Level 1: Reporting/Responding

Reporting

On 11^th of October 2019, KELANASISWA organisation has organized a paintball competition that are open for participation for all UTM students who are interested in extreme sports. This event took place at Johor’s Outdoor Urban Paintball Arena which are in UTM near Tun Dr Ismail college. This was an annual program conducted by KELANASISWA and are categorized into 2 options which were tournament for UTM students only and tournament for public. This tournament was opened for group participation with four members per group and there are total of 4 groups with the winner from each group will proceed to the knockout stage of the competition. I participated in this tournament with another 3 of my course mates and this was my first-time playing paintball. The tournament scheduled to start at 11 am, however the participants were asked to make themselves available at the sports venue an hour earlier to attend the game’s briefing. We arrived around 10 am and we were on of the earliest group to arrive early. Since we came early, we were able to be witnessed on the preparation done by the KELANASISWA crewmates for the big event. They took safety measure seriously and making sure all the equipment worked properly. We were also prepared with the schedule of the game alongside the groups that we were involved in. There was also room for audience to sit nearby the action field and watched the game and give supports for the team they are rooting. After that, its time for us to put on the safety suit and get ourselves the paintball gun for each person and we jumped straight ahead in the field to hear the briefing from the person in charge. We were briefed about the rules and regulations and flow of the game first as they were a lot of first timers participated that day and were not familiar with the ground rules and concept of playing paintball. Moving on, we were briefed a little bit in detail on how to use the paintball tool which is the gun correctly because we do not want to hurt ourselves or others by wrongly handling it. After all the participants have understood the game and no more questions were asked to the crewmate in charge, the time to start the game has begun. This tournament took approximately 6 hours to come to an end with a winner as there are only one field and only one game session can be conducted at a time. The tournament ended with a winner and a price giving ceremony for the winners and a photo taking session between the participants with the crewmates.

Responding

As a first timer in paintball sport, I would say this event was a joyful experience. I realized that paintball was a fun group sport to participate and I am very looking forward to play paintball again in the future. I was very thrilled and nervous at the same time when we arrived at the paintball venue as I am the only one in my group that have not experienced this sport yet and I am not familiar with rules and concept of this game. However, I was really convinced by the KELANASISWA crewmates in handling this tournament and making sure that every aspect of the game was diligently organized. On top of that, I really appreciated the briefing given by the crewmate in charged because it was very informative, and he did explain the rules and regulations as if all the participants were new to the game so that the newbies will not be felt left out. Furthermore, the effort pun on by the crewmate in designing the field of action is very creative in my thoughts as the venue was a little bit limited of space. I could not enjoy more being in the suit and handling the paintball gun for the first time and rehearsed it with my teammates before the game started. Unfortunately, the first game did not go the way we wanted as it happened very quickly for me personally and we did not have much time to readjust ourselves in the game. I believe that we were lack in strategies and communications. After the first game we decided to come up with some strategies and we communicate better as a team for me and we were more confident going in the second game. However, it turns out we still did not win the second game, but It was on very tight margin and we obviously did better compared to our first game. However, we ended losing the game overall as we did not manage to accomplish any win in any of the game we were involved. I am little bit disappointed to be honest, but this was also a very good lesson for me of how a good communication in a team was as I witnessed the winning team having a very good communication skill in them. The most important aspect in this game was a good communication between team members and the creativity in creating strategies to defeat your opponent. Even though we lost but this was a very good experience for me overall.

Level 2: Relating

After the tournament ended, I was a little bit disappointed with our performance as we did not manage to win at least one of the games we played. However, I did not stress it so much as this is our first time as a group and we did not have any proper game time as a team before attending this tournament, but I did find that we struggled in communication areas and we really did not quite have a team leader. This was a scenario that I had faced numerous times as a student where in group tasks that supposed to train us in communicating to each other turns out there will always be one or two members that did not voice up at all. I personally feel that I am an average team member as I am not so vocal in any of my team. This is like my performance in this tournament where I am not so vocal with my teammates and sometimes let them do most of the talking. It became tougher if there were cases that none of my team members are vocal and no one were showing the attributes of a leader because I will always wait for someone to start the conversation first.

Level 3: Reasoning

I now realized that communication skill is an important attribute that an individual should master of. Without this skill I will not perform efficiently in group tasks and can never stand up for my team. Furthermore, this attribute is very much needed in the industries nowadays as they are not only interested in individual attributes or achievements but also are looking for a strong team player that can lead a group of people. It is natural that a person with good communication skills will most likely be a good team leader as they will be able to communicate with each member of the group and understand everybody strength and weakness and will be able to divide task according to each one’s expertise. In the effort of improving my communication skill, I will have to consult or monitor the action of a regular team leader on certain aspects such as how do they make decisions, how do they blend in with other members, how to communicate efficiently, how to grow confident in others and most importantly is how to they achieve the goal what the group has been working for. This method will give me the idea on how to be more effective in communicating with my team members and as a bonus point, I might be in place as a leader for the team as well.

Level 4: Reconstructing

I have learnt that communication skill is an important attribute that I must improve over time. This programme had opened my eyes and made me observed of the level I am at communicating with my team members. I believe that this programme is a turning point for me to overcome my communication limitation and grow more confident in me to be more vocal in any upcoming group tasks.  I realized that I joined this programme and it made me realized that I need and upgrade in my communication skills. As a next step, I will try to be more involved in my group tasks and will try to be more approachable with my team members. I will try my best to communicate with each of the member and understand everyone’s situation and problems in accomplishing our task. As an option in accomplishing this, I would tend to be the group leader and can emphasize and develop my communication skills over time. I strongly believe by doing this, I will gain more confident and communicating will become more natural to me in future. To add to that, I also believe that by doing this can inspires my team members to improve their communication skills and develop it over time. To conclude, besides than accomplishing the group tasks, I will also learn on how to reflect myself and my soft skills thorough extra-curricular activities outside of classroom.

Picture of me and my team at the paintball tournament