On the face of it, this looks as though it could be an easy question to answer and I think in most cases it generally is ....but.....one of the things I learned whilst putting together the XBall Brit squad for that inaugural XBall event in the US was that when I went looking for talent, I could spot it within about 30 seconds of looking at a player.I keep reading the words "Raw talent", someone define raw talent within paintball ?
The areas i see raw talent within our sport would be the agility to run faster(speed), flexibility, and awareness.
Other areas such as techniques like stance, snap shooting, understanding how to play different bunkers would be all down to each individuals learning skills and how well that player listen, the understanding and consume.
Like any sport it does however help with a good teacher in building a foundation to step on.
There was a certain 'style' about the way they played and that style is apparent whether the said player has been playing years or even months.
I realize that sounds kinda improbable but for the most part, I found it to be true.
Most certainly, I selected about 5 of those players from seeing them play for less than a minute. In fact, when I saw Bowen play for the first time, I saw him do one run to the snake and one dive into it ... job done - he was in.
Now if you were to ask me to define that style, LoL, oh my, my answer would be ...go look at the greats of this game, they all have it.
So for me, raw talent merely means, they have that style
Dammit, after reading what I've just written, it could be argued I am seeking refuge in the artistic side of things instead of the bedrock science principles I always try to stick to .... hmmmmmmm.........Eeeeekkkk, I'm turning into a frikkin fairy