Marty Bush Paintball
 
 

What do you think?  Add your comments in WARPIG's Forums

Marty Bush - The Basics
By Bill Mills - Dec 2004
Photos captured from Marty Bush - The Basics

Anyone who followed professional paintball in the mid and late 1990s knows the name Marty Bush.  Bush started playing woodsball in Northern California, and moved on to the tournament scene with teams including GBD (the Good the Bad and the Deadly,) Strike Force, and The Ironmen.  Bush was one of the old-school Ironmen playing back before the team split with captain Bob Long as well as after, winning world championships up through the 2001 season after which he retired from pro ball.  Many appearances on magazines, and in advertising for JT USA made his face a common sight in the sport.  He was known for his accurate snap shooting, popping up and taking out players with a single shot, even playing professional level tournaments with a pump as late as 1996.

These days he still plays recreationally and teaches player workshops.  Marty teamed up with Ray Acevedo of Reactor Visual Productions to create a series of DVDs designed to build a better paintball player.  Ray followed Marty through a number of player clinics, and the result was “The Basics,” which is the first of five planned volumes in the Marty Bush Paintball Series.

The Basics starts with an introduction in which Bush discusses his background in paintball.  This chapter of the DVD is a series of out-takes as he flubs, and ad-libs material, and despite being unorthodox, it captures his relaxed, joking nature that students would see face to face in one of his clinics.

The video then moves into a discussion of paintball gear – how to choose the right goggles, paint, gun and harness.  This is an area a lot of tournament clinics and classes overlook – choosing gear with tournament advantages like a small target profile, and bounce factor in mind.  The DVD goes on to cover pre-game preparation, stretching, shooting for accuracy, velocity adjustment, mobility on the field, using and moving around bunkers, and a summary of the lessons learned.

Unfortunately, through all the excellent information, the video features some poor examples of goggle safety, as Bush and some of the students shoot at targets without any eye protection, and through much of the video he wears goggles with the ear and face (which protects the eyes from a paintball penetrating the foam around the goggle frame) protection removed.  Being old-school, Bush was playing tournament paintball before face, temple and ear protection was mandatory.  

While this goggle example should not be followed (ASTM compliant goggle systems should be worn at all times when a paintgun does not have a barrel cover – even when target shooting to protect from ricochets and accidental firing) there is much valuable advice in the DVD for the beginning to experienced player to take their game to the next level with tournament, or more effective recreational paintball.  It packs the one on one instruction of a pro player clinic onto a single disk.
 

Copyright © 1992-2019 Corinthian Media Services.

WARPIG's webmasters can be reached through our feedback form.  All articles and images are copyrighted and may not be redistributed without the written permission of their original creators and Corinthian Media Services. The WARPIG paintball page is a collection of information and pointers to sources from around the internet and other locations. As such, Corinthian Media Services makes no claims to the trustworthiness or reliability of said information. The information contained in, and referenced by WARPIG, should not be used as a substitute for safety information from trained professionals in the paintball industry.