Firstly, apologies for length of post but there's a point to be made, a few points actually .....
Lettuce - I think we're now assuming that we're able select the players but not exclusively from the pros or semi-pros.
In some respects it's easier to train players who aren't pro or semi because they tend to be the rounded item already and don't leave a lot of room to work with.
The first six months of training would involve not much else apart from drills and the last would be combinations of drills and 5 v 5 games.
It's really important [IMHO] that the 5v5 games aren't free-running .. by this I mean, each game would have a purpose, that purpose would be decided upon by the coach who would look to focus the players on a certain component of play.
As an example, the theme might be left-handed shooting and so the game would begin with all the players sitting behind their pre-selected primaries [No break-out] and the 'game-on' would be called by the coach - the players would begin playing using their left-hand exclusively [Right-hand if you're southpaw] .... the coach then manages this particular session with no predesignated game time .. it continues until the coach is satisfied and then everyone gets reset behind their original primaries and it starts again.
Coach intervention is important here so's he can stop the game at any time to make a point - once the point has been made, the game continues with no reset ...
This is focus training and something we used extensively in the first few months of training Nexus up.
In my opinion, and from what I saw, and from what the players said in feed-back, this approach paid dividends.
Most people might know or remember that we ]Nexus] also focussed heavily on snap-shooting spending whole days continually focussed upon snap-shooting from various positions, standing, kneeling, left-handed, right-handed etc
If you look at most people who snap-shoot, it doesn't look too complicated but it can be broken down [if you know what to look for] and then it's reassembled in stages as you train it, huge dividends are possible.
Every seminar/training day I've done since we developed it, I've included the mechanics of this shot and tried to pass it on to as many players as is possible.
The two main considerations when training this **** are accuracy, and minimising exposed profile.
There are two ways to achieve a reduced profile, the first is time, the second is the method itself.
And just so's we all know what I mean by a reduced profile, I'm talking about your target profile, what does your opponent see of you and how long does he see it for ....
As some of you guys may know/remember, I used to meet up with Sergey, the owner of the Russian Legion, many times when he flew into London and he once said to me, 'Pete, the devil is always in the detail' ..... now, since he's a frikkin billionaire, I thought it best to listen to him.
He was right of course, the devil is in the detail but most people don't want to bother too much with details, they want quick and easy results, they want McDonald's techniques .... and that ain't possible if you're making a serious attempt to improve your skill-sets.
If you look at boxers, most all the pros [and amateurs] throw right-crosses, left-hooks, right-hooks etc in much the same way ... that's not coincidence, it's because that particular punch technique has been so refined, so optimised, it gives the boxer a blueprint on how to throw your 'bread and butter' shots ... paintball could learn a lot from boxing in this respect.
The guys who I coach down my boxing club will spend hours [per week] on the bag or on the pads, they know what I've asked them to do and they're willing to invest their time and effort in developing their own skill-set.
There's nothing stopping us ballers from at least trying to approximate what the boxers do ....
I'll leave you with one last account that may prove helpful in this thread ...
After Nexus had gone through their training regime, we went to a Millennium event in Toulouse.
We got to play Dynasty, who were at that time, dominating everyone.
I was standing with Chuck Hendsch who was the captain and part-owner of Dynasty but he was also an ex teammate of mine from when I was on the All Americans and so we knew each other well enough.
About half way through the game, one of our players, Jamie Abbott slid into a bunker on the 50 right next to us on the tape, in front of him was one of the Dynasty players who'd see Jamie slide in front of him, no more than twenty feet away.
Now, because this was a tape-line bunker position, Jamie and the Dynasty player were right in front of myself and Chuck ... my stomach was churning like an Indesit washing machine as Jamie settled in and assumed the position we'd practiced so many, many times .... it took less than twenty seconds before the Dynasty player was snapped out of the game with a goggle shot causing Chuck to splutter something like 'Jeeeeeeeze' ... he was surprised - I pretended I wasn't ... Jamie perfectly executed the snap-shot we'd spent so long in developing - I never forgot that one instance of play because in that seminal moment of play, all our training crystalised in front of me and more importantly, Jamie went onto become a truly fantastic and accomplished snap-shooter.
Was it luck?
Could have been but I like to think people make their own luck in this world, and on that day, Jamie made his, much to the abject disappointment of Chuck and the Dynasty player who'd had his armband removed by many months of training.
Robbie was probably at the Maximus Clinic, Tomas too.