Teamwork ?

[Robbo]

When a lot of players talk about our sport, there are many traps players can fall into when trying to understand or explain our game.
There are no definitive works (books) in regards to paintball, what we have is a corpus of knowledge held by everyone and you can only really distill its relevance and / or authenticity by debating it properly.

I'm gonna throw the cat among the pigeons here and suggest, 'you can't train teamwork' ...well not the sorta teamwork that wins games anyway.

This may sound preposterous and I could well be just playing devil's advocate here but before I give any of my views on the subject.... it might do everybody well to discuss the subject of 'teamwork, and can it be practiced'? ...... and let's see what's shaken out ....

 

[Potter Loki]

personally the only way i think "teamwork" can be gained is by playing matches/tournaments together, its not something that comes straight away.....

 

[Duncan Berry]

partly i did say you can train it, your team has to "mesh" so to speak and there has to be trust. If you dont know what on earth the next guys gonna do then in my opinion the teams doomed.

However training as a team against each other or scrimmaging will start to build that trust and knowledge of each others play style.
Having said that that however some people will never click despite however many hours of practice they put in.

So yes and no, training as team will build teamwork and trust but if there are personality clashes then no it cant be trained

 

[chuckwood]

The pub builds teamwork and getting out and getting to know each other helps!

 

[Devrij]

I think teamwork depends largely on the level of communication. If you're used to talking to your front player/back player (not just calling out bunkers/G's/etc.) then that's going to be more conducive to working together, rather than just doing your job according to each situation. How you train that....no idea. I'll admit that I only work closely with my backs when they follow me into the snake or if they're helping me bump up.

 

[spangley_special]

2 on 2's help team work alot, as it's just you and the one other guy after a while you get used to communicating alot more than a g count

 

[House]

...

 

[Skeet]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
You can however, make it jump fences and perilous ditches, buy hitting it with a stick.

You can teach a group, skills required for a game and potentially have them excel at them, so having a group of killers that could achieve good things via a technical standpoint.

In the same way, you can teach HOW to work as a team, but having people actually do it, is something else. A group has to bond in order for team work to be instinctive. Either that, or each member of the team has to be so personally driven to achieving their goal, that regardless of how they feel about any other team member, they simply react to conditions in a predictable way and so perceived teamwork is the result.

I will go out on a limb and I am sure Robbo knows the true answer to this, but shall we compare Dynasty and Russian Legion?

Sergei, selected individuals and trained them to be like robots, all working on the same assembly line with devastating results. However, actual titles remained out of reach for some time, despite their furious technical ability.
Dynasty however, were mostly comprised of friends, already in tune with each other, living together, playing together and so on...were they initially as technical as RL were when they first appeared? I don't know, but their results speak volumes.

So perhaps that is the answer...perhaps that intangible "relationship" part Teamwork is the key?

[/outofdepth]

 

[Robbo]

I will go out on a limb and I am sure Robbo knows the true answer to this...

Yes I do .....but some may not believe it and some even contest it

I'll give you a clue in the light of something Dev suggested, he said,

'I think teamwork depends largely on the level of communication'.

...... I think Dev is implying you can talk your way to good teamwork, leastwise he believes it's a major component.

I will contest it isn't ....... tho it is undoubtedly a factor, I'm suggesting it's just not a major one.

 

[BubbleGumBob]

dont flame me too much but is it

"you can talk? but are listening?"