September 2020 Issue September 2020 | Page 67

Marcus Davis Talks Woodsball United we fight and United we fall By Marcus Davis, Captain, UK Predators myself the best player I could wish to be. The one thing I loved above everything else was knowing I had to try and learn all the different aspects of playing woodsball— from learning about field craft, to how to use cover of trees, gullies, different terrain and how to blend in with my background. And things like using the sun to my advantage, how to use the trees not only as cover but how to use them to block an opponent’s shot whilst moving towards him. Since from the very first time I ever played way back in 1987 to the present day now, I can always remember the very first time I ever played paintball in the woods with a Splatmaster, four tubes of paint and a face full of camo paint. I had an overwhelming feeling of “oh shit I’m absolutely loving this” and from that point onwards I was hooked. As time passed, I became more and more obsessed with playing and trying to make I was basically learning how to play chess in the woods, with myself as the rook always looking to move forward to trying to eliminate my adversary by playing aggressively and positively by hunting my prey. In my mind, even back then, I wasn’t one of those players that would hide in a bush and wait for my prey to come to me. My natural instinct was to always seek out the other team. I was eliminated a lot more times than I was successful at the start but as time passed my success rate slowly but surely began to climb a little bit as each time I played and learned my skills as a real woodsball player. I practiced even back then with shooting left and right-handed; I learned the art of long balling; and crawling, camouflage, moving whist others where shooting and the list continued to grow. My hunger to push myself www.paintball.media 067