I have never wanted to hurt anybody and I certainly never wanted to shoot someone so I found the idea of paintball a little strange. There are two guys at my work who regularly go off at weekends to play paintball in the woods. They could never convince me there was any point to getting shot at with paint pellets while you got cold and wet in the woods.
There was nothing better I had planned to do at the weekend so I agreed to join them running around the woods getting cold, wet and paintballed. As we travelled out of town heading for the paintball camp site I was a bit nervous as I didn't know quite what to expect.
I was instructed on how to use the paintball gear they lent me and had some safety instruction on how to avoid any accidental injuries. Next I was shown how to operate a simple paintball gun and the we were off to my first paintball fight. I got hit by a pellet of pink paint almost as soon as I got there. I knew I had a lot to learn about all this paintball stuff and I hadn't even seen who it was that shot me.
It was a great time and the guys were a nice bunch of fellas and a few great girls. I got shot with paint pellets a lot of times but I also got a few guys back and I had a great time. Yes being shot by a paintball can hurt and especially if the person shooting you is close by but most times you are proud of these minor 'war' wounds.
You might guess I am now a regular paintball player and most weekends you will find me out in the woods with my cheap paintball gun. Cheap paintball gear is good enough to start with and if you want to progress to more expensive gear you can do this over a period of time but cheap gear will do fine to get you started.