Crawl Before You Walk, Walk before Sprint
Diving is an essential part of your paintball skills. Although everyone practices diving at a young age, whether on a slippery floor, a slip & slide, or in a ball pit. Once you put paintball gear on, hold a gun, and try to dodge paint while attempting your dive, it seems as if everything you have learned just disappears.
Not every dive is going to be perfect, not every dive is going to be smooth. However the more comfortable you become with diving, the better your odds for perfect dives will become.
To improve your diving you must start from the beginning and work your way up (LEFT HANDED & RIGHT HANDED)! What worked for me was going in this order…
- Use bunkers and preferably on a field. (Check for stakes, or anything sharp or hard on the field before practicing)
- Start practicing with all of your gear including your mask on, except use an empty pack and no gun.
- Next, load your pack and do it again.
- Then hold your gun minus the loader and barrel. (Just tank and gun)
- Finally, be fully geared and keep practicing.
*Start slow, practice getting as low as possible prior to the dive and reducing the impact you make when hitting the ground.
*Videotape your dives and review them to see what you are doing right and wrong.
Photos of Bryan Smith of Tampa Bay Damage getting low and performing a smooth transition dive into the snake.
