The Goal Ball Experience

     As I kneel down on the musty gym floor, I can feel masking tape beneath my hands. I am alert and focussed and waiting to pounce at any second. My ears are perked as I listen at attention. My ears follow the movements of the three components who face me. I hear my right winger throw the ball across the court. The rattle of the ball stops as it makes contact with the body of the center player a crossed from me. My heart races as I wait to hear the player’s location on the court. In an instant I know a quick movement will send the ball flying towards me. When it does I throw myself sideways on the ground and slide over to where I hear the ball approaching. Ball blocked. Success, for a second, but there’s still 24 minutes left to go.

     Whenever I play a game of goal ball I am constantly in a state of emergency. Stretching myself out straight and waiting for the hit, hoping it does not leave a burn. My present and past bruises can attest to the fights I’ve fought while playing to win goal ball. My body tells me to avoid the hard balls but my brain knows better. My mind tells me to take the blow, at ease and with grace. It tells me to do it for the team.

     Goal ball is a unique sport that not many people have heard of. Until a year and a half ago I did not have a good idea of what the sport was either. I knew it was a blind sport, but new little else. I did not realize the important significance of the sport for many athletes across the country and around the world. Played at the para-alympics, goal ball is a highly competitive sport for men and women. It represents the only team sport available for visually impaired and blind athletes to compete in. Despite the fact that goal ball is such a high contact sport, I have learned to love playing it. I enjoy the freedom of moving around the court. Feeling the tape under my feet and the net behind my back I am able to move with some confidence as I run, throw and slide. Being able to hear which one of my components has the ball allows me to communicate with my wingers to tell them what area to expect the ball to come from. Through short and verbal cues my team and I can work together to help each other from getting lost on the court, to warn each other about the movements of our components and to prevent one another from falling over each other. Through communication we can also do what many team mates do in able bodied team sports, we can pass the ball to each other, relay important information (such as how many balls we have thrown in a row or give an estimate of how many seconds we have left to get rid of the ball) in order to prevent penalties. We can encourage each other by saying `good job ‘or `we’ll get it back”.

     Goal ball has allowed me to experience a lot of firsts. My first time being on a team, my first time having a coach, my first time wearing a Jerzy, my first time having a position (center), my first tournament, first time hearing a buzzer going off to mark the start of a game, my first time scoring a goal, having a time out, losing a game, being benched and being in the locker room with competitors before and after the game. Watching a game of goal ball also represented the first game that I attended where I could actually follow the game and understand what was going on.

     For all of the girls who I play goal ball with, being on the team represents the first time any of us have ever been on a team. We don’t take for granted the opportunities that playing this sport has given us. The sense of pride and excitement that being on the team has brought for the girls is enough to warm any good persons heart with joy. We’ve been lucky to travel to Montreal and Calgary for tournaments. When we attended our first tournament in Calgary, my mouth was dry as paste before each game because I was so nervous. Nervous about being hit with balls, nervous about losing, nervous about the unexpected events that each game brings. The more I play, the more confident I get. My dry mouth doesn’t visit me as much anymore. With time, I’ve slowly begun to think of myself as a real goal ball player who is serious about the game and who wants to win. Of course having fun is important too. Fun and friends is the back bone of sport and marks the beginning of true athlete development.

     Before attending that first tournament in Calgary I had the chance to pick my own number for my Jerzy. I picked the number 4. I picked 4 in memory of my brother David who died before I was born at age 4. If David had not passed away, I know for certain I would never have been born. Later when I told my dad the reason I chose the number 4 he told me that his number when he played basketball was also number 4. Wearing a Jerzy and being on a team is something I will remember and cherish for life. When I am 80 I will hopefully be able to remember that my Jerzy was number 4 and my kids or grand kids can choose that number in memory of me. Sport makes such a difference in the lives of so many people and I will always remember the differences it has made in my life.  

     In less than two weeks I will attend the goal ball national championships in Vancouver, BC. My team and I are improving and we continue to take steps to be more competitive. At the end of the day, if my team loses you can guarantee that we will be the happiest losers at the tournament. We may not come home with gold, but we will come home with memories, stories and new experiences that will impact us for a life time.

 

     As I kneel down on the musty gym floor, I can feel masking tape beneath my hands. I am alert and focussed and waiting to pounce at any second. My ears are perked as I listen at attention. My ears follow the movements of the three components who face me. I hear my right winger throw the ball across the court. The rattle of the ball stops as it makes contact with the body of the center player a crossed from me. My heart races as I wait to hear the player’s location on the court. In an instant I know a quick movement will send the ball flying towards me. When it does I throw myself sideways on the ground and slide over to where I hear the ball approaching. Ball blocked. Success, for a second, but there’s still 24 minutes left to go.

     Whenever I play a game of goal ball I am constantly in a state of emergency. Stretching myself out straight and waiting for the hit, hoping it does not leave a burn. My present and past bruises can attest to the fights I’ve fought while playing to win goal ball. My body tells me to avoid the hard balls but my brain knows better. My mind tells me to take the blow, at ease and with grace. It tells me to do it for the team.

