[gmore70]

January 17th, 2012. Since the momentum is happening, I made part 2...to keep this going.

[L_x]

That's a surprisingly good point.

We do have pro clinics, but that is targeted at advanced players. Apart from other players giving advice/coaching to new players (as happens a lot at my local field), there are no dedicated lessons for beginners that I've seen.

Nicely said.

[Iowa's#1Stunna]

Very good point, however I don't think that skateboarding has any of those things. Not that we don't need them.

[gmore70]

Originally Posted by Iowa's#1Stunna

Very good point, however I don't think that skateboarding has any of those things. Not that we don't need them.

Ahh...I never thought of that one. Good catch!

[skwirnmn]

Originally Posted by Iowa's#1Stunna

Very good point, however I don't think that skateboarding has any of those things. Not that we don't need them.

Well, skateboarding isn't a sport.
I've personally taught skateboard lessons through the park district, and I'll be flying to Chicago this summer to teach a three week skateboarding class for a skate shop. I've only attended one paintball clinic, and it was ran terribly.

Definitely going to be sharing this video on the facebook pages of several field owners. This is one thing that will help our sport progress.

edit: skateboarding isn't nearly as big as snowboarding is, it's not an olympic sport, and even major events aren't televised.

[ElJefe13]

It's not in the Olympics, but it is in the X-Games.

Lessons would be great, and would definetly help my parents come around to liking my sport. I've been playing for over three years now, and my dad still doesn't think of it as a sport. If my field offered these type of lessons, I think he'd have come around.

[JohnSherman]

You made good points in your video. However, what exactly would you be teaching? Are you teaching the renters who are probably going to play once or twice a year? Are you teaching first-time gear owners, who will come with incredibly varied levels of gear? Or are you teaching players that want to get involved in tournaments, at which point I doubt their parents have many reservations about the sport?

[DB-1071]

Nice vid.

[Sand6452]

Originally Posted by skwirnmn

Well, skateboarding isn't a sport.
I've personally taught skateboard lessons through the park district, and I'll be flying to Chicago this summer to teach a three week skateboarding class for a skate shop. I've only attended one paintball clinic, and it was ran terribly.

Definitely going to be sharing this video on the facebook pages of several field owners. This is one thing that will help our sport progress.

edit: skateboarding isn't nearly as big as snowboarding is, it's not an olympic sport, and even major events aren't televised.

It is a sport actually, regardless of your view on it. It makes the x-games, those are televised. And by that logic it seems paintball isn't a sport?

But the points in your video aren't bad though.

[ProtoBaller1991]

Sport- Noun An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.

[Zippin35]

Well one large difference is snowboarding is an individual sport and paintball is a team sport. There are not many 1 on 1 ice hockey lessons, or many for any team sport. Its hard to teach a game that relies so heavily on the participation of others. Next, how would these lessons be taught? Will 1 instructor take 1 player out to the field for some lessons, therefore eliminating that field for use for the general players at the field? How would you run a lesson when there is no standard venue of play? Would it be on a 7 man field? 5 man? X-ball? Cbxl, NPPL, PSP etc? What about woods ball? I agree these are all good ideas but you overlooked some very important points and there are many greater pitfalls preventing paintball from becoming mainstream. I too work at a ski resort and the percentage of people who come and get a lesson is a very small one of those who come to the mountain, and my mountain is one highly boasted for its teaching program. So while it is an untapped market within paintball, the paintball market itself is such a niche market that further segmenting it may not result in higher turnouts.

Edit** "If it was as simple as point and shoot anyone would be a professional in a matter of minutes" (or something along those lines) is incredibly poorly thought out. Prime example, Olympic shooting. It is point and shoot in the rawest sense and yet, there is an incredibly select few who can compete at such a high level.

[paintballpunker]

There are definitely beginner skateboarding lessons, personal hockey training camps, as the video stated... Almost any sport has a demand for introductory lessons.

His point is very clear and valid, there are minimal choices for parents to get their kids into the sport. Everyone complaining about "what would you teach" should just think about the snowboarding example. At your first snowboarding lessons you're not learning how to ride superpipe like Shaun White and I doubt the instructor even focuses on that. Fundamentals, introduction, safety let the kid in the class decide if he wants to play X ball...

very nice video post but was the video itself you teaching a kid how to play op?

[Zippin35]

Originally Posted by paintballpunker

There are definitely beginner skateboarding lessons, personal hockey training camps, as the video stated... Almost any sport has a demand for introductory lessons.

His point is very clear and valid, there are minimal choices for parents to get their kids into the sport. Everyone complaining about "what would you teach" should just think about the snowboarding example. At your first snowboarding lessons you're not learning how to ride superpipe like Shaun White and I doubt the instructor even focuses on that. Fundamentals, introduction, safety let the kid in the class decide if he wants to play X ball...

very nice video post but was the video itself you teaching a kid how to play op?

And to any of the other points?

[skwirnmn]

Originally Posted by Zippin35

how would these lessons be taught?

Teach little kids about safety, teach them how to point at targets and shoot at them. as they advance teach them things like running and gunning, snap shooting, ect.

Originally Posted by Sand6452

It is a sport actually, regardless of your view on it. It makes the x-games, those are televised. And by that logic it seems paintball isn't a sport?

Originally Posted by ProtoBaller1991

Sport- Noun An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.

