Communication

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Communication

Postby FUBAR on Sat Feb 19, 2005 4:30 pm

Communication/Teamwork... let's break it down.

Tacoma, WA
by Young Choi

You now have a team, a place to practice, a hook up for paint, a hook up for equipment and hopefully some money. You have now worked on drills and your team is able to one ball like a Marine Corps Sniper. Now comes the teamwork portion. You need to mesh together into a team in order to be successful… and here’s how.

Communication.


Huddle Up
Your team needs to come up with a code word system. Some form of verbal communication that will allow you to say a few distinct words that will be informative enough for your team to understand your situation. You can use whatever word for your code system, just make sure that all your teammates have memorized them. It is a good idea to always talk in the 3rd person when you are saying a code that pertains to you specifically. Here are some codes that are necessities.

The first is a code to let you know how many players you have left alive on the field and a code for how many players your team has eliminated. Some teams use a two number system like 5-5. The first number is how many opponents are on the field, the second number is how many of your teammates are on the field. So if you lose someone the code called out is 5-4. This is an easy code to use; you can keep track of your opposition and your teammates at the same time.


Got Your Back
The next code is for when you want to move. Let’s say you are playing up front and you want to make a move. The only problem you have is that your opposite keeps shooting at your bunker. Call out a code to let your teammates know you want to move. To make the move call out your code so your teammates can get that guy to tuck back into his/her bunker so you can make your move. An example of this is to call out your name and a movement code. “John- Rabbit,” John is who you are and Rabbit is a code to move to a new bunker. You can also use this code if you want your teammate to move.

The third code is one to let your teammates know that you are out of paintballs or that your marker has stopped working. This is important because your teammates need to know if you are able to shoot. A code that I have used is “Thumbs down.” “Young is Thumbs down.” If I were out of paint, I’d tell my teammates that I was “Hungry.”



Another great code lets your teammate know that the bunker he is in is also occupied by an opponent. I use “Vampire” for this code. Let’s say John is in a bunker near the middle of the field and an opponent moves to occupy the same bunker that John is in. I would call out “John-Vampire.”

A code to go bunker somebody is also a good idea. Let’s say that John has a “vampire” and you want John to bunker him/her out of the game. Call out “John-Peanut Butter.” That is enough information for John to bunker the threat.

I think that you guys get the idea about coding, but make your code book short and distinct. Don’t get complicated with it. Use the codes and perfect them until it is second nature to your teammates.

You must have some kind of way to break up the field so you can say a code that will include which part of the field is occupied and by how many opponents. A simple zone code is to look at the keypad of your telephone.


If you notice you will see 1 2 3 on the top row, 4 5 6 on the second row and 7 8 9 on the bottom row. Break up the field into separate zones. This is an easy system to learn and can be very effective to keep track of what is happening on the field. Zone 1 is the left back corner of the field, zone 2 is the middle back of the field and zone 3 is the right back corner of the field. According to the phone pad example, zone 4 is the left middle portion of the field, zone 5 is the middle portion of the fields and one 6 is the right middle portion of the field. I think you get the idea.

Let’s say that you have someone in the middle of the field. The call would be “Zone 5 is hot.” With that simple call you now know that an opponent is in the middle bunker. If two opponents are in the middle bunker the call would be “Zone 5 has two.” Sometimes trying to describe in a long descriptive sentence can throw your rhythm off from the game. You now shorten, “there is a guy in the middle stand up bunker” into “Zone 5 is hot.”



Now that your team can communicate as a team, you can work on teamwork drills. A good drill is a two-on-one. Have two teammates go to a bunker and turn their backs so they can’t see where their opponent will be, but the single opponent can see where the two players are. That single player is to move and try to snap- shoot the other two players. As the single player moves, the two need to keep communicating and work together to get the elimination.

There are tons of drills out there for your team to do. Just use your imagination and try to isolate portions of the game into team drills.

Scrimmage other teams periodically so you can put all your drills and practices into a real game environment. Try to find teams that are better than you. This beating will force you to adapt and play better. When and if you do end up playing walk-ons make it challenging for your team by only going out to the field with 20 paintballs. You can practice your snap-shooting, movement and your codes. Beating up on walk-ons does nothing for your team. But you can get a lot out of playing walk-ons if you utilize the time to benefit your team’s skill.

A key element to becoming a team is become a family. I’d like to use Dynasty as an example. Majority of the members of Dynasty live together in the same house. They go out together, party together and hang out together. Being together that much has got to do something as far as bonding goes. Now, this example is very extreme. But you can see their track record to prove my point of how important a team, one unit, mentality is.



Now here is the tough part. You now have all the things you need to be a competitive tournament team. If there is a player available that can play on your team and will make your team better, pick them up in a heartbeat even if it means you have to cut your best friend off the team. If you want the team to be successful, replace and reload your roster whenever you can. If you want the glory of being in the magazines and all the sponsorships that the high profiled teams have, your team will have to make tough decisions and cut players that aren’t working out. This last part sucks, but it’s the truth.
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FUBAR
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