     Goal ball is a unique sport that not many people have heard of. Until a year and a half ago I did not have a good idea of what the sport was either. I knew it was a blind sport, but new little else. I did not realize the important significance of the sport for many athletes across the country and around the world. Played at the para-alympics, goal ball is a highly competitive sport for men and women. It represents the only team sport available for visually impaired and blind athletes to compete in. Despite the fact that goal ball is such a high contact sport, I have learned to love playing it. I enjoy the freedom of moving around the court. Feeling the tape under my feet and the net behind my back I am able to move with some confidence as I run, throw and slide. Being able to hear which one of my components has the ball allows me to communicate with my wingers to tell them what area to expect the ball to come from. Through short and verbal cues my team and I can work together to help each other from getting lost on the court, to warn each other about the movements of our components and to prevent one another from falling over each other. Through communication we can also do what many team mates do in able bodied team sports, we can pass the ball to each other, relay important information (such as how many balls we have thrown in a row or give an estimate of how many seconds we have left to get rid of the ball) in order to prevent penalties. We can encourage each other by saying `good job ‘or `we’ll get it back”.

     Goal ball has allowed me to experience a lot of firsts. My first time being on a team, my first time having a coach, my first time wearing a Jerzy, my first time having a position (center), my first tournament, first time hearing a buzzer going off to mark the start of a game, my first time scoring a goal, having a time out, losing a game, being benched and being in the locker room with competitors before and after the game. Watching a game of goal ball also represented the first game that I attended where I could actually follow the game and understand what was going on.

     For all of the girls who I play goal ball with, being on the team represents the first time any of us have ever been on a team. We don’t take for granted the opportunities that playing this sport has given us. The sense of pride and excitement that being on the team has brought for the girls is enough to warm any good persons heart with joy. We’ve been lucky to travel to Montreal and Calgary for tournaments. When we attended our first tournament in Calgary, my mouth was dry as paste before each game because I was so nervous. Nervous about being hit with balls, nervous about losing, nervous about the unexpected events that each game brings. The more I play, the more confident I get. My dry mouth doesn’t visit me as much anymore. With time, I’ve slowly begun to think of myself as a real goal ball player who is serious about the game and who wants to win. Of course having fun is important too. Fun and friends is the back bone of sport and marks the beginning of true athlete development.

     Before attending that first tournament in Calgary I had the chance to pick my own number for my Jerzy. I picked the number 4. I picked 4 in memory of my brother David who died before I was born at age 4. If David had not passed away, I know for certain I would never have been born. Later when I told my dad the reason I chose the number 4 he told me that his number when he played basketball was also number 4. Wearing a Jerzy and being on a team is something I will remember and cherish for life. When I am 80 I will hopefully be able to remember that my Jerzy was number 4 and my kids or grand kids can choose that number in memory of me. Sport makes such a difference in the lives of so many people and I will always remember the differences it has made in my life.  

     In less than two weeks I will attend the goal ball national championships in Vancouver, BC. My team and I are improving and we continue to take steps to be more competitive. At the end of the day, if my team loses you can guarantee that we will be the happiest losers at the tournament. We may not come home with gold, but we will come home with memories, stories and new experiences that will impact us for a life time.

 

 

Making Firsts: Running Blind

With each step

I discover more

And Learn.

Since I began running almost a year ago, I have gotten the chance to participate in three races. Last May I entered the Blue Nose Marathon with the Blind Sports Nova Scotia team. We raised almost $5000 in funds to help us finance our goal ball team for tournaments, equipment and gym rentals. Now this year we will have a team again and the pressure is on to raise money! This year I will not be able to participate in the marathon because I’ll be away in California training with my new guide dog (whose name, sex and breed is to be determined). The other two races that I did were track and field events; I did a 100 meter sprint at a race in Moncton at a meet in August and then a 60 meter dash at the Nova Scotia Provincial indoor competitions in Halifax this past January. These experiences have all been my firsts. I never attended a track meet or a marathon before so I was not sure what to expect. The sounds, smells and feelings were all new to me.

 When I was in high school I joined a Run for the Cure team as part of a mandatory requirement for a science class. I recall carelessly walking the race with two friends and opting out at the 1 K mark, because we were not interested in finishing. Then, in my first or second year of university I joined a run for the cure team that my friend organized at our residence. This time I really stepped up my game by walking the five k (I am being sarcastic).

When I decided to enter our team for the Blue Nose last May, I signed up for the 10 K race. I knew that I was fully capable of walking the 10 K, and although I had run a few times in the month before the race, I had never even run 1 k by itself at a time. My decision to sign up for the 10 K was no indication of overconfidence-I had NO intentions of actually running the 10 K! When I asked my new found running guide Rich if he would be my guide for the race, he gladly accepted the challenge. Running and racing was a normal part of life for Rich. I on the other hand, had little idea of what to expect!

