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Post by linda on Oct 26, 2019 13:46:08 GMT -5
But still, I also get the point that it's not a good idea to do sports with bad vision. Hi!
Wellll... I disagree, and am bewildered that no one else does. :-) I know blind Judoka, blind wrestlers, blind downhill-ski-racers, blind shooters, blind horse-riding-teachers, blind tandem-drivers, blind sailors, know of blind marathon-runners, bmx-drivers, soccer-players - not to talk about the goalball-players and showdown-players... there may be some sports that have to be adapted, and maybe some are not safe or not to accomplish at all, but sports are generally a good idea for everybody (says someone who sometimes likes watching sports, but not much more...cough...).
As the subject has only recently been broached: Sports have proven to be a very good help in coping with blindisms (my university had a small exploratory focus there and I did my thesis on one aspect of "individual peculiar movement patterns").
It might be helpful to be aware of ones limits of perception - and maybe it might help if the other sportsmen were aware - though.
As for sports for blind people, I remember one interview that I heard on the radio with a blind athlete who won the ski racing Paralympics if I recall it correctly. She told the story how she had grown up on a farm with her brother who was blind too. The best thing was that their parents never kept them from trying anything, she said. They climbed trees, rode bikes and did all the activities the other children were doing. I have no idea how it is possible to ride a bike without seeing though. Only thinking of that scares the shit out of me. But that was a great interview and I thought a good advice in general for parents, not only of disabled children but for those even the more, to encourage their children and leave them space to try out as much as possible.
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blindLeap
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Post by blindLeap on Oct 26, 2019 13:52:33 GMT -5
My opinion is to try until you are unable to. That is how you find your own limits, rather than the ones society thinks you should have. Human ingenuity , although often hard to find, can have its moments and I know people who do a lot of the sports linda just listed :-) Usually when I get a question if blind people can XYZ, and I don't know, I respond by saying that I don't know but that probably somewhere someone found a way somehow.
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erikajulia
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Post by erikajulia on Oct 26, 2019 14:13:39 GMT -5
Thank you so much for testing! Yea, so they just had to promote the cliche. Well, the table is a four chair table and big enough, the cane has it's own place, so to say. ;-)
Makes me wonder... how could they have communicated his blindness in the same environment without the cane and the dark glasses? Doing it that way was easy, how would it have been still clear but subtle and clever all the same? I'm not a creative person, so I'm at a loss.
Not a blindness-related question, but one I have when looking at the glasses of wine: That wine has a beautiful dark color - one I connect with: "Just smell it, EJ, don't drink it, it's dry enough to shrivel your tongue. Enjoy the bouquet with your nose - and order grape juice!"
Do you like wine? Would you be interested in a wine-tasting-tour? (Is it something people under 50 do?)
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Post by blindLeap on Oct 26, 2019 14:24:44 GMT -5
I ...honestly don't know :-) I am not much of a wine connaisseur , but that's just because I've never had a reason to explore such a hobby. I am always up for new experiences, though :-)
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Post by erikajulia on Oct 26, 2019 14:31:49 GMT -5
I have no idea how it is possible to ride a bike without seeing though. Daniel Kish is the man who immediately comes to my mind. ;-) And the little brother of a classmate, who learned from a trainer who was trained by Mr. Kish. That kid was absolutely reckless, always running, never walking from age 3 on and biking at age four or five. I think he invented what later became "parcours". :-D ... And then they made him go to school, and five years later he was a well-behaved, ordinary blind child who hardly did echolocation anymore (his elementary school teachers thought it to be "not very socially acceptable" and discouraged him to do it - and that was a school for the blind... argh!) but had a bunch of movement stereotypes. I could have hit them, but I was only a student then. His mother was so unhappy!
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Post by blindLeap on Oct 26, 2019 14:45:12 GMT -5
I have no idea how it is possible to ride a bike without seeing though. Daniel Kish is the man who immediately comes to my mind. ;-) And the little brother of a classmate, who learned from a trainer who was trained by Mr. Kish. That kid was absolutely reckless, always running, never walking from age 3 on and biking at age four or five. I think he invented what later became "parcours". :-D ... And then they made him go to school, and five years later he was a well-behaved, ordinary blind child who hardly did echolocation anymore (his elementary school teachers thought it to be "not very socially acceptable" and discouraged him to do it - and that was a school for the blind... argh!) but had a bunch of movement stereotypes. I could have hit them, but I was only a student then. His mother was so unhappy! Sigh ...this doesn't even surprise me. Ablist pieces of garbage had their mits on me for a while as well, even now I detect their influence in my behavior from time to time and I have to take a moment and reassert myself. They really have no idea what kind of damage they do at times.
