"Keep the fire burning!", "We are one big family!", "Spread the love of paintball". These are the exact words coming from a 2 time Division 2 Asia World Cup Champion. A few months ago, we invited Matthew Nekvapil from the Demonz (Malaysia) to impart his paintball knowledge to the paintball community in Singapore and this round, we brought you "The ONE", who is also famously known as Kiko to the Singapore paintball community. Having played competitive paintball for 6 years, Kiko is no stranger to paintball and this man has everything under his belt to showcase.
On a bright Sunday morning (yes, I know, you have read this phrase somewhere...and it is always a bright sunny day) where most people are busy preparing for Chinese New Year, we have a group of ardent paintballers who were trying to pick up a tip or two from the World Champion himself.
As per all paintball clinics, participants were introduced to how one should always remain focus when participating in tournament, as Calgar puts it, "We must maintain our focus from the start to the end" Visualization or sports imagery is one of the ways to upkeep that concentration before any paintball games. Fazz, who is a trained fitness instructor lead the team in a warm up. He also took the opportunity to explain the key factors of a good warm up. Participants stretched their necessary muscle groups by "sending signals" from the brain to all parts of their body and this according to Fazz, helps to prevent muscular injuries. The group ended the warm up with 20 counts of 4 jumping jacks which Kiko had a hard time following...DOH!
As one of the fastest front player in Asia, Kiko's clinic was focused on how to be "the best front player"... he started off by introducing to the participants on the various styles of sliding into the big temple followed by the small tombstone. He then went on to focus on correcting players' posture when playing behind the tombstone bunker. As mentioned by Kiko "It is important to understand the art of bunkering" and with that, the participants spent another 30 minutes perfecting their posture and movement while trying to bunker cones in a zig zag manner.
Kiko will shout LEFT and the player will have to bunker from his left. RIGHT and the player will move towards his right. And yes, there were times that he had forgotten about calling left and right...and you can see players running straight into the bunker??? How on earth did that happen?
As Kiko spreads his love for paintball, one can see the dedication that this man has in paintball..., Kiko has played in some of the biggest paintball teams in the Philippines, namely the Global Gutz and the Real Pinoys and this "little" man (some may say) is a true ambassador for paintball and one who flys the Philippines flag really high in Singapore.
Kiko focused on snapshooting too...but instead of having a loser out system, one must win in snapshooting in order to be rotated. With this, you can see players trying their best to snapshoot and focus on accuracy as no one likes to be hit...so many times.
How can one forget about the Superman slide...? Two hammer structures were prepared to allow all participants to have a go at the famous Superman slide. Initially, there was a little bit of reluctance...but once Benguin stepped up to do the famous "Ananconda" slide...more follow suite.
At the end of the clinic, participants put to test all that they have learnt with some friendly skirmishes.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Kiko "The ONE" for his time and effort in showcasing his knowledge to the Singapore paintball community.
Until next time!!!