Rich recognized that I needed new sneakers for running-and is I ever glad he did! He kindly offered to go to the store with me to pick out my new sneakers which were a huge relief for me because it meant I didn’t have to go to the shoe store accompanied with someone who knew nothing about shoes. This would have forced me to rely on the awkward interactions of me and an apathetic sales person at the store who would probably have no real interest in helping me pick out the ideal running sneaker for me. As we were walking to the store Rich noticed that I was wearing shoes that were very light and close to the ground. He pointed out that I seemed to be a lot more comfortable walking in these light; low to the ground shoes that I wore to work; than I did with the sneakers he had previously seen me in at practice. This was something I had never given much thought to before. I knew that because of my visual impairment I was often reluctant to where heals-because walking in heels while blind was a disaster waiting to happen for me. However, I had never really noticed how shoes without heals affected my comfort level. Since Rich pointed that fact out I’ve become more conscious of the difference that my old sneakers verses my new sneakers have on my ability to walk and move more effortlessly and comfortably. I absolutely love my new sneakers and could not live without them anymore. The main reasons that I love them so much is that they (A), are lighter making it easier to move faster, (B), they are closer to the ground making it easier for me to feel changes in my environment,  and (C), both the lightness and closeness to the ground helps to improve my form.                 

Now, with my new sneakers on foot, I was better equipped to brave the blue nose marathon madness.

The day of the Blue Nose

First of all, I did not recognize the importance of getting to the race site really early. The morning of the race I had planned on taking the bus, but when I missed the bus going downtown, I thought I would see if my roommates mom would be driving her to the race-she was not. Feeling a bit of pressure, I then called and waited for a cab. After the cab finally arrived, I headed for the race site. I ran into yet another obstacle when the cab driver refused to drop me off at the spot where I had originally agreed to meet my guide. The driver was not very helpful and told me I needed to get out of the car at the intersection where he was stopped. In his brief instructions, he informed me that I should follow the crowd and I would find the person I was meeting. So, a bit disoriented and panicked I reluctantly stumbled out of the cab and began   to instinctively follow the instructions of the driver by following the voices of the crowd down the side walk. When I called my guide from my cell phone to tell him what happened, he asked me where I was. I simply replied by saying that I was close to where all the people were. He laughed at me and reminded me that their were thousands of people at the site. With the little bit of information that I had figured out about where I was located, Rich frantically looked for me and found me just minutes before the race begun. I imagine it was probably one of the hardest games of hide and seek he had ever played!

After he found me we went to put my race bib on with my number! Wearing one of these bibs was also an exciting first for me! When the race began Rich and I started to jog and make our way past some of the walkers and slower runners. As we ran further, I was totally surprised by the fact that their were actually people on the side of the roads who I could hear cheering everyone on at the race. I remember telling Rich that I didn’t realize that people actually came to watch things like this. When we hit the first water stand Rich asked me if I wanted water I said that I did-never passed up an opportunity to drink. When I finished the water he informed me that I needed to throw my cup on the ground and keep going. Throwing the cup on the ground felt so wrong-and I laughed at the fact that it was a normal procedure in the race. I could feel broken cups under my feet and could hear them blowing around in the wind so I knew that Rich’s instructions were actually legitimate.

During the race I discovered that I really do enjoy beating people. I do have a little bit of a competitive side and this side of me came out when I ran into a few people that I knew and happily passed them. At one point we ran into a visually impaired guy who I know who plays goal ball. He was jogging for the entire race, and I was doing short bursts of running and then walking for long periods of time in between. Him and I kept meeting up with each other during the race and I was determined to make sure I beet him, and guess what, I did!

When I went to my first track race a couple months after the Blue Nose, I also had no idea what to expect. I had never gone to a track and field event before. When I was in elementary school I vaguely remember going to a couple of track and field days at school where they gave out ribbons to winners. I do remember getting a ribbing for something, but for the life of me I can not remember what it was for. Hmmm…maybe I made it up in my head to make myself feel good about myself! :) I do however, remember running a sprint race at track and field day. I ran the race by myself without a guide-apparently my school did not see me as being blind. The race was a disaster waiting to happen. I suspect that I probably did not start running right away when they yelled go because I would have wanted to avoid being to close to the other kids in my class. There I ran, having little idea of where I was going. Later, my sister Tara, who was a grade higher than me, had told me that her class was cheering for me when I ran-she also bluntly announced that I was running really slow. I believe that year marked the last year that I agreed to attend track and field day at school.

In a way when I went to the track meet back in August 2011 I felt like a kid, experiencing something 12 years to late. Never the less, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to do it-it’s never too late! At this race I was fully prepared to lose miserably. This is because I thought I was going to be running against fully able bodied runners with a lot of experience. Luckily though, I was actually competing with visually impaired runners and since I was the only girl I was guaranteed to win in my category. This was good news! Now my mission was to beet the other visually impaired guys!  

