No Activity here for a long Time!

Would like to introduce myself

, Everyone out there! My name is Sensei, Steve Fyffe. I am a fully qualified Aikido teacher and I would like to help all those Blind Martial Artists out there and offer encouragement and If anyone is interested in contacting me please either Email me or take a look at my website Thank you in advance for your interest. I would like to thank The webserver for all of his help over the years that I have been contacting him. I hold the Rank of 4th Dan Aikido which is rare among the so-Called (Blind) Disadvantaged people. I look forward to hearing from some of you soon take care out there....Aikido Steve.advice where possable.

Intro from Regina, SK, Canada

Greetings Fellow Martial Artists,

Like Cory who posted a couple of days ago, I thought I’d better introduce myself as well. My thanks go to Stefan for setting up this Blog as well. Finally,
I can contact other blind martial artists, which is wonderful!

My name Is Carrie Green, and I am thirty-two years old. I’ve been totally blind since the age of four due to Retinoblastoma.

I am currently a Gokyu in Shotokan Karate, which is the first level purple for those who don’t know. I started martial arts training with Shotokan in late April or early May of 2003. A good friend of mine told me about the UR Karate Club, which is the University of Regina’s Karate Club “http://uregina.ca/~karate/”. We have two Senseis, Basil Schmuck (Sandan), and Sylvain Rheault (Nidan. Both these men are fantastic instructors, and have been wonderful in my karate development of technique and spirit.

I also studied Karate in Kingston Jamaica for five months at the Errol Lyn’s International Martial Arts Institute. There we practiced a form of Karate called Juifushinkai. Sensei Dean, Sensei Kay, and Sampai Dayne were also wonderful in my karate development.

I love being in martial arts, it’s really changed my life. I think blind people should really try out a number of different martial arts, in order to find out what each one has to offer. Taking two or three different styles will educate the blind person to what will work for him/her and what won’t. Also, they may feel an affinity with one type that they may not have known anything about if they hadn’t tried it. Alternative format martial arts books are limited, and frankly reading a book; doesn’t really teach a blind person anything. Of course you can learn the background, terminology, some cultural aspects and so forth, but in order to really learn about a martial art, you really must jump in and try it.

Now, I’ve heard that dividing your attention between multiple disciplines isn’t really a good idea, but I disagree. I’ve also heard it’s not possible to focus properly on improvement in the main martial art style if you are dividing your efforts over two or three disciplines. This may be true, but it’s my belief that each discipline has strengths and weaknesses, and if you are not sure of your own personal strengths and weaknesses, then why not try different styles in order to find the one that suits you? The purpose for martial arts training is self-defence, self-improvement, body awareness (for yourself and others), and emptying and focusing of your mind.

I have taken about one year of Aikido training at the Seishinkan Aikido Dojo, under Lea Sensei here in Regina, which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, I tore a ligament in my shoulder in my third class, and injured my back, which took about two months to heal. These injuries really affected my karate, and karate being my first love; I decided that Aikido wasn’t the martial art for me. However, I found the hands-on work of Aikido very affective in developing body awareness. I missed that aspect of training, because karate has a more distant approach to working with an opponent.

After reading a couple of general martial arts books, in which I read about Ninjutsu, I learned that Regina had a Bujinkan Ninjutsu Dojo. I found what I read about the Ninja very interesting and intriguing. So in May of this year, I joined the Bujinkan Ninjutsu Fudoshin Dojo http://www.webspawner.com/users/fudoshindojo/index.html. This martial art is very wide ranging. We work with grappling, wooden staffs, knives, swords and throwing techniques. It’s really very interesting. We also work on “Sensitivity Training” for which a blind person has the advantage. The lights are turned off, so the dojo is pitch black, and then we work on the other senses such as hearing, direction, and sensing other bodies around us as well as other objects. Smell can also be very affective in this situation.
Anyway, my introduction has run on a lot longer than I expected. So thank you for reading, and please feel free to contact me at any time.

Good luck with your Martial Arts training!

