Hey Buddy, welcome to the forums!
You seem like a very sound guy by the sounds of your posts
How far do you want to progress in in the paintball world, one of the few UK teams playing in Europe or just a hobby past time that you'd take up a couple times a month and the odd/occasional tourney?
How I started and where its taken me:
About 6-7 Years ago I had a friend who played for the wildcats, he bought in magazines and it looked 'well cool' at the time
I played paintball about 5 years ago at a mates Birthday. Was fun but woodsball wasn't for me and i'v never really enjoyed it since.
March 2008 I bought my First full playing kit deal. couldn't have been more excited. I had the spare cash from my student loans - thought I should do something instead of being a bum.
Last week of April 2008 I played for the very first time at the NSPA (Darlington North-East) with two other new guy's I have met, to this day I am still great mates with them and keep in regular contact
May-June 2008 There was a Nicky T clinic at Proaktive in Manchester, Managed to nab a lift off my brother when I moved back home from Uni. This clinic was where I gained massivly in my own self confidence. Having someone say that your doing something right builds your own self esteem. Believe in yourself to acheive great things and they may well just happen.
July 2008 I Moved down to Essex with my Year out job in London. I already know of the greater amount of teams, players and places to play in the South of England. So I got myself down to one of them.
October 2008 a man by the name of Spike offered me a place on his new team. dXs Effect after my many months of searching and building of my own skills this is where I went. The Effect crew many good months together training hard over most weekends.
January 2009 dXs Effect and Torquey Cynergy Joined forces to create dXs Entity - This newly formed team had several goals, with the sole goal of acheiving promotion to the Millenniums SPL in the next two years after its creation.
Throughout the course of this year me and my team-mates have fought over the few spots within our team in the hope of acheiving the Div 1 team, in doing so we have had to show that we have what it takes to make it to our Div 1 squad which plays at millenniums. We have had great successes in Bitberg and Paris especially with each event we play we acheive greater team and personal acheivements.
I will be taking a leave of absense from Entity after Campaign Cup as Uni starts the weekend after, and I have been asked to play for this last event to finish this season off with a bang .
Whilst working I have put money aside for training when I got back to Newcastle, and I can only hope to acheive higher if I return.
Sorry to thread jack, but I felt like sharing my story over my lunch hour which has taken me some 35mins to type Anyone can achieve what I have done, its down to your own personal commitment to take yourself to high places if you wish so. Have fun with mates is also cool though. But whats the point of playing if your not always driving yourself to win?
Thanks for the kind words, thats was a really interesting read, you can plainly see your progression! its a shame they dont pay you to play the sport, like in other sports haha im looking to go the same route as you, woodsball is a laugh but and somewhat a different world of its own, for me its the rush of being in a good close nit team one day and having fun!
how is the team doing so far?
Cheers man!
Dan