      

Being completely clueless, I had no idea that track races started with a canon gun noise so when I heard it for the first time I really started to feel the excitement of being at a track meet. This race was also the first time that I realized that runners, and sprinters, start running in a certain position to help them gain momentum at the start of their race. Rich and I had never practiced the proper way to start before. Practicing before the race felt strange and again, not being able to mimic the starting movements of others made it difficult for me to learn.

Overall, I’ve learned a lot from the three races I have participated in so far. Participating in them has given me more of a motivation and desire to race more in the future. Thanks to everyone who has made these firsts come alive for me.

           

Becoming a Yogi

Becoming a Yogi: Learning how to be a Part of the Yoga scene

With each move

And each Breath

The body gets stronger

And so does the mind.

     Becoming a part of the yoga seen has not been an easy thing for me to do, but BOY am I glad I did it! For me joining a yoga class was the second group activity that I had ever gone in that involved physical activity in my life. Yoga was an activity that I had heard about for years and I thought it would be something I would enjoy. My friend Tasha did yoga regularly at home; and one Christmas I too got a yoga dvd and mat. When I turned on the dvd for the first time I quickly realized that I could not follow along with anything that was going on in the video. My fears were true-the video was too visual for me to understand. It didn’t help that this particular video was an intermediate level! Luckily, at the time I had a very involved boyfriend who took the time to explain  and show me each move in the warm up section of the video (it wasn’t as bad for him as it sounds; he got to check out my body while helping me). I then tried to memorize the warm up in my head so that I could follow it by myself but soon enough I forgot the moves. I have not touched the dvd since. This experience lowered my confidence to join a public yoga class because I thought it would be nearly impossible for me to follow along with the class. However; I seriously began to think about taking yoga again a couple of years later after I listened to a podcast by a woman who is a blind counsellor in the United States and who has a website called eyes2eyes.com. In her podcasts she spent time talking about how much yoga had helped her. She said that she would never live her life without yoga again because of the immense benefits that she got from its practice. Thus, shortly after hearing her story I got up the courage and made the decision to find a yoga studio and to contact the yoga instructor to ask about joining a class.  Since then, I’ve been going to yoga classes for 2 and half years and have done yoga in three cities and had four different instructors

     All of my experiences with yoga have been different but all have been rewarding and great learning experiences. Starting out with my first yoga instructor was the most nerve racking for me. I didn’t have a base of experience with yoga to have enough confidence to be able to convince or show my instructor that I could function in a normal yoga class. Lisa was my first instructor and although she was very sweet; she told me that she wouldn’t feel comfortable putting me in her regular yoga class. She thought that the classes that she taught would be too fast paced for me. When she first told me this I was really disappointed. When she told me she would like to give me private lessons, my immediate thought was “I will never be able to afford private yoga”, but when I asked her how much private yoga would be she said that she would give me lessons for the same price as joining a regular class. This meant that I would be paying $10 an hour for private yoga. I thought that sounded great considering most private yoga classes were listed at $110 or more an hour! I was so thankful that Lisa would do this for me, but in a way I still wished she would have welcomed me in to her regular class. The way that Lisa saw it was that she could learn a lot from getting experience teaching yoga to someone who is not sighted. I think that she was absolutely right and I do believe that my yoga instructors all have become better teachers as a result of working with me. The way that I see it is that teaching yoga to someone who can’t see must be a lot more rewarding than teaching it to someone who can see. It’s tough to teach such a visual activity to someone who cannot see-so I have a lot of admiration for the teachers I have worked with and think that other yoga instructors should look up to them. I think that teaching me yoga has challenged my instructors to be more verbal, to use touch and physical demonstrations and assists more often. More importantly though; inclusion promotes diversity of abilities within the class which is exactly what yoga is intended to do. I’ve learned that yoga is not meant to be a competition; there is no winning and no one needs to be perfect in a yoga class. Yoga is meant to challenge each individual    themselves. It is about finding the inner strength to become stronger and work harder. It’s about recognizing your body’s aches and pains, accepting them and being at peace with your body, mind and soul.

