August: Part Two

Cribbs 16th August: 

Small crowd again. Just 4 of us up here. We played a few 2 on 2s but mainly did some off the break / run&gun and snap shooting. Nothing to see here!

Friday 17th: DODGEBALL!

Completely irrelevant but I started playing dodgeball on Friday evenings as part of a new league in Weston. It was very fun and an amazing workout. There's muscles in my arms and back I found which I didn't know existed!

We lost our first friendly but the ranked games haven't started yet so it's all good practice for a warm-up!

18th & 19th August: Academy 213140582676373945021349234572456

Another weekend of practice up at Bristol. My head wasn't really in the game and I feel like I hit a wall this weekend. I just didn't feel like I was up to scratch when we were doing half field games of 3v3 and my hesitation and lack of aggression became quite apparent to me as I was very slow to move up the dorito side of the field. On reflection I think I need to start making my own windows instead of waiting for them to appear. I should be dominating the people keeping me locked down and buying myself the time to bump instead of just waiting until they eventually look infield. 

The NTT squad seems to be shaping up a bit now. Shayne's shaking off his rust well, Harry's remaining a solid player and everyone who turned up today actually seemed to have some enthusiasm! I was pretty moody and felt a bit defeated just because I didn't feel as strong a player as I knew I could be. Some of the guys suggested maybe I take a weekend off and I remember thinking at the time that it's probably just what I need to sit back and compose myself before coming back out to hit it hard. Next weekend I think I'll take it easy and do what normal people do and stuff. Whatever that is.

26th August: My weekend off (UKSM with UWE paintball society) 

Well I went to spend the weekend at the old man's and see a bit of London. But you know, as I was in the area It would have been rude not to nip over to bricketwood wouldn't it?

I started the day in the snakeside back centre-left  (MAO field makes everything awkward doesn't it!) but I sorta got there and felt a bit bored and couldn't see much of the field. Everyone else on the team went out and killed people in the first game which we won. In the second game we lost and I got shot by playing a bit sloppy behind a pin and leaving my knee out.

After that I got bored of watching the games pan out and trying to play damage control so I thought I'd start diving into the doritos and was back in my element, patiently gunfighting people out one by one and winning games until the end of the day. We came first overall by a long shot winning 7/8 games. 

Yeah okay I was probably sandbagging a bit being in Div2; after a month or so of seeing how far I had left to walk on this intimidating path on the way to that elusive pro level spot, I needed to remind myself how far I had come after a lot of work. A couple guys from London Impact watched me play and took me to one side, we chatted about Paris, they're not sure if they have a spot for me but I'm hoping they do so I can go play my first millenium in October!

That's all for August. Next month I will be training hard at Bricketwood and Bristol as well as fighting to defend 1st place with Snatch at the last round of the CPPS!