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Post by blindLeap on Oct 26, 2019 14:46:22 GMT -5
I actually know Daniel Kish in the sense that I've met the guy and he taught us all some echolocation, a lot of which I still use today. Not to his level, obviously, but it does help at times :-)
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Post by linda on Oct 26, 2019 15:02:48 GMT -5
Thanks for the explanation erikajulia. I read the word echolocation somewhere here before - so is it really making sounds and then echolocate? Too bad when even the teachers don’t understand the importance of supporting disabled children. When I was living in Japan, school and kindergarden visits were part of my job as a coordinator of international relations. One day I was folding paper boats with the children of which one was mentally challenged. The girl wasn’t as fast as the other kids but very clearly had fun doing it by herself. The kindergarden teacher however was very impatient. She always tried to take away the paper in order to make it quickly for the girl. I had a hard time to stop her and explain that the point is to have her done it by herself. The teacher also told me over and over again that the girl wouldn’t be able to do it by herself, just as if the girl - who could clearly understand - wasn’t there. It was a heartbreaking situation. I wonder if it’s also a bit of a cultural thing. A society in which everyone is supposed to be the same and the concept of individuality itself traditionally doesn’t even exist, makes it even more difficult to accept individuals who are different.
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Post by erikajulia on Oct 26, 2019 15:11:54 GMT -5
Sigh ...this doesn't even surprise me. Ablist pieces of garbage had their mits on me for a while as well, even now I detect their influence in my behavior from time to time and I have to take a moment and reassert myself. They really have no idea what kind of damage they do at times. The problem is, that the school he was in was and is not a bad school, and the teachers quite competent otherwise, and even then they were... well-meaning. But still: I agree. You're right with the words you use.
I'm always fascinated how varying educational concepts can be. While my professors at university encouraged even parents with youngest children and parents with children with multiple disabilities to: "go to the US for a summer camp with Mr. Kish if you can!", only a few Kilometers away there were schools with teachers who happily told children to: "sit quietly, don't fidget and stop that strange noise!" - yea, well, how to explore a new room, if not with ears, hands, body and nose?
Then again, I think of my (luckily only) experience with a class of blind and visually impaired 3rd graders with utmost horror. We had to do a field trip with them, it was a big city with lots of traffic, and weeks before the event I started dreaming about blind children lying dead under trams or trucks. And when the day came, all my pedagogic knowledge went out of the window, the only thought was to bring these very lively children (some had ADHD) back alive. Well, we did. I am not proud of the way we did it, (I scared them to death with threads of "Math for the rest of their lives!" before we even left the classroom, and they were therefore extremely well-behaved all the time...) but we did it. They even learned what they were meant to learn, and they did well, it were great kids. And had I not known before that I did not want to become an elementary school teacher (I was preparing for teaching high school), I would have known then.
How is Mr. Kish as a teacher? And how old were you when you met him?
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Post by blindLeap on Oct 26, 2019 15:15:10 GMT -5
How is Mr. Kish as a teacher? And how old were you when you met him? He was very passionate about his craft. I must have been ....15? maybe 16? He took us to a forested area near one of the blind schools here, and we explored that area and "looked" at an old stone ruin that we clicked around to figure out how wide, thick and high it was, it was a lot of fun and very educational
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Post by erikajulia on Oct 26, 2019 15:20:51 GMT -5
How is Mr. Kish as a teacher? And how old were you when you met him? He was very passionate about his craft. I must have been ....15? maybe 16? He took us to a forested area near one of the blind schools here, and we explored that area and "looked" at an old stone ruin that we clicked around to figure out how wide, thick and high it was, it was a lot of fun and very educational Passionate about his craft... thank you.
Did you climb the ruin? (Old buildings want to be explored, I am absolutely certain about that!) :-)
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Post by blindLeap on Oct 26, 2019 15:22:23 GMT -5
I would have But the building was more of a single wall with a piece of stone roof attached, it was too small to really explore but did lend itself well to being walked around :-)
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Post by erikajulia on Oct 26, 2019 16:06:01 GMT -5
One more question to accessibility... is this board easily accessible? Do you for example find the information, that x persons liked your post in a certain thread, easily?
By the way: I read your piece of literature. More? Please? ;-)
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Post by newjess on Oct 26, 2019 16:09:57 GMT -5
On the mountain biking while blind topic: I met a guy who uses echolocation to mountain bike. He was a really cool dude. I was bartending and he had the whole bar cracking up and listening to him speak on various things. It was an awesome experience meeting him. Found this video that gives more insight into how he mountain bikes Btw, there's a version with audio descriptions here
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Post by blindLeap on Oct 26, 2019 16:12:16 GMT -5
This is ...ok. I need to arrow through the links and there'll be a number next to profile indicating notifications. If I see that number, I click on it and then there's a neat little table with who did what unspeakable thing to me or one of my posts The shoutbox actually automatically reads with a screen reader, which is rare :-) There are some glitches though. When I click like , nothing changes for me so I have no idea if the likes actually come through :-) As for my literature, I am so glad you liked it :-) I am really considering both continuation paths I list in that topic, so there will definitely be more where that came from :-)
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