Paintball a Martial Art

I like to play Paintball, woodsball specifically. I approach it like I do any Martial art. There are drill nights at an indoor arena (speedball) at the local field. But like any modern martial artist, cross-training is excellent, so I cross-train in speedball drills to bring my woodsball skills to the next level... lol

On the speedball field I do get frustrated when I get owned by some smaller 'geek' kid out of high school, but then I think, if this was real, he would have had my number. And the notion that if it were real that I would be dead is what got me thinking of it as a martial art.

Of course paintball is a highly controlled scenario, kind of like a dojo/training gym where there are rules and etc. Then there are the ballistics of a paintball when compared with a bullet; so that would favour paintball more as a sportive martial art than a lethal art. But then again, in close quarters, I think that a paintballer's skill could transfer to a deadly martial art.

And of course this assumes that firearms training is a deadly martial art.

Food for thought, I've never really had this conversation with anyone before now so I would like to hear people's thoughts.

 

Paintball isn't so much a martial art, as it is an aspect of training. I'd see it as semi-contact sparring, with war being substituted for Karate in this case. Dunno if that makes sense

 

It all depends on your definition of a martial art. The literal definition is any military art, which can involve almost anything - army chefs could be described as practicing a martial art.

 

The goal of a Martial Art, or at least with respect to the context I am using the term, is where a person has the objective of beating the other person, and saving themselves from harm. Let's see how that plays out.

 

I agree, I think, lol. It is more sportive, like strikes being padded by gloves and whatnot. Especially since the velocity of the projectiles are dialed down to maintain safety.

 

Sure why not. Lots of parallels with what goes on in any boxing gym or muay thai camp or karate dojo or ninja whatever-they-call-it for that matter. Not many 'martial artists' are going to like that comparison. But there you have it. Is it any different than people donning Kendo gear and going at it. Or western martial artists going to town on each other with blunts? What about the Tae Kwon Do guy who puts on the foam padded booties and does his deadly ballet? How about nak muays sharpening up their shins with a wet stone so that can decapitate some other nak muay in the ring?

It's all proxy warfare at one level or another.

 

Agreed. It's not what my mind jumps to when I think of martial arts, but hell, a lot of people say the same thing about boxing and fencing. And I can't come up with any objective definition of "martial art" that makes sense to me but doesn't include paintball.

 

yeah, I guess it is. Teaches you to keep the gun steady, hide, etc.

 

Lolz at the TKD "foam padded booties" and "deadly ballet" compared with Thai decapitation methods.

 

ROTFLMAO... detect a bit of bias did you!

 

Keep your eyes peeled on the Articles section. I'm about half way through putting together a piece on defining Martial Arts - it was inspired by some comments on Fencing in the Western Arts or Weapon section, but does refer to paintball! (Truth be told I'm a little annoyed that this thread appeared just days before I intended to Post!)

Hope to finish and put it up this weekend.

MN

 

I'm testing next week for my shodan in Laser Questing........

 

Hehehe, who me?

 

I'm looking forward to it!

 

I really enjoy playing paintball, personally. I've never thought of it as anything other than a fun game (though I'll freely admit that what makes it fun is nerding out on "playing soldier"). But as Mitlov said, I can't really come up with a sustainable definition of martial art that logically precludes paintball whilst including something like archery.

That is to say, I could fabricate a definition that does just that, but it wouldn't ring true for me.


Stuart

 

Heck, they even have paintball world championships now.

www.nppl.com

 

Can't wait to read it and see what you have to say on the issue! Glad the fencing discussions sparked something.

 

I've never played paintball

 

Wouldn't airsoft be closer to a martial art?

Anyway. In many ways I would say that paintball is a martial art, certainly not an orthodox one, but one none the less!

Generally speaking most sports are either ritual analogies for war, training tools or less violent replacements of war to help settle disputes.

 

Just to let you know that as promised earlier in this thread, my article is up in the 'Other' section now. To avoid cross-posting, please keep any comments there rather than here. Please go easy - it's the first thing I've written in years! Thanks.

http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=34180955#post34180955