Soda Seer - "Exert Yourself"

Funny Fortunes:

You may be familiar with a company called Jones Soda as their products are sold at most Starbucks locations. Each bottle of their soda has a 'fortune' under the cap and my bottle today is what inspired this post.

It must seem ridiculous for me to write a paintball article based off of a bottle cap but I assure you that there's a legitimate lesson in all of this that EVERY baller needs to recognize. This piece of advice came on a day where I'd been reflecting on last weekend's Fight for Asylum event and wondering how I could've improved my performance and that's what made me think to write this all down.

I had a number of shortcomings over the weekend -that comes with being a first time player- but none more detrimental than the one alluded to by my little fortune telling friend here. I cracked open my bottle of Jones' Orange Cream Soda, a gift from the head office team visiting my work, to read "you can solve your problem if you exert yourself". Upon reading this very simple piece of advice it all became clear to me, and the seed was planted in my mind that would eventually grow into this blog post.

My mind went back to memories of me getting pinned down on the front line and desperately returning fire in an effort to keep enemy heads down. On more than a couple of occasions I managed to earn a break in enemy fire but neglected to capitalize on it. I tended to stay where I was after a quick exchange rather than push up to the next bunker and mostly because I doubted if I could make the run without being hit. When I read the fortune it became very clear that if I had chosen to exert myself a little more and just pushed my way forward despite my doubts, that on at least a few occasions I could've gained a serious edge on the battlefield.

Hunkerin' down and Bunkerin'

I'm a baller and I know it!

If you've never played at PRZ Paintball it might help you to take a look at the image embedded to the right. This is the warzone just outside of the warehouse (building in the background directly in-frame above the tire bunker) and its scattered bunkers make for very interesting firefights. There's also a 2-story building (left and out of frame) with windows providing an excellent overwatch position where players can lay down some serious fire on the bunkers to the left of the warehouse entrance. It was behind one of these such bunkers that I was pinned down from a couple of gunners holed-up in those damned windows and even though I had eyes on them, I still didn't move when I saw the gunners pop back behind cover.

I didn't exert myself, didn't push, didn't try to make a run to new cover even when I should have. Because I hesitated so much I wound up holding my team back as I was occupying a bunker that they could've used to move more forward from and I wasted roughly eight minutes of my time and far too much paint on just a couple of windows. If you doubt how demoralized I was during all of this, check out my expression in the next photo.

Desperate, but not Hopeless:

Okay, so HERE I was hopeless, but in the grand scheme of things I knew there was room to improve ;)

Copyright - Sheldon Carless

Now is this the face of a warrior-minded baller? Hell no. This is someone who's doubting their potential and who needs someone to shake the cobwebs out of their head and get them moving. Luckily enough I had my "Fantastic Four" team mates to get my spirits back up and teach me how to better handle this sort of situation but not everyone will have that kind of support so here I sit, writing an article.

If you're a NooB like me, don't be afraid to admit it. Everyone who ever did anything worthy of note was once a 'NooB' in that field and had to learn from others along the way. I just hope that this article will give my fellow noobs a heads-up about how to conduct themselves on the field for a better playing experience. I'm not saying that you can't have fun while endlessly longballing your targets, but there's a certain satisfaction to running up and bunkering them and knowing that you made a sick sprint to do it!

Exert Yourself!

Seriously guys, that's all it takes. Sure there's the old adage of "work smart, not hard" but in some cases you just need to push through a situation with pure effort. Maybe that means daring to take on enemy fire for an objective, or pushing yourself to run up and slide into the next bunker during a quick pause in the enemy's covering fire. Whatever the case may be, a little hustle never hurt anyone... Not without reward at least.

So, if you're ever pinned down and wondering what to do, just remember...

Keep calm, EXERT YOURSELF, and throw paint!

Joshua J. Taylor -  The 'Noob' Baller