MY
FIRST TIME
by Lisa C. Kammerud
I
knew he loved it. It was wild, fast, exhilarating, and he got to
show sides of himself I had probably never seen--and never would see, unless
I did it too. An intense competition, a game with plenty of opportunity
for strategy and plotting. And, at the heart of it, lots of yelling
and shooting.
I needed to try this paintball thing.
Once the decision was made to try the
game--after all, I loved laser tag, this was the same thing, just with
pain, right?--I wanted to use all the knowledge I'd acquired so far and
my own natural abilities to prove myself strong and able. I had already
done the research. My insatiable curiosity and talent for listening
to my boyfriend ramble the night after playing (and frankly, any other
night I asked any questions) had yielded a great deal of insider information.
I knew things that other newbies wouldn't know. Such as what "newbies"
meant (players new to the game, i.e., easy targets), and what newbies shouldn't
do (act like newbies). Looking back, I see I might have missed a
few details. But there was at least one main point I actually processed
and retained: you can gain a lot from being sneaky, from ambushes, but
don't sit around without some sort of plan. That's not being aggressive,
and being aggressive is usually what works. According to my inside
track information, non-aggression seemed to either leave you bored and
out of the game because it runs ahead of you, or bored and out of the game
because it runs up on you and shoots you. So I knew I had one piece
of strategy to cling to.
The set-up was simple. My boyfriend
and his friends played at another friend's house, so there was a lot of
land, but not a lot of people and no pesky entry fees or overpriced paint.
It would be a nurturing environment for my first try at this. Well,
at least no strangers that he couldn't fuss at if they hurt me. Not
that I was worried about that of course. Simply taking stock of all
the advantages.
The next step was finding something to
wear. I scrounged around for good clothes, clothes that would let
me be comfortable and not too visible, yet still look cool and not show
how nervous I was, that is, in the unlikely event that I might get that
way. I had a muted green sweatshirt, and gray sweatpants. I got to
the field and looked around. It was spring, and the field was mostly
brown grass and brown trees. No green whatsoever. Oops, I thought.
But there were plenty of shadows, so the green shirt wouldn't stand out
too much. Then I noticed that the guys kept pointing at my pants
and giggling. I looked down and saw that heather gray becomes quite
bright white in sunlight, especially against all the drab brown of our
surroundings. Ok, well I'll just borrow my boyfriend's camo pants.
That done, I was ready. No, you need to cover your hair, I was told.
Oh. Lacking one of those French foreign legion-looking caps with
the draping cloth down the back, I tied (well, with some help) a t-shirt
around my head. Ok, now I'm cool. Give me a gun, please.
Now I have a weapon! I'm ready! No, no. I had to take
it to the chrono and see what speed it was shooting (that is, chronometer,
it makes sure no one gets hit too hard, a nice safety device). This
was way more complicated than I thought. It was taking an hour just
to get ready to play...
Finally we start. I walk out with
the guys to hide in the woods. I sit behind a tree. The others
would come up on us from, well, any direction. I search for signs
of movement. I could feel the adrenaline rush. If I get this
tense over some guys shooting colored balls at me, I can only imagine what
it might feel like to be in a real life and death defensive position.
Scary.
So, in the inordinate amount of time I
have to wait, I continue to ponder the complexities of war and peace and
other philosophical questions. And then I wait a bit more.
Finally I get restless and begin to move. I thought this showed my
fighting instinct, and how I was already showing great potential at the
game, and I was using my "be aggressive" strategy. Then I see people!
I start shooting, knowing I'm going to get them because I had moved to
intercept, and I was doing great. But nothing happened. The
gun isn't firing. Stubbornly, I keep trying, until it occurs to me
that stubbornness is usually a fault and then I turn around to run and
get somewhere where I can examine the gun. Of course I get hit.
By the twelve-year-old who happened to be playing with us. The only
guy I actually towered over (at 5'3" I don't get to tower much) and he's
the one that got me. After the initial shock, I had another revelation--the
safety. Check the safety. Oh look, it's on. Damn! Dammitdammitdammit
(well those were some of the words I was thinking at the time). It
was only after the frustration wore off that I had time to think, ow, that
hurt.
But not too badly. It was reassuring
to discover I could definitely handle the pain, which was a bit of a concern,
and now that I was familiar with the gun's safety, I was anxious to actually
do something useful in a game.
