Paintball brings on the pain
Ping-pong sized bruises, offensive-defensive lines, and hard helmets; much like other traditional in-school sports, paintballing and airsofting incorporate basic elements of friendly competition, exercise and teamwork. What makes the difference for these extreme sports is that they involve a shooting aspect, often with very realistic equipment in a combative environment.
“It’s adrenaline pumping….It’s almost like a brotherhood,” Tristan Montes, junior, said. “It’s team-oriented but it’s also individual skill, so I think that all mixes together to make this one adrenaline-pumping sport.”
“(In) other sports you don’t just go out and shoot someone … It’s more intense than other sports,” Brock Barton, senior, said.
Paintball exists in both regional and divisional forms for teams of varying skill. The National Professional Paintball League hosts weekend tournaments for five different divisions, ranging from the most amateur division, D5, to the professional division, D1.
“I was first introduced about two and a half years ago…and I just kinda fell in love with it,” Montes said. “About two years ago I started competitive (paintballing). That’s when I started entering tournaments, started meeting new people, started getting connections, and then started playing in divisional tournaments.”
For Barton, paintball is a recreational activity, called “scenario ball”, which he enjoys playing with friends in his free time at local parks, such as Stryker Park in Santa Paula or Ambush in Moorpark.
“I was just young and my friends told me about (paintballing),” Barton said. “So we went out to ranges to play with other people. It was fun.”
Montes believes paintball requires certain mental and physical skills, such as a sense of aim and depth perception. The game also involves different strategies and positions, including front players who make the moves, middle players who cover the front, and back players who cover the middle.
“Paintball is usually referred to like a chess game, especially on an airball field, because you have to make your decisions wisely and play off of the other players,” Montes said. “You have to know what they’re gonna do almost before they know what they’re going to do.”
“You also need to be physically fit because you do lose a lot of energy driving the rounds,” Barton said.
Compared to airsofting, paintball’s cousin in extreme sports, the game is not as similar to real warfare, but getting hit by paintballs often results in bruises or welts that hurt more than airsoft pellets because of the sheer force of the burst of a paintball.
“Airsofting is more realistic because the guns are spot on to military weapons and all that, but paintballing…hurts more so you’re more afraid of getting shot, as (opposed to) like an airsoft gun,” Barton said. “Paintballing you’re actually more afraid of getting shot because you know when it hits you it’s gonna make you bleed or leave a huge bruise, so it’s more fun.”
