Here’s the Drill—Hold the Snake

Here’s the Drill—Hold the Snake

Drills are important; if your team is just going to a day of practice, and scrimmaging, then you aren’t doing all you can to increase the speed in which your team learns the different facets of the game. You have to isolate skills and situations so you can focus on learning those skills, while they are removed from the overall scheme of the game. The skill, or lack of, is easy to see when it is set apart from an actual game, making it easier to attack your deficiencies. The more you isolate the skill, or the situation, the more it can be focused on and the faster it will be mastered.

Snake Drill

The snake is the most important bunker on the field. You need to control the snake to win games, and by extension, win tournaments. The following drill should help your snake players refine their skill of moving forward under fire, of learning the right time to move, and build in the instinctual feel a good snake player needs.

The object of this drill is to get into the fifty-yard line snake and stay there for 30 seconds. In a real game situation, the team who controls the 50-yard line of the snake bunker for the majority of the game will normally win the game. One of the most important skills a snake player, or any front player, can develop, is to understand that you do not necessarily need to immediately pop up after getting into the fifty are start trying to shoot people.

Also, since the purpose of the drill is to control the 50 for 30 seconds, the players who are behind the front player must protect him and keep him alive, which is another crucial element of solid paintball—protect the players in front of you.

Intersquad communication will be a big part of this drill because you should be talking to each other about what your opponents are doing and what you need to move forward—whether or not they’re in their bunker or out shooting and where they are.

This drill is best performed 3 on 3, though you can throw different number combos out there to get different looks. Each player starts in their bunker, and it’s best the players not know where their opponents are, so they are forced to figure that out as soon as the drill begins.

Once the players are put in the positions by the coach, the drill starts. The drill ends when everyone from one team is shot, or a player gets into the 50 snake and stays there for 30 seconds. Also, though the players should get most reps in the normal positions, it’s a great idea to cycle everyone through the different spots, so the front player knows what the back player is looking at and vice versa.

This drill is a simple, but very effective, way to increase your proficiency and help you learn the skills you need to win games. Try this out, and do it on a regular basis, and you will see your results dramatically increased because you must control the snake to win games on a regular basis.

Mark your calendars for the biggest tournament in the world, the 2013 PSP World Cup, which takes place at the Fantasy of Flight, in Orlando, Florida. The best teams in the world will be fighting across multiple divisions of competition to determine who is the best. Paintball Access will be bringing all the action live, October 18th-20th. Don’t miss it!


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