We start again. I'm on the team
moving on the others who've hidden in the woods. We get close and
someone tries to run at a teammate and I enthusiastically shoot buckets
at them, missing completely but successfully forcing them back into the
woods. I start to feel cool again.
I walk around some more, looking for people
(there's a great deal more down time in this "exhilarating" game than I
anticipated) and I see someone so I hide behind a tree and wait for them
to get closer so I can kill them! I mean, shoot them! When
I begin my little battle, I realize trees are often smaller than they look.
Or maybe they just start to feel rather small when someone is shooting
at you. It happened quickly. My tree took a couple of hits,
and I felt paint splatter on my fingers. Ewww, that's icky.
I ask if fingers count. 'Cause it was such a little bit of paint.
Yes, the guys around me call out. Ok, I'm out. I start to walk
off the field, I run into someone doing the same. I excitedly describe
in graphic detail my first real skirmish (proving that the play by play
rambling that occurs in discussions of paintball games is indeed compulsive
and involuntary) and I mention the way I got hit. "The ball hit the
tree and splattered on you?" he asks.
"Yep. It sucks, 'cause..."
"Splatter doesn't count."
"What?"
"You weren't out."
"Oh."
How nice that these things were so NOT
clearly explained to me before the game. Next game, I'll be ready,
really. How much is left that can go suprisingly wrong, anyway?
Well I can tilt the gun back and the ammo
box can fall off. That was walking around, and therefore not disastrous,
but a bit goofy nonetheless. I pick up the loose paintballs.
And for others of you getting your first account of the game from me (cool,
hope I'm influencing you) an ammo box isn't a box. It's not even
like an ammo clip. It's a sort of oval-shaped thing that holds the
balls and sits on top of the gun. The little balls filter out the
bottom of it into the gun barrel. Not exactly streamlined, but it
works.
I try to improve. I spend one game
wandering along the outside of the field, I see no one and the game is
called 'cause the 12 year old gets hurt. He's a great kid, but I
was understandably disappointed that my flanking maneuver was thwarted.
Ok, one more try. This time I creep
along with some teammates, and I see the enemy ahead. The terminology
is impossible not to pick up once you start playing. So the enemy
is up ahead, and we sort of spread apart. I'm a bit more hidden,
and the other guy gets hit. I see someone shooting away from me and
I sneak up to get a clear shot. I miss, but I have a tree ready for
the expected retaliation. The tree is my friend. Camaraderie
is supposedly one of the major rewards of paintball, you know. So
my tree is taking the shots like a trooper, I peek around and shoot,
and duck back. I can hear the paint smack the tree, I can practically
feel the impact, probably because my face is right next to the tree.
So I shoot again, I duck again, I'm doing well. I keep aiming for
that little piece of cloth, it's a shoulder, that I can see. I fire again.
I hear, "I'm hit."
"Really?" I yell. "I really
hit you?" Hallelujah! I am so thrilled. I can do this!
I stay hidden, ready to move on to my next victim, and then I hear, the
game's over. Aw shit, I was just getting started. Surely my
time isn't up yet. Perhaps there is treachery afoot.
"It's really over?"
"Yeah," I hear, and everyone walks past
me, pretty nonchalantly considering the milestone that just occurred.
Well, I'd noticed my progress at least. I reluctantly leave my tree
and jog to catch up. By the time I reach the base and see my
boyfriend, I've brightened up and I'm practically jumping up and down with
the great news that I shot Neild! I really did! Um, sorry Neild,
but isn't that neat? Clearly such displays were not common among
this bunch, but hey, I was new at this, and I'd finally managed to hit
somebody, and it felt great. And then I remember, I'm just getting
started.
Epilogue:
We played a couple more woods games, which were fun but not so dramatic.
We then went on to play speedball later that day, which is a game played
on a very small field (the ends are just out of range of the guns, 20 yards,
maybe?) with boards standing up to hide behind. We did mostly one-on-one.
I won once or twice, and got hit several other times. The pain continued
to be not a big deal, and I continued to have fun. It was great to
finally be able to understand what my boyfriend had been talking about
for years. So the moral of the story is, it is a pretty approachable
sport, and there are a lot of different styles you can use to play.
Look at me, and look at the rest of these guys that make up the website
and absolutely love what they're doing and would love you to love it (yes,
like the song) too, and you'll see that stereotypes don't exist here--it's
really true, anybody can play. If you're at all intrigued, you might
as well try it. I was really glad I did.
Other related pages:
What is Paintball?
Paintball Terms
and Definitions
Top Ten Newbie
Mistakes