     I have learned so much from doing yoga. Working with Lisa I learned about body awareness (and realized how bad my sense of body awareness really was). I struggled to recognize where basic parts of the body were like words like palms, collar bone, triceps, navel, sternum, etc. These terms are used often in yoga to describe how to move your body into positions. I still get them confused and find myself asking”whats that”? Lisa was the first one who had ever noticed my lack of body awareness development and was the  first one who really tried to teach me how to become more aware of my body so that I could benefit more from the movements in yoga. She often wanted me to feel her body in certain positions so that I could try and mimic them myself. I found doing this awkward because it is not something that I regularly have done, but I also know that it is my way of seeing. She taught me about the importance of having a straight spine in certain positions and taught me the proper way of putting my hands on my heart in yoga. At first Lisa introduced me to a lot of floor poses-poses that involve a lot of physical contact with the floor-because she had read that blind people feel safer when they are on the floor. This was in fact right for me-and during the time I did yoga with her I was getting over some anxiety that I had acquired after fainting suddenly while being waited on in a shopping mall. My body wasn’t feeling strong and these floor poses were a great way for me to start. Lisa learned to use some metaphorical terms to help me. For example, good posture is something that a lot of people don’t have a lot of the time but this can especially be true for individuals who can’t see well. In order to get me to stand or sit up completely straight the way that is done in yoga, Lisa would tell me to imagine that a string was connected to the ceiling and was pulling my body up straight. She also used a lot of references to opening up my heart, or lifting up my heart, depending on what the pose required. She pointed out that she thought it was difficult for me to open my heart; and she was right in every respect.  Her intuition and ability to read body language and decipher tension was amazing to me. Lisa could tell when one breathing exercise relaxed me more than another breathing exercise and would point it out to me. The personal attention that I got from private lessons was very helpful but also had its limitations. Lisa had a second job and worked at nights and I worked during the days. This meant that it was really hard for us to make appointments to meet with each other-most times we were only meeting every 1 to 3 weeks. Doing yoga that infrequently can mean that it is difficult to gain all the benefits of yoga. Doing them privately all of the time also was a bit isolating. Lisa never offered to let me take one of her regular classes-my guess is that she didn’t feel confident teaching me in a group- so a few months into doing yoga with her I took it upon myself to find another instructor in the city who was confident working with me in a group setting. I did continue to see Lisa privately when possible up until I moved and I give what I learned from her in yoga credit for helping me to believe in myself enough to continue on with my yoga practice. I have found three instructors since then-who have in fact immediately welcome me with open arms in to their classes. Not only does my involvement with yoga allow me to become a better yogi, it allows me to regain   confidence time and time again in the face of adversity. It’s allowed me to be more flexible, strong, brave and calm. It’s put more purpose to my life and I believe its pushed me to try more of my interests like running and rowing. It makes me feel good to know that I can be a part of such a great practice. Being successful in a class like yoga is powerful because it motivates me to keep going, encourages me to not give up and lets me know that I am not alone.

The Solution: The Answer is in My Yoga Class

With each step,
My body moves in ways I thought not possible,
With each move,
I am free.

     Tonight I was able to do yoga for the first time in over 3 weeks. It felt amazing! The current bus strike in Halifax has been going on for 16 days now and it has resulted in me being stuck in my apartment a lot of the time. Being stuck in my apartment also means that I am on my computer more than usual. The more I am on the computer, the more soreness I experience. My back and shoulders tighten up and my neck gets sore. My legs feel stiffer and overall I feel less mobile. This is a feeling I have not experienced in quite some time, not since I was a studaholic at university. I used to get sore like this before I discovered the beautiful art of yoga. My neck would get sore, I would go to a chiropractor and he/she would tell me my neck muscles were bad and that I would develop arthritis one day. They would also point out that the ergonomics of my computer arrangement were likely not ideal and suggested that I needed to have better posture. I would get massages whenever possible and I even tried acupuncture on my neck to try and loosen up the muscles and relieve stiffness. One thing I have noticed is that ever since I have brought yoga into my life, I have felt less pain. A nice yogalates instructor I had for a onetime 6 week class back in Fredericton had told my class that doing yoga or polotes is great for people who cannot afford massages. What she said has really stuck in my mind and now whenever I stretch or do yoga I cannot help but notice the benefits it brings to my body.

     I ought not to be spending money on a massage right now because I am unemployed and just moved into an apartment that is above and beyond my means of income. At this moment in time I really feel that yoga is potentially the answer to all my problems. I should also mention that some other reasons that I might be more sore than usual is because I have been really busy the last few weekends with races and tournaments. On January 21 I participated in my first indoor track race with my guide Michelle. The following weekend I travelled to Montreal with my goal ball team to participate in a tournament. Immediately upon returning from that I moved to the third floor of a new apartment, in a building  that has no elevator, and the very next weekend I made a last minute decision to enter in a race at an indoor rowing regatta, even though I had not trained for rowing in three months. You might say I am paying the consequences! It’s really not as bad as it sounds, and now it is even better since I was finally able to get to a yoga class tonight.

     The yoga instructor whose classes I attend is the instructor who I have had for the longest. As I mentioned in my previous post I have had four yoga instructors in total and have attended three different public classes in three cities. Much to my liking, I have managed to stay with my current instructor for over a year, even though I have moved to a couple of different neighbourhoods during my time with him. Finding a good instructor can be challenging so I really have been pleased that I have been able to stay with him. To me a good yoga instructor is

(A)   Welcoming, (B) Knowledgeable about yoga and its traditions, theories, benefits and practices, (C) promotes an inclusive atmosphere that accommodates people with varying levels of abilities and (D) a good teacher. I really believe that the yoga instructor whose class I attend now has all of these qualities. There is something to be said about working with the same instructor overtime compared to changing instructors every few weeks or months. I really think that the class I am in now is the one that I have excelled the most in.

