GAINING AND MAINTAINING THE ADVANTAGE

Gaining the advantage is best defined as creating a situation where the opposition has no choice but to deal with the immediate threat, or perish from it. You are essentially stopping them from doing what they had set out to do. They must be put in a situation where the only thing they can do is what you make them do. They MUST take cover, the MUST pull back, they MUST handle that particular situation BEFORE THEY CAN ENACT ANY PLANS OF THEIR OWN.

KEEP MOVING

Movement is the key to this game. Stationary players make perfect targets, because after your first couple of shots, you have them 'ranged'. That is to say that there is no more guesswork on where you should be aiming to hit them. When a player is stationary, you can keep track of what they are doing. Stationary players also provide you with an opportunity to pin them down, making them ineffective. Once opposing players are pinned down, you must move.

There IS a place for stationary players, however. I have often played the position known as 'tape man'. You run to the tape and you stay there, to prevent the opposition from moving along said boundary. Even in this 'static' role, you must move and advance in line with your team. You do not want your teammates to advance to a point where the player you have pinned down can now pour fire into their flanks.

FIND THE OPPOSITION'S WEAK POINT AND EXPLOIT IT

There have been many times where I have analyzed a past game and thought, "Gee, I should have moved up the left tape when that guy got eliminated." Hind sight is 20/20; but by then it is too late. You must first learn to recognize a weak point and then you will almost automatically know how to exploit it. For instance, an opponent is pinned down, you can now move to flank the opponent. If an opponent is eliminated, you must try to exploit that immediately. It may have created a gap in their lines you can move though.

UNDERSTAND AND KNOW YOUR OPPONENT

If you do not know what they will do, in a given situation, how are you to formulate any action against them? The idea is to eliminate as many unknown possibilities as you can. For example: You must know if a player will stand and fight, or will pull back to a better position, when pressed. Knowing your opponents will allow you to know what they will do when you apply all the steps against them. It's a simple matter of cause and effect. Stand on the sidelines, observe your opponents as they play, watch what happens to them, and how they react to it.

DO ALL YOU CAN TO PREVENT YOUR OPPONENTS FROM DOING THE FIRST THREE THINGS

• If your opponent has you pinned down, YOU are no longer moving.

• If your opponent is exploiting a weak point, then they are almost certainly going to defeat you.

• If your opponent knows you like the back of their hand, they can play YOU like a cheap banjo.

• If your opponent has gained the advantage, YOU no longer have it.

CONCLUSION

However, to make these four steps work, you must remember the following two things:

ONE: You must constantly maintain ALL FOUR steps. I mean CONSTANTLY. Not just for the first half of the game, not for just a few minutes, but for the ENTIRE game, or it won't work.

TWO: No one step has priority over another, they are all EQUAL. Each step supports another step and must be maintained in order for all the other steps to work.