Paintball Journal

Game starts in THREE, TWO, ONE, TEN SECONDS!

It seems like an eternity, but eventually those ten seconds do pass and the buzzer sounds. Front players put their heads down and hands up and dash for their bunkers, mid players go guns up and move to theirs, and the back players…

The back players make some of the most important moves of the game right here.

They lane. And if they’re good, they kill two, maybe three players in the first five seconds of the game.

It’s not easy to get good at this, but here’s a drill I picked up a couple of weeks ago that will help immensely. It’s a pretty slow paint drill too.

First, you need to set up some sort of target, preferably something thin and tall. Place it right in the middle of the lane, close to the destination bunker, but not so close that you’d be hitting the bunker very often with your stream of paint.

Now go back to the opposite starting box. You want to kneel in a position that allows you maximum cover from opposing laners, but that also gives you enough space to lane your intended target. Remember, you also have to be able to spin your upper body from pointing the gun towards the box to pointing towards the target as fast a possible.

The best way is to move completely from the waist. This gives the most stability and fluidity to your motion.

Once you’ve set up (it’s also good to use a ’spotter’ at the other box who can tell you how much of you he can see), try just the snapping motions a couple of times, from the starting box to the target. Then try two-balling the target. Shoot two balls quickly, then return to the starting position. Continue until you can hit the target within two balls consistently. Don’t worry if you can’t immediately. This skill takes a ton of practice to do well.

The logical step after two-balling is one-balling. One-balling is exponentially harder than two balling because it requires that you know your gun’s range and dropoff perfectly, and gives you no chance to adjust after a shot. This takes much longer to do consistently. However, once you are able to do it, the payoff is huge. I’ve seen games where more than half the team was shot off the break and the rest was picked off seconds afterwards. Never underestimate the power of a good back player’s laning and break shooting.