     When I first started doing yoga I felt a lot weaker and incompetent about my ability to do yoga than I do now. I mentioned in my previous post that the first time I tried a yoga class I did it privately. My private instructor was cautious because she was not sure what I was capable of doing. She told me that she thought I was beautiful but that I had a very sad look in my eyes and that she did not think that I trusted people easily. She questioned how I might be able to have children one day and gave me a DVD which she said could possibly restore some of my vision. Although I respected her, I was unsure of what to think about her comments and ideas. Hearing her thoughts was not easy on me. In a way I guess you might say I felt defeated in her class and a bit insecure. However, in the class I’m in now I feel like I am just a regular addition to the class and being successful in his class has really helped to boost my confidence in myself and in others.

     Some of the ways my current instructor has helped me to adapt and feel welcome in his class is by making a point to say hi to me at the beginning of the class and by thanking me for coming to his class. Something else he does that I have found helpful is by telling me, as well as others in the class, that there are no mistakes in his class and that there is no need to apologize when you first do a position incorrectly. I can also tell that my instructor has put a lot of effort into explaining the positions that he wants us to move into verbally rather than visually. As a class we are able to laugh when he accidently gets his lefts and rights mixed up.

     One of my biggest worries when I joined yoga was that I was going to get completely lost and confused in a yoga class. My worst fear was that I was going to be left sitting on the mat not knowing what I was supposed to be doing, while everyone else followed along with the instructor perfectly fine. I can’t say that I always know what to do in the class, especially if a new position is being introduced, but the majority of the time I have been able to listen to the instructions and follow them. I’ve gotten better at asking for clarification when I am unsure of what to do, and my instructor has become better able to physically direct or correct my body positions in a way that I can understand. In yoga verbal explanations are essential and physical assists have proven to be one of the best ways for me to learn. This is because verbally describing what I should be doing with my body is a lot more disruptive to the class and time consuming than making a physical assist that will tell my body what to do. Simply touching the area of my body where my movements are supposed to be driven from, or applying pressure to an area that should be receiving more of a stretch are extremely effective methods for teaching yoga. Additionally, simply moving a part of my body, such as my arm, to where it should be in a given position is all I need as a prompt to tell me to change what I am doing.

     Sometimes I think my instructor can almost use me as his example when he is introducing a new move. By helping me get into the correct position, the other people in the class can watch and learn. I think this is a good method because it lets him show me what to do at the same time as he is showing everyone else in the class what to do. This seems to help insure that by instructing me, he is not taking away from the rest of the class. It helps that I am flexible because it makes it more fun for the others to watch. A couple of other great teaching techniques that   my instructor has incorporated in his class with me has been teaching me to line the back of my feet up with the edge of my yoga mat when doing certain stretches and forward folds. Doing this helps ensure that my feet are straight and perfectly parallel to one another. It also helps to make sure that I don’t accidently hit my neighbour with my hands or head! My ability to balance has suffered because of my blindness. Anyone who has tried to do a balancing activity with their eyes closed will know that it’s much harder to do than when their eyes are open. However, my instructor implemented a strategy to help me participate in some of the more difficult balancing exercises. His solution is to bring me to stand beside the door to the room. This way I can do the balancing exercise but can hold on to the door handle for support when needed. Having the security of the wall beside me has really helped to support me and prevent me from falling over. It also helps that the other people in the yoga class need physical assists from the instructor. it is nice to know that I am not the only one requiring assistance.

     I know that I am not a perfect yogi and I still have so much to learn and practice. It gives me some level of comfort to know that there are great yoga instructors out there. The more I practice with my current instructor, the more I hope I never have to get used to another yoga instructor again. The more time I spend in his class, the more comfortable I become and am better able to perfect my yoga style. Knowing that there are good instructors out there helps me to believe that yoga could perhaps become one of my sports for life. Maybe, just maybe, yoga is the solution to all my problems. :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everybody… here’s hoping that you had a fabulous Christmas and wishing you the very best in 2012. Its crazy to think that 2012 is here. Time has a way of slipping by and the inevitability of that really dawned on me this holiday in particular.

We are in our final months of All Abilities Welcome... crazy to think that, after nearly four years. Our HRSDC funding is coming to an end as of March 31. Of course, there are the inevitable questionmarks here as we look ahead. Looking at the here and now, its very obvious that access to physical activity is still so very limited for many people who have a disability. I find myself wondering on some days, has our program really made any difference? Then there are other days when we receive positive feedback on workshops, or the few instances where a person with a disability has taken up physical activity as a result of an AAW session, or even watching some of our speakers embrace physical activity themselves and evolve as confident, empowered advocates - these are the times when you begin to feel that maybe some of this is actually having a positive impact, when you realize that it really is worth it. Over our remaining months we will be developing an e-book containing stories of people with a disability for whom physical activity has made a transformative difference. In addition we are aiming to do as much outreach as we can over the winter through delivering AAW workshops across the country, as a way to generate momentum around the idea that an active lifestyle is something which really can and should be available to everyone.