Carrie

The Boy Who Sees with Sound

The Boy Who Sees with Sound
Blind since age 3, Ben Underwood skateboards, shoots hoops and plays video games. How does he do it? Just like bats and dolphins
People Magazine FRIDAY JULY 14, 2006 06:00AM EST
There was the time a fifth grader thought it would be funny to punch the blind kid and run. So he snuck up on Ben Underwood and hit him in the face. That's when Ben started his clicking thing. "I chased him, clicking until I got to him, then I socked him a good one," says Ben, a skinny 14-year-old. "He didn't reckon on me going after him. But I can hear walls, parked cars, you name it. I'm a master at this game."

Ask people about Ben Underwood and you'll hear dozens of stories like this – about the amazing boy who doesn't seem to know he's blind. There's Ben zooming around on his skateboard outside his home in Sacramento; there he is playing kickball with his buddies. To see him speed down hallways and make sharp turns around corners is to observe a typical teen – except, that is, for the clicking. Completely blind since the age of 3, after retinal cancer claimed both his eyes (he now wears two prostheses), Ben has learned to perceive and locate objects by making a steady stream of sounds with his tongue, then listening for the echoes as they bounce off the surfaces around him. About as loud as the snapping of fingers, Ben's clicks tell him what's ahead: the echoes they produce can be soft (indicating metals), dense (wood) or sharp (glass). Judging by how loud or faint they are, Ben has learned to gauge distances.

The technique is called echolocation, and many species, most notably bats and dolphins, use it to get around. But a 14-year-old boy from Sacramento? While many blind people listen for echoes to some degree, Ben's ability to navigate in his sightless world is, say experts, extraordinary. "His skills are rare," says Dan Kish, a blind psychologist and leading teacher of echomobility among the blind. "Ben pushes the limits of human perception."

Kish has taught echolocation to scores of blind people as a supplement to more traditional methods, such as walking with a cane or a guide dog, but only a handful of people in the world use echolocation alone to get around, according to the American Foundation for the Blind. A big part of the reason Ben has succeeded is his mother, who made the decision long ago never to coddle her son. "I always told him, 'Your name is Benjamin Underwood, and you can do anything,' " says Aquanetta Gordon, 42, a utilities-company employee. "He can learn to fly an airplane if he wants to."
Ben plays basketball with his pals, rides horses at camp and dances with girls at school events. He excels at PlayStation games by memorizing the sounds that characters and movements make. "People ask me if I'm lonely," he says. "I'm not, because someone's always around or I've got my cell phone and I'm always talking to friends. Being blind is not that different from not being blind."

Ben was just 2 years old when doctors discovered his retinal cancer. Ben's first Braille teacher, Barbara Haase, believes the boy's ability to see during his first two years helped him develop "a sort of map of the physical world," she says. Growing up, Ben got help from his brothers Joe, now 23, and Derius, 19, and sister Tiffany, 18. (His father, Stephen, died in 2002.) "They taught him how to find the seams on his clothes so he puts them on right side out, stuff like that," says Aquanetta. "But they didn't overdo it."

Aquanetta sent Ben to mainstream schools, where professionals on staff gave him individual attention and taught him to overlook taunts from classmates who waved their hands in his face or snatched food off his tray. "The hardest thing for me to accept is rejection," says Ben, who starts ninth grade in the fall. "I can tell when someone rejects me in some way." At home his mother let him play with no restrictions. "If he fell, she would just say, 'Oh, he fell,' and he'd get up and try again," says his kindergarten teacher Ann Akiyama. "I've seen him run full speed into the edge of a big brick column and get back up. He was fearless."

