Getting down and dirty in the woods

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise ... KS sneaks up on paintball in Shiga.

It's 8:30am, you've just started a long Saturday shift at a rural 7/11 and eight fully camouflaged guys pour out of a couple of vans on the forecourt. Let's take stock: we're in Shiga so it's probably not going to be North Koreans. As a closer inspection reveals a number of fair skinned men and women in the group you realize talks with this invading force may be difficult. Only when they leave with your onigiri shelf and two litres of water each does it dawn on you that they must be headed for the nearby Alpex Paintball Field for a day of grown-up hide and seek.

Being part of the group that morning in May last year was giving me a sense of cheeky fun but not enough to allay my concerns that I would be spending a day with army types and gun freaks. After all, I was on my way to play paintball for the very first time.

The playing area is in the wooded hills of Taga-cho in the East of Shiga. Immediately on arrival you get a tour of the play area — wooden bases, trees, paths — and a somewhat lengthy but, efficient safety lowdown. The safety rules are very simple but enforced with a commitment bordering on paranoia by Alpex operator, Art, whose reasoning is that paintball is new to Japan and is tolerated with some nervousness by the authorities. He takes pains to see that customers and his business are not put at risk!

Scenarios for games involve two or more teams with the same or conflicting objectives. Commonly occurring themes seem to be to eliminate the opposition; take a flag from one location to another; safely deliver VIPs (unarmed players) while the opposition
is trying to mark them with paint. However elaborate the scenarios may become throughout the day, the first few are simple and for the greenhorns — just don't get shot!

After all the explanations were done with we took our places at North Base and the countdown began, “Three, two, one, Go! Go! Go!” Like the rest of my team I tried to make as much ground toward the opposition as possible before the combined effects of our advances formed a no-man's-land between us. Nestled behind a three-feet wall of fallen logs, I spent the next two minutes shuffling from crouching, sitting and lying positions in the mud before taking a ball of paint in the arm while traversing to a more interesting looking tree to hide behind.

I hadn't lasted long but I realized the potential excitement and was keen to stalk and shoot another player without being noticed, just as someone had with me. These desires would have to wait another 20 minutes though as my exit from the second game must have set some kind of a record. Sprinting from the start, I had mistaken the rendezvous for another base and ran farther than was necessary. So far, in fact, that I almost bumped into
the enemy and was shot at close range. Frustration started to creep in.

Nobody wants to travel out to Shiga to spend the day sitting in the woods unable to join in the fun that is happening just metres away. I have seen with beginners since that mine is not an uncommon story for the first morning. The desire to not get shot provides a natural opportunity for the novice to learn from mistakes. The longer you last, the more you travel around the field; the more battles you survive, the more the adrenaline flows and that's
where the excitement comes.

I lasted to almost the end of the third game. Feeling safety in numbers I stuck close by some teammates and we crawled our way through the cover of thick bushes. On hearing voices 15 metres away I located a target and hastily opened fire. This took them by surprise for they had no idea we were so close. My shots missed and now I had given my position away I became the target instead.

Thrown into panic by the paint hitting the branches around me, I felt like a first grader in a playground who had pushed over a fourth grader and was now alone and suffering the rage of the older and nastier child. My solution to the problem was simple: leggit!

Running as fast as I could through our lines, jumping fallen trees and ducking branches — surely I would be safe now. Suddenly instant pain in the chest. How could that happen? The enemy was to my rear. I had become a victim of friendly fire, being mistaken for an advancing opposition by our equally inexperienced rear guard.
But now I had a taste for the excitement.

I had been playing with friends but lunch provided a good opportunity to chat to other players and sort out some team tactics (and I made sure everyone knew I was on their team). Lunch is a BYO affair. Being in the middle of the woods there are no restaurants, convenience stores or conveniences of any kind nearby. A look in the plastic oblong often referred to as 'the toilet' had me wishing I had gone before leaving home (don't forget, this is a natural environment).

Lots more games followed in the afternoon, with a few where I managed to survive the full 20 minutes. By five o'clock however, we mutually decided that the adrenaline had taken its toll on our bodies. All being shattered and a few being bruised from paintballs or branches some of us decided to head for the local public bath
to warm up and talk over the day's excitement.

I have since been back many times and even managed to put a team together for one of the two-monthly tournaments. My fears of spending a day with army types and gun freaks had been unfounded.

There is a fairly even male/female and Japanese/non-Japanese split among the participants and all are friendly and keen to share their enjoyment of the sport with others. Those that do have military experi-ence don't always find that it helps much anyway. If they are the only one in their team with training, it doesn't really count for much.

Those that are successful have a certain amount of athletic ability to negoti-ate the trees, branches and ditches. But more crucially they have found the balance between lying low and staying put for most of the game and running around like a lunatic. Aspects of both are necessary showing that paintball is really a way that adults are able to justify going into the woods to play hide and seek.

Text: Vince Cleaver • Photos: Courtesy Alpex