A little update about running: 2011 felt very much like a transitional year for me with some highs and lows. I think the high point came early on when Greg and I captured the T11 800m at the IPC Athletics World Championships in late January, in a tactical race where we came from behind. Its fair to say Greg and I felt like underdogs going into that race, so it was incredibly exhilarating and emotionally fulfilling for us to win in the way we did. A low point was dealing with an achilles injury which kept me out of training and racing for about four months. Another low point was coming to the end of the road, so to speak with my guide, Greg, over the summer. We had a terrific partnership which lasted thirteen years, longer than most teams. With Greg living in Toronto and me in Ottawa, it had become very difficult to find guides here to train with on a week-in, week-out basis and as a result, I really wasn't able to train optimally. The new coach I started working with last year felt that it was important to have a consistent person to work with and I came to that realization too. This past summer I had an opportunity to begin training with a runner named Josh Karanja, who had returned home to Ottawa after completing a track scholarship at Eastern Michigan University. Doing so has of course brought a crucial element of consistency to my training, but it meant the end of an amazing running partnership which I feel very fortunate to have shared in.

Of course the upcoming year in particular is a big one for any athlete with Paralympic aspirations. I’m excited for all the possibilities which lie ahead, both on and off the track. And I'm hopefully optimistic that it may be possible to sustain the energy of AAW, even as a concept if not as a program. Thanks to everyone who has visited the AAW blog over the past year, and to those who have contributed so many great stories, thoughts and reflections.

Moving with My Memory: Using the Gym without being Able to See

With each step,

I move forward

Moving with my memory.

     In the last year and a half I have participated in more organized physical recreational activities than I did in the entire first 23 years of my life combined. Being involved in organized recreation was always something that was on the back burner for me. Academics, friends and gaining independence always seemed to be the main focus throughout school and university. As a child the focus was always on helping me to learn braille in a school and home where no one new braille other than my travelling itinerant teacher. Keeping up with academics and life in general was the top priority; organized physical activities weren’t generally included in my “plan” for success. 

     I did just enough physical activity through the years to keep myself at a healthy weight. Going to the gym through university I worked as hard as I needed to to make myself feel that it was worth my time-rarely breaking a sweat at all! I memorized where each piece of equipment I wanted to use was at; I put stick on raised dots on the buttons I needed to use on the machines and used as few buttons as possible to allow me to use the basic functions. Before getting on any machine I would listen to see if I could hear if anyone was using the machine that I wanted to use. My biggest fear was trying to get on an elliptical that someone else was on-how embarrassing could that be! Here other girls refused to go to the gym because they were worried about being watched by the other gym watchers at the gym or because they could not possibly be seen without a friend keeping them company. All the while I was walking around with a white cane by myself and stopping at the machines to listen if they were being used out of fear that I might accidently touch someone inappropriately or collide with them! When you live my life you have to be less       concerned about petty worries and insecurities that consume some girls and women and more focussed on how you’re going to live your life the way you want to live it. One of the ways I’ve done this is by finding the strength to accept myself and be accepted by others for who I am. It’s not that I don’t care what other people think of me-because I do-but I’ve needed to accept that some people are going to ignorantly mistaken me for being incapable or will be unsure of me because I see differently than them. Other people will become amazed at what I can do and how I live and the amazement of others has been comical at times as well as flattering and encouraging. 

     After leaving Fredericton to move to Halifax I decided that I was going to join a new gym. I was a bit nervous about joining somewhere new because I knew that it would mean having to get used to new lay outs, new people and a new location. After I learned with my orientation and mobility instructor how to get to a gym where I lived in Dartmouth, I made an appointment to get a tour and signed up for a membership. When I met with the personal trainer and the sales person for my health assessment for the first time, I became discouraged when the sales person repeatedly attempted to have me agree to a training package that would provide me with a personal trainer three times a week at $40.00 an hour. I told the salesman that I was a student and that his yearlong plan for me equaled more than my tuition! He didn’t give up with pushing this plan on me and insisted that he wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to come to the gym by myself. I told him I had gone to the gym by myself at university but he didn’t seem to hear me. I got the impression that he didn’t know how I could use the gym because I could not see. I left the gym that day frustrated and on the verge of tears. All I could think about at that moment of time was if I had someone to go to the gym with me than I would be fine. In Fredericton my former boyfriend had begun to workout with me at the gym and was a support at showing me new things when I needed him to. I missed him so much then and questioned whether or not I could do it without him. I had to remind myself that I had learned how to use a gym by myself before and that I could do it again-but one thing was for sure I would never go back to that gym where that salesman was ever again.  