Ben learned how to read Braille and walk with a cane, but when he was 3, he also began teaching himself echolocation, something he picked up by tossing objects and making clicking sounds to find them. His sense of hearing, teachers noticed, was exceptional. "One time a CD fell off his desk and I was reaching for it when he said, 'Nah, I got it,'" says Kalli Carvalho, his language arts instructor. "He went right to it. Didn't feel around. He just knew where it was because he heard where it hit." Haase took walks with Ben to help him practice locating objects. "I said, 'Okay, my car is the third car parked down the street. Tell me when we get there,' " she says. "As we pass the first vehicle, he says, 'There's the first car. Actually, a truck.' And it was a pickup. He could tell the difference."
Ben was 6 when he decided he wasn't going to use a cane – he calls it a stick – to get around. "You go to school and you're the only one with a stick, what's the first thing some kid's going to do? Break it in two," he says. "And then where are you? You're helpless." At times he was even able to come to the aid of people with normal sight. "I remember taking him to the park with my son, sister and my nieces, and it got dark," says Akiyama. "But Ben had figured out the park's layout, and he led the way out. He was in his element."

Still, Ben's zone of maximum comfort remains his family's three-bedroom stucco home – where he lives with his mom and brother Isaiah, 11 – and the quiet streets around it. Some professionals who work with Ben worry that his near-complete reliance on echolocation could hurt him when he finds himself in unfamiliar settings. Haase wishes he would use a cane to help him gauge, for instance, the depth of a hole. But Ben is sticking to his guns. "He's a rebellious traveler," says Kish, who despite teaching echolocation around the world still occasionally uses a cane. "Ben puts himself at risk."

Others believe Ben's remarkable abilities will make it easier for him to face new challenges and conquer new surroundings. "The world is not going to change for these kids; they need to adapt to it," says Ben's eye doctor James Ruben, a Kaiser Permanente ophthalmologist. "His mother understood that plenty of sighted people have miserable lives and plenty of unsighted people have happy lives."

Last month Ben widened his horizons even further. "The thing I'm most scared of is water," he says. "But if I had eyes, it's what I'd most like to see." So on June 25 he took a trip to San Diego's SeaWorld Adventure Park to swim with dolphins and hear how they use echolocation. Waist-deep in a saltwater pool, he immersed one ear as Sandy, a bottle-nosed dolphin, swam toward him. "Man," he said, "she clicks fast!" Ben spent 45 minutes playing with Sandy, touching her teeth and stroking her dorsal fin. Bob McMains, supervisor of SeaWorld's dolphin program, says that in his 23 years there, few people have listened so intently to the sounds the dolphins make. "He's got a gift with dolphins; he's truly unique," says McMains. "I told him, once he's 18 he's got a job here anytime."

McMains can get in line. Ben's world may be dark, but the most amazing surprises are just a click away. He might become a math teacher or a pro skateboarder – or, as his mother believes, just about anything. And wouldn't that make for a truly amazing Ben Underwood story? "I tell people I'm not blind," he says. "I just can't see."

• By Alex Tresniowski. Ron Arias in Sacramento


Stefan Writes:

I wanted to post this article because of the possible applications of echo-location in self defence. In my chapter on Hearing I wrote that one of the ways to use hearing to determine the position of an attacker is to listen for the ‘hole’ in the back ground noise, the equivalent of an auditory ‘shadow’ created by the human body as it absorbs sound.

This article would suggest that a person’s hearing/perception could be greatly improved upon.

I have experimented walking around with my eyes closed, while clucking and listening for the echoes. Indeed it is a simple matter to detect when your are coming close to walls and other large objects.

Draw backs?

Of course I conducted this experiment when there was no one else around. People must think me strange enough already without seeing me wandering around blindfolded clucking like a chicken!

original article here:
http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,1212568_1,00.html

Introducing Myself

Greetings! My name is Cory MacDonald, founder of the Blind Justice(tm) System of Self Defense. I'm celebrating my 30th year in martial arts this year, and have been legally blind for half of that time. I hold a 3rd Dan in Tae Kwon Do, a 2nd in Hapkido, and have studied some Kenpo and Jiu Jitsu. I developed a system that utilizes empty hand techniques as well as the standard folding mobility cane. I've tied in the physical techniques with lessons on staying safe, avoiding conflict, identification of attackers, etc. I've taught the course at the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, MA, UMass/Boston, private clients here in my hometown of Springfield, MA, and have presented seminars across the United States.

