PaintballX3 Magazine PaintballX3 Euro February 2012 Issue | Page 18

I�ve tried a lot of shoes in the many years I�ve been playing paintball, all of them with different pros and cons. I started off as most players do with jogging-shoes be- fore I tried the regular football shoes with rubber spikes. That�s what was what I was told to wear. It was not that I didn�t notice how slippery the jogging shoes were on al- most every surface, I just didn�t know bet- ter. Then I used the JT paintball-shoes for a year. The grip was great but the shoes were heavy for me. Of course this was ear- ly in 2000 so to be fair JT was way ahead of the competition at that time. I then dedicated my time to look for more optimized footwear�from American foot- ball shoes to golf shoes with spikes. There were actually a lot of teams on the same mission back then, because every compet- itive player knew you could gain that ex- tra inch on your opposition if you had the right shoes. Perfect grip of the break could be the difference between getting shot of the break or making it safely to your bun- ker. Then paintball fields and tournaments started using fields with turf, and I now had to look for two pairs of shoes. By Kristine Andersen � Slagen Bandits Norway Turf was something entirely different; where jogging-shoes were slippery on grass they had some grip on the turf. It was confus- ing as hell. And it�s not like paintball was where it is today, where everyone know the best way to do everything, from snapshot to slide, we had more than enough try- and-fail things going on without worrying about the shoes. And since we were in on a sport which was developed by the hour back then, ev- eryone had an opinion on what was the best to do. So you felt dragged in every direction by people who just wanted what was best for you, and you spent a lot of money doing so. And some things haven�t changed that much during the years � the world�s best sport is still expensive. It still takes every extra penny you�ve got.