           With the help of an old friend I found a new gym to join and this is the gym where I have been going for the last year. The staff has been great. They have put raised dots on the buttons on the machines that I use so that I have a tactile indication of where the buttons I need are such as start and stop, faster and slower, incline and decline. When I used the gym in the past I didn’t tend to work myself very hard and because I can’t see the speed or distance I am moving at, I never had any idea of what I was accomplishing. Not knowing this information was one of the main reasons I never set goals for myself. Since organized sport has become a part of my life in the last year and a half the ways in which I want to make use of the gym have changed. I became curious about how far I was running and how fast. When I used the rowing machines I was curious about what my stroke rate was and how many meters I was rowing. I decided that there was no way for me to learn this information on my own and that the only way I could find out is by asking someone at the gym. This meant that I started asking the staff questions. I learned how to put my treadmill on pause and would run over to ask someone to come see my distance and time. Sometimes they would not get back to my treadmill fast enough and the pause time would run out erasing all of my stats for my work out that day. This was disappointing but at least some of the time I knew what I was running and could try and work towards improving.

     Another barrier that I faced was that when I pressed the increase in speed button on the treadmill I never knew what I was setting the speed level at. I tried counting in my head as I pressed the button up and up but I soon discovered that the treadmill was never set at the speed that I wanted. For example, I would press the increase button until I thought it was at level six only to realize after my work out that it was 5.4, or 5.8 instead of 6. I decided that for now a better strategy would be to ask someone from the gym to come watch me when I was increasing the speed and to tell me when to stop when I got at six. Then, if I ran for 20 minutes without changing the speed, I would run 2 miles. So far this strategy has been working for me. Some limitations I have just learned to accept. In the women’s section of my gym there is a circuit of electronic weight machines and a button to increase and decrease the weight. When I do use these machines I test them out to feel if they are two heavy or light for me and then I increase or decrease as appropriate. Since I can’t see the weight I am using I never know what I am choosing as my ideal weight. I solely make my decision on my own feeling of what is good for me and I think my strategy is better than doing nothing at all. However, if you were to ask me how much weight I can lift, I would tell you that I have absolutely no idea! 

     In the time that I’ve joined my current gym I have maximized my ability to use the gym by requesting help from others, using my memory more and using my problem solving skills. I think I’ve also been able to teach the people where I work out that a person who can’t see can be fit, can row and run, skip with a skipping rope, bike, and do yoga and lift weights. A lot of the staff knows who I am and have learned to address me by my name so that I know they are talking to me. They have discovered that small changes in the environment of the gym can mean that I get confused because of the change and not because I am losing my mind. For example, the pop machines were moved recently and I used them as a land mark to find the yoga room and the staff immediately recognized that I could no longer immediately find the room anymore because the machines weren’t there as my land mark. I am so happy to be comfortable at a gym again and I know that with the right attitude, environment and people around me I can make use of any gym facility.     

Freedom to Move: The Beginning Part Two

With each step,

I fight to run,

Listen,

And Focus.

     As I became more interested in running, I started to do what most modern day people do; I began googling to find information about running. My searches involved “visually impaired runners”, “guide running” and “feeling sick while running”. I found a webpage that was highlighting a very unique sort of run for the visually impaired and blind. It was the Boston 5 K vision run which was an event exclusively for the visually impaired and blind population, along with their supporters. It represented everything about a run that seemed welcoming and rewarding for me. It allowed people to run or walk, and offered a blind fold challenge for people who could see. Reading about this race was exciting and I loved the idea of having others experience what it is like to run blind folded. Surely, running blind folded for 5 k would not give one the experience of what it’s like to be a blind runner, but it would however, give them a small glimpse. More importantly, it would help them to recognize that people who are blind can run (even if it’s hard).

     During my Google searches, I read     many things about the benefits of running and “why running is the best”. Some of these sites praised the sport of running for being inexpensive and convenient. This is because running is an activity that can be done right outside your home simply by leaving your door step. For me, running brings on a much different outlook; convenience is definitely not one of the words that I would use when explaining my experience of running. Being nearly blind for most of my life, I did not grow up running around like other children. I was hesitant to participate in gym; mainly for my own fear of getting hurt or running into someone. If you took one sighted child and put them in a blind fold and then put them in a gym class with their non-blind folded classmates, imagine what that could be like!     I’m telling you this not because I want you to feel sorry for me, but because I want you to understand how difficult it was for me to feel free to move.

     Since I’ve attended the running clinic back at the Canada Games Center, I’ve been reminded time and time again by runners on the streets, runners at the park, and on the track, that it is not convenient for me to run. One of the main reasons for the inconvenience of running for me is that I cannot run alone. Having to be dependent on a guide runner has been another aspect of running that has brought on a host of thoughts like, “I’m taking up someone’s time” and “I can’t run fast enough for them”. Although I think these thoughts are natural for me to have; I also realize that they get me nowhere closer to what I want. It is persistence, determination, hard work, fun and friends that will allow me to participate in sport. I need to tell myself that running with a guide doesn’t make me less of a person; it means that I need a team to run. Running is not an individual sport for me, it is a team sport. By working together we will achieve   one of the best feelings in the world-freedom to move.