My thanks to Mr. Verstappen for setting this up. I'm quite excited at the prospect of meeting other blind martial artists and sharing ideas. This should be a great learning experience for all of us!

Regards,
Cory MacDonald

Loss of Vision Leads to Heightened Senses in Judo

Loss of Vision Leads to Heightened Senses in Judo
BY DAN VEREL
Editor

George Rendon never expected he�d become a judo enthusiast or an active member in a yoga class. He never envisioned jujitsu being a part of his daily routine, nor did he see swimming as an important exercise. Then again, he never thought he would lose his sight or temporarily lose his ability to walk.

Rendon, 31, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2002. The disease left him legally blind.

”At first, I was just wallowing in it,” he said of the troubling diagnosis.

Before MS, Rendon led a seemingly normal lifestyle working as a bartender in the Lower Haight.

With Chinese character tattoos and a pack of cigarettes, Rendon more closely resembles a Haight Street hooligan than an avid judo or jujitsu participant.

Discovering he had MS compelled him to change his outlook on what is not just a hobby, but a new “stress point.” He developed a newfound appreciation for something he once considered poppycock.

”I hated the idea of martial arts,” Rendon said. “I thought it was silly. I thought it was crap.”

”It might have been beneficial before [the diagnosis], but I was too thick-headed,” he added. “I was too busy drinking and smoking.”

Prior to being diagnosed, an array of health issues had Rendon wondering what lay in his future. The only thing he knew was that he had lost control of his legs and hands and felt numbness and twitching.

”It’s hard to stay positive when you don’t know what’s going on with your body,” he said.

After regaining the ability to walk, which he said was the most challenging aspect of MS, he decided to enroll in judo, jujitsu and yoga classes for physical stimulation to help him cope with the disease and loss of vision.

”You’ve got to stay active,” he said. “Otherwise you turn into a slug.”

Judo and jujitsu rely more on feel unlike other martial arts that are more visually oriented. Because of this, Rendon can compensate for his visual impairment with a heightened sense of feel.

Judo instructor Mitchell Palacio said Rendon’s disability is actually the exact opposite of a handicap.

”He’s got an advantage because sight can be a misnomer in judo,” Palacio said.

Rendon also said judo is unlike other sports and that trust is an important factor.

”It’s not just all macho “ he said. “You have to be able to trust the person who’s choking you, so you can choke them.”

Rendon has been able to blend in without being singled out for his disability, something he feared would happen.

At City College, roughly 174 students have a visual impairment, and about 938 suffer from other health-related disabilities, including MS.

Palacio said most students didn’t even realize Rendon was legally blind.

”He doesn’t encourage me anymore than anyone else in the class,” Rendon said of Palacio. “He’s been pretty even-handed.”

Although Rendon dealt with an extraordinary setback three years ago, he now has a casual, almost humorous outlook that was absent before judo, yoga and swimming became a part of his routine.

”It could always be worse,” he said. “I could not be able to walk “ so it’s not so bad.”
http://www.theguardsman.com/20051019/sports.html

Blind Oceanside girl gets a kick out of karate

Blind Oceanside girl gets a kick out of karate

By: ALEXANDRA DELUCA - For the North County Times

OCEANSIDE ---- Inside the Shorin Ryu Karate dojo in Oceanside, Chloe Deremiah, 5, balanced on a trampoline, kicked on command, expertly blocked punches, and deftly handled her stick-like weapons.

On the other side of the studio, Chloe's mother, Tina Woodring, sat holding her daughter's cane, beaming with pride.

"She's by far totally exceeded (my expectations)," said Woodring.

Chloe's instructor, Sensei Tina Le, agreed.

"Her focus is amazing," said Le.

Chloe, who earned her yellow belt in karate earlier this month, was born with septo-optic dysplasia, a birth defect that results in an optic nerve that is too small in diameter for light to get back to the brain.

