Paintball Journal

Though paintball is extremely team-oriented, there’s also a great deal on personal skill. It’s finally dawned on me that simply scrimmaging while at the field isn’t going to make you better. To get better you have to drill. I’ve only learned of certain drills over the past few months, but we never run them. When we get to the field we just want to play, right? Who wants to shoot at cardboard boxes, or small pipes? I never really wanted to, but the more I learn about pro teams the more I’m willing to actually run them. All pro teams run drills. They drill, and drill, and drill some more, and then maybe towards the end of a practice they will get a few games in. Two of the most important aspects of drilling is snap shooting and laning.

This is usually done best with another person to help simulate real situations. The 1V1 snap drill is perfect for this. What’s important is to really focus on form and repetition. Every single snap should be just like the one before it. You should come out the exact distance every time, and holding your gun the exact same way. By a simple process of repetition you will find yourself snapping out and hitting your target without thinking once about it, and that’s the way competitive paintball is played; any hesitation gets you killed.

At some point in your paintball career you will find yourself laning of the break. This is one place where gun speed does come into effect (more paint means less chance they run through it), but only if it’s done right. It’s all too easy for inexperienced players to shoot too high or even too low, but laning drills can put your stream of paint right on the spot every time.
First, start with your barrel on whatever it is your breaking from as if it were a real game. Somebody should count down three two one, and then you turn and fire downfield at a box/post that’s just to the inside of one of the back bunkers or even the snake. The goal is to hit the target as fast as possible, and keep the stream on target. If you’re not hitting it right off the break then you need to keep working at it until you can spin around and do it within a half second.

Mix things up as well. Change starting positions, target locations, and even laning while moving to a bunker (running and gunning). Then you can make things more complex by slowly adding to the drill. Start of laning, run and gun to the first bunker while shooting a different target, snap and shoot a third target, then make a second bump, etc. The combinations are limitless.

It might not seem like fun, or a waste of paint, but it’s the only way to go. Serious players should run drills every time they’re at the field to warm up, and save the real games for later. And take it serious; only perfect practice makes perfect. Focus. Concentrate.