people to work together for the good of the game. One of the things that he mentioned, and I quote "If there is a local tournament and you dont play, go out and check in see if you can help". I think this is important for paintball to grow and develop, not just for local paintball but for everyone who loves the game.

Creating awareness for paintball is not just about one or two individuals. It comes from everyone, anyone can be a good ambassador for paintball if they promote paintball in a positive way. If there is someone that you know who wants to try out paintball, get them to try it out. Hey! Its all about having a good experience.