There's something strange about human interaction in the paintball community.  It's always difficult to balance yourself between being a friendly player and being a focused player that knows what it takes to win events.

Winning an event on the national level is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.  It takes 3 days of playing great paintball to get there.  There are a lot of teams that will make several appearances on Sunday but can never make that push to the finals.  It takes a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. By luck I don't mean just roll the dice and come out on top.  I mean lucky that the prep work your team did produced a game plan that would counter your opponents.  I remember playing a few teams that would just have their number at one event but then the next they would stomp us to the ground.  Game plans mean a lot.

On the field everyone knows that when that buzzer blows we turn into animals.  I don't care how close I am or how long I've know that guy on the other side, I'm going to put him down.  He's not my friend anymore and I want to just stomp him out.  Then as soon as we're off the field we are joking and talking just as if we are best friends again.  Why is that?  How do we separate in our minds the person we are on the field and the person we are off the field?

I remember having some of the most intense practices with my team to the point where people were screaming and yelling at each other and it wasn't uncommon for someone to be close to tears.  This would last for the whole practice then we'd all go to denny's together and have a great time.  I think that's when you know you are close to your teammates.  When you can all understand each other on and off the field.  I love it.  I love the way paintball brings people out of their shells.  Like Matty Marshall put it: it allows us "to live as loud as [we] want."

-EB