While eliminating opponents and completing your tasks without getting hit definitely qualifies you as an effective and successful airsoft player that alone doesn’t make you a good airsoft player by default. Sure, hitting your targets and avoiding hits are the basics of playing airsoft but being effective is not everything: being unproperly trained, toxic, or simply unfair will, in fact, spoil the match and enjoyment for everyone.
So in today’s article, we decided to bring you 10 tips to improve your airsoft skills and become a better player.
Table of Contents
1. Make Sure You Know What You’re There For
First things first. Effort without aim is pointless. Why are you playing airsoft? Is it just for fun? Or are you looking for a more realistic military simulation? Do you want to improve your skills and obtain a competitive advantage? Are you seeking an adrenaline rush?
Getting to understand the reasons why you’re practicing will make it way easier to focus on what’s important to you. Also, it will make you better understand the reasons why other players may like to play. This will get you to better understand the sport itself, allowing you to get the best experience from each game you play, and to team up with people that share your vision. Remember that this is a team sport. Sharing the fun of the game is what matters most.
2. Bond With Your Teammates And Be Nice To Your Opponents
In a real gunfight, groups of armed people will easily overwhelm lone wolves, even if they are way more trained and equipped. The same applies in airsoft. Players who understand how to stick with teammates and play with them will be able to dominate the field. Train together, define procedures, know each other attitudes, strengths, and weaknesses. Use this knowledge while moving on the field, communicate with teammates and success will come quickly and easily. Remember: if you divide your opponents, they’re alone. If they’re alone, they’re lost. The same goes for you.
Anyways, remember that being overwhelmed by the opponents may be frustrating and someone may overreact (both in your and in the enemy team). Know how to chill your partners and be nice to your opponents, so that the experience will stay nice and enjoyable for everyone.
3. Improve Your Tactical Training
A chain is strong as its weakest link. You don’t want to be that link, for sure. Even though relying on your teammates is your go-to option, you must be as good as you can by yourself. You must be able to properly help your team up if you have many teammates still playing; otherwise, you should at least be able to make your stand and try your best to complete the mission or to fall back.
Shooting positions, reloads, procedures, equipment, movement techniques, and transitions are all things that deserve attention and training. You don’t want ending being bulky, slow, or simply unprepared during the match, forcing your team to compensate for you. Remember that failing in a match happens: it’s a game, after all. Mistakes happen. Just don’t be too hard on yourself and make sure you did your best. What if you failed the mission? Well, don’t beat yourself, take it easy, and train more. You will make it.
4. Stay Fit, Improve Your Strength And Endurance
Just like tactical training, physical training is also crucial in Airsoft. Sprinting, running, jumping, crawling, and also just pointing a gun can be challenging if you’re out of shape. You may have to reach your teammates fast, or escape from a dangerous situation, or keep your gun pointed on a target for a long time. Being able to do so properly can make the difference between success and failure in a fight, or even in a match.
Endurance is also crucial. Learning how to walk for long times, or even just to stay perfectly still for hours allows you to be sharp and ready in any situation, from patrolling an area to performing a successful spotting recon. Airsoft can be challenging to your body. Training yourself will help you perform better and, most important, not to get hurt. Again, remember it’s a game: if someone gets hurt, the fun is over.
5. Be Humble And Don’t Be Afraid To Ask
Many airsoft players like to behave as they’re the best you can find on the field. Maybe that’s true, but no one likes know-it-alls. Even if you think you’re an effective airsoft player, look around you. There are tons of players, each with its own peculiarities, strengths, and ideas.
If you see something that you do not understand, don’t be afraid to ask. You may end up learning something new that you can add to your experience, as something you may want to do yourself or to counter. Don’t be shy and be open to new ideas. After all, succeeding in airsoft is all about improving. Don’t rule out something just because you don’t understand it. First, get to know it, then choose to keep it or leave it.
6. Ask Yourself “Does it work?”
Many times in airsoft players get the feeling that some things work while some simply don’t. Sometimes that can be true, but just because something doesn’t work for other players doesn’t’ mean that it isn’t right for you. Just make sure that everything you do and choose, works. That’s all that matters, anyway.
The same goes for the opposite: do not stick to something that doesn’t work just because it looks cool or keeps you in your comfort zone. Keep in mind that many things we get to see nowadays about military environments are made up for cinematographic purposes. Often, the reality is much different from what we get to see from movies and video games. Gear, procedures, and tactics just need to work properly, to keep you safe and to make you achieve your goals easier. Stick with what works for you, no matter what anyone says.
7. Be Creative While You Train
In airsoft, many things may change between a game and another: you may be playing in a woodland scenario or an urban one. It can be day or night, sunny or rainy, hot or cold. One moment you may be operating with friendly forces’ support and supplies, and a little later be forced to rely on few while being in enemy territory. You may be able to shoot with your rifle but be forced to switch to your backup weapon or to shoot from an unusual position, on your knees, or prone.
To be able to perform correctly under any circumstances, you should practice everything. Learn how to shoot in low light conditions, how to use your flashlight, how to reload with just one hand, how to crawl or move without being noticed. Those are just examples, but keep in mind that almost anything you can imagine can happen. And if something can happen, you may want to be prepared to handle it.
8. Choose Your Gear Carefully
Gearing up is one of the most important steps when preparing for a mission. To perform the best you can, you must make sure to have everything you need without carrying gear you do not need. And that is not an easy task. There are a lot of things that are almost mandatory to carry with you – safety gear, like safety glasses, gloves, emergency whistle, blanket, compass, and light, and at least a small ration of water, food, and a map of the Operative Area. The rest is up to you.
Think carefully about the tasks you need to complete and gear up properly. Also think about weather conditions that may change, magazines needed, batteries, flashlights, navigation gear, repairing tools, and anything that you may need. What you don’t need? Just leave it. It will just make you carry more weight, making you tired easier. At the end of matches, keep in mind what piece of your gear you didn’t carry and you needed it, and on the other hand what you carried but was useless. Use that information to adjust your choices in your next matches.
9. Communicate
Communication is something many players don’t focus on too much even if they should. It is the key in airsoft matches. If any member of a team communicates properly, the whole team will have a nice overview of many aspects of the current situation, gaining an advantage over the opponents. Speak and use radios if you can, otherwise use hand signals.
Just make sure everyone is always aware of what’s going on. Make sure you use words, and codes that your teammates can easily understand, but the opponents can’t, so even if they can hear you they won’t understand much. That, of course, needs to be agreed upon before the match, ideally during training.
10. Be honest
This is by far the most important thing in Airsoft. Honesty. The whole sport is based on that. Imagine how frustrating can be doing all the training, picking the right loadout and properly set it up, preparing, and sweating just to be hit by a highlander. No one wants that. And no one wants to be that guy.
If you get hit, be honest to everyone. Be honest to yourself, first: you got hit, that’s it. Others may not know that, but you do. You know that, in that situation, you failed. And there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a game. Don’t want that to happen again? Learn from your mistakes, train hard and get better. Remember that mistakes happen, and you can learn a lot from them, getting better and better, until you won’t make that mistake anymore. Other players will respect you for that, and you will improve your skills in no time.
