Time for a positive blog, I'll talk about the best thing in my life right now, Paintballing!
Now when I say I paintball I don't mean running round the woods playing soldiers on a stag do or birthday. There is a format played as a legitmate sport no less so then football or tennis. We play on an astro-turf or grass field, the barricade are large inflatables of verying shapes and sizes, we have rules, referees, penalties and leagues, we wear brightly coloured jerseys, none of this camo bullshit! and a variety of soft padding but none of it to protect us fromt he paintballs, but rather to protect us when we dive or slide along the ground.
This is my team London Fearless
As you can see we've got players ranging from young teenagers to guys in their 30's, our coach the big guy in the black hoody is fifty with 25 years experience.
To play Speedball (the name for this type of paintball) you really need a passion for it, you will be up at 5 most sundays and spend a shit load of money, it's not cheap, a brand new top of the range marker (the correct terms for a paintball gun because the word "gun" gives the wrong image, it's more of weapon than a hockey stick) will set you back over 1000, but you can pick them second hand quite cheap or get a lower end model, the markers nowhere near as important as how good you are.
This is the start of the game, known as the "breakout" we must have our barrels touching the bunker behind us and as you can see below from the way we holding are markers we start within shooting range of the other team so we have to move bloody quick as the markers fire at a regulation rate of 10.5 balls per second (though they can shoot much faster).
(I'm on the left in the blue goggles)
They're not automatic, they've got a circuit board inside the handle that regulates everything, if you pull the double trigger at say 4 pulls per second the circuit board fires the markers at the preset rate of 10.5. The circuit board does everything, the trigger is not a clunky lever but attached to sensors, the air flow is managed by 2 regulators controlled by the circuit board which makes the bolt move.
In October I'm going to Paris to play the European World Cup event (there are 3 competitions around the world with a world cup event, we're not organsied on a global level yet.) we're only playing the bottom of 5 divisions but we've only been together as the team we are for less than year, have a great deal of potential and the attention of some big companies offering us sponsorship. Sponorship is the big thing holding any team back, the higher level you play, the more it costs, quite silly really but you need the backing of manufacturers and other paintball companies who will give you their stuff cheap or free to be able to afford to play higher level paintball.
As you can tell from how long i've gone on I have a real passion for it, it's such a big part of me. Not only that but my current and previous team mates are more than team mates, more than friends, they are like brothers and sisters to me, an extended family, if I didn't have them I wouldn't be making through this dark period of my life. You may have noticed I said sisters as well, paintball is a completely unisex sport, the girls play on teams with men and complete against them on equal terms.
If you would like to know more just drop me message and I can talk you through more, show you some good links or even help you get into it yourself, you will love it!
(The pictures are too big but you can see them in my pics anyway!)
Now when I say I paintball I don't mean running round the woods playing soldiers on a stag do or birthday. There is a format played as a legitmate sport no less so then football or tennis. We play on an astro-turf or grass field, the barricade are large inflatables of verying shapes and sizes, we have rules, referees, penalties and leagues, we wear brightly coloured jerseys, none of this camo bullshit! and a variety of soft padding but none of it to protect us fromt he paintballs, but rather to protect us when we dive or slide along the ground.
This is my team London Fearless
As you can see we've got players ranging from young teenagers to guys in their 30's, our coach the big guy in the black hoody is fifty with 25 years experience.
To play Speedball (the name for this type of paintball) you really need a passion for it, you will be up at 5 most sundays and spend a shit load of money, it's not cheap, a brand new top of the range marker (the correct terms for a paintball gun because the word "gun" gives the wrong image, it's more of weapon than a hockey stick) will set you back over 1000, but you can pick them second hand quite cheap or get a lower end model, the markers nowhere near as important as how good you are.
This is the start of the game, known as the "breakout" we must have our barrels touching the bunker behind us and as you can see below from the way we holding are markers we start within shooting range of the other team so we have to move bloody quick as the markers fire at a regulation rate of 10.5 balls per second (though they can shoot much faster).
(I'm on the left in the blue goggles)
They're not automatic, they've got a circuit board inside the handle that regulates everything, if you pull the double trigger at say 4 pulls per second the circuit board fires the markers at the preset rate of 10.5. The circuit board does everything, the trigger is not a clunky lever but attached to sensors, the air flow is managed by 2 regulators controlled by the circuit board which makes the bolt move.
In October I'm going to Paris to play the European World Cup event (there are 3 competitions around the world with a world cup event, we're not organsied on a global level yet.) we're only playing the bottom of 5 divisions but we've only been together as the team we are for less than year, have a great deal of potential and the attention of some big companies offering us sponsorship. Sponorship is the big thing holding any team back, the higher level you play, the more it costs, quite silly really but you need the backing of manufacturers and other paintball companies who will give you their stuff cheap or free to be able to afford to play higher level paintball.
As you can tell from how long i've gone on I have a real passion for it, it's such a big part of me. Not only that but my current and previous team mates are more than team mates, more than friends, they are like brothers and sisters to me, an extended family, if I didn't have them I wouldn't be making through this dark period of my life. You may have noticed I said sisters as well, paintball is a completely unisex sport, the girls play on teams with men and complete against them on equal terms.
If you would like to know more just drop me message and I can talk you through more, show you some good links or even help you get into it yourself, you will love it!
(The pictures are too big but you can see them in my pics anyway!)