I don't have a single friend who has ever skated in a competition. When I skateboard, I don't aim to beat anyone, I'm not trying to score points, there are no referees. Skateboarding is not a sport. Paintball is definitely a sport. It requires physical movement in order to beat an opponent. psh, I'd even consider chess a sport in some ways. Chess is much more of a sport than skateboarding is, there aren't televised chess games are there? (I really hope there aren't.)

regardless, that's not the point of this video/thread. the video is calling paintball fields, teams, players, management and coaches to teach paintball to little kids.

[S_Carter]

Originally Posted by L_x

Apart from other players giving advice/coaching to new players (as happens a lot at my local field), there are no dedicated lessons for beginners that I've seen.

I know of a couple fields do have "Young Guns" programs for newer players with free entry, which are led by an experienced tournament player to teach the kids basic forms, techniques, positions, and give them basic drills and exercise to get better at playing paintball. It's a great program that helps convert children from being occasional rental players to getting their own gear and entering the young guns tournament or house league scene.

[Zippin35]

Originally Posted by skwirnmn

Teach little kids about safety, teach them how to point at targets and shoot at them. as they advance teach them things like running and gunning, snap shooting, ect.

Right but you missed all of the questions I actually had. Obviously these lessons would go over basics, that wasn't the point.

[Biscuit451]

I've thought about this before. Set up a field, or an addition to a field(prefferably reball) and have martial arts styled lessons. Seems like it would either be a solid success, or a large failure.

[skwirnmn]

Originally Posted by Zippin35

Right but you missed all of the questions I actually had. Obviously these lessons would go over basics, that wasn't the point.

you can teach kids in the staging area of a field about safety, you can bring them onto a three man hyper ball field to show them how to shoot at targets and teach them snap shooting and running and gunning, as they continue to advance, you take them onto a 5man field and show them how the game of x ball is run/played.

honestly, the questions you asked aren't specific enough making them irrelevant. I would take my son or daughter to a field and show them how to play the way I was shown how to play. If someone paid me to teach their kid how to play paintball, I'd go through the basics, then move on from there. I don't need an entire nppl 7 man field with pretty looking turf to do all of that.

edit: a big part of what paintball is missing is marketing. there are no park district leagues that I can sign my kid up for to be coached or play on a little league team. that needs to be implemented if paintball is to become mainstream.

[gmore70]

Originally Posted by S_Carter

I know of a couple fields do have "Young Guns" programs for newer players with free entry, which are led by an experienced tournament player to teach the kids basic forms, techniques, positions, and give them basic drills and exercise to get better at playing paintball. It's a great program that helps convert children from being occasional rental players to getting their own gear and entering the young guns tournament or house league scene.

I love that idea!

[gmore70]

Originally Posted by paintballpunker

very nice video post but was the video itself you teaching a kid how to play op?

Yes, I was teaching in that video. Anytime I get hit, I will ask the ref's permission to stay on a teach one of the kids who has never played before.

I do this because someone did that for my child when he first starting playing and I want to pay it forward.

I have also come to learn that this seems to be a standard practice at most fields.

[Zippin35]

Originally Posted by skwirnmn

you can teach kids in the staging area of a field about safety, you can bring them onto a three man hyper ball field to show them how to shoot at targets and teach them snap shooting and running and gunning, as they continue to advance, you take them onto a 5man field and show them how the game of x ball is run/played.

honestly, the questions you asked aren't specific enough making them irrelevant. I would take my son or daughter to a field and show them how to play the way I was shown how to play. If someone paid me to teach their kid how to play paintball, I'd go through the basics, then move on from there. I don't need an entire nppl 7 man field with pretty looking turf to do all of that.

edit: a big part of what paintball is missing is marketing. there are no park district leagues that I can sign my kid up for to be coached or play on a little league team. that needs to be implemented if paintball is to become mainstream.

All good points. But what do we do when a kid is having a lesson and the walk ons want to play a field? What happens when you have 10 kids in a day that want private lessons and 75+ walk ons and 6 private groups but 8 fields? These are the things I am thinking about. Yes you can (and damn well should might I add) be teaching safety in the staging area. You can absolutely teach snap shooting in the woods, but you cant have a private lesson going on at the same time as another truly private lesson, at the same time as a game. Snowboarding is a bad example of this because you can have a 1/1 lesson taking place in a very public place. Your company can give these lessons with ZERO noticeable increase on your current structure, the same does not hold true in paintball. Clinics would be better for this as it would rope more people in for one day and you can limit their fields but then you lose out on the 1 to 1 coaching or teaching.

The reason I ask about the layouts and such is because of the points made by the OP. To install a set of regulations around coaching and instructing is great but how serious can you take it if the sport itself, or at least the governing association, doesn't recognize one specific format. Hell you could have a pro by appa standards not even a novice by other ranking systems. Yes, you can absolutely teach running and gunning and laning and diving on any format but if we are going to create some standard, how can we with no standard field?

Then how do we teach communication? Would you like to run behind your student in a game and make sure they are communicating? I wouldn't want to, how about the opponents, would they be a fan of a coach on the field, in a bunker? Rec or not, I would not be a fan. Do we then expand it to coaches games, where only the people allowed to play are having lessons, bumping a 7 man game to 28 people on the field?

I am not saying lessons are not a good idea, and as someone mentioned there are actually a few out there. Every field in my area (New England) has run at least 1 clinic of some sort. I am just saying that there are a lot of things that vary from paintball to other sports where these types of lessons are more common place and even more intricate are the details if we talk about a certification standard.