In Chloe's case, she has been blind since birth, something that does not seem to have stopped her from enjoying life.

"She can do anything, basically," said Woodirng. "I don't want her to have any limitations."

Woodring got the idea to sign Chloe up for karate lessons when she saw a flier for karate classes at the community center on Camp Pendleton.

"I wanted her to learn to defend herself," she said.

Woodring called around to several karate dojos about enrolling Chloe in classes, but most dojos said they couldn't teach Chloe or that it would cost extra to train her.

"I think a lot of places don't want to be bothered with a child like that," said Le.

Woodring took Chloe to one of the classes at Camp Pendleton that was taught by Le and her fellow Sensei Jorge Lopez, but the other children were a distraction. Still, it was obvious Chloe was enjoying herself, so Le suggested that Woodring enroll Chloe in private, one-on-one lessons at her Oceanside dojo.

In July, Chloe began her twice weekly lessons. The first few lessons were difficult: Chloe had a hard time staying focused and talked throughout her lesson. Still, Le saw Chloe's potential.

"I could see what she was capable of doing," said Le.

Le said she was unsure at first how hands-on she should be with Chloe.

"The first time I was guiding her around," said Le. "Then her mom said, 'Just let her go.' I learned fast that she can maneuver herself."

The first challenge, said Lopez, was gaining Chloe's trust. Since Chloe took to Le right away, she began training her. Now, both Lopez and Le work with Chloe.

Woodring said she is amazed at how quickly Chloe has taken to her instructors.

"It takes a lot for my daughter to trust someone," she said. "She's taken to these two. They're willing to go above and beyond to work with her. They have a gift."

Le and Lopez work by teaching Chloe to rely and react to her senses. When she hears or feels an object, she will block it or push it away.

Le said Chloe has totally transformed in the two months she has been working with her.

"There has been a noticeable change," said Le. "She walks with more confidence. Her coordination is much better. She is able to focus. She's more mature now."

Woodring agreed.

"Her attitude has changed," she said. "Her behavior has changed. She listens better now. Now she's more confident (and) she's not afraid to try new things. Everyone's amazed."

Woodring recently retired from the Navy after eight years of service and was considering moving back East, but decided to stay in the area so Chloe can continue her lessons with Le and Lopez.

"She's taken to this place," said Woodring. "I can't move her."

Le said she and Lopez are hoping to start a class just for students with disabilities. Woodring said she would like to see that happen.

"I wish they would get more kids with disabilities," she said. "These Senseis are awesome."

Woodring said she is grateful that they have treated Chloe just like any other student.

"It gives her a half hour to be normal," she said. "Just because someone has a disability doesn't mean they can't do it."

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/09/11/news/community/11_46_559_10_05.txt

Blindness no impairment to Karate Student

Village Voice, Australia
Friday, January 14, 2005

Blindness no impairment to Karate Student

By Ben Douglas

LIKE all karate students, Colin Dowling found his promotion to brown belt difficult.

The pressure is immense, and to succeed requires years of physical preparation, dedicated training and mental fortitude.

To attain a brown belt is a fine achievement for anyone, but for Colin it is even more extraordinary, for Colin is totally blind.

"I gave it all I could," says Colin, who has been training at Seido Karate in Five Dock for the last three and a half years. "It was very hard work," he says.

Seido is a traditional form of karate that means 'the sincere way.' It is a formal style that remains close to the original Japanese Karate traditions.

Colin was the first student in Seido Karate Five Dock's program for the visually impaired, and trains three times per week with both visually impaired and mainstream groups.

"They don't change much of the training for the visually impaired," he says.

"The classes are kept as close as possible to the normal groups."

During training, Colin's instructor Miklos Farago, a black belt, shows Colin the various movements and spars with him.

Colin has his own techniques for overcoming any disadvantage.

"I keep chucking out the jab, so I can keep track of the distance between myself and my partner," he says. "And then when I know where he is, I can throw out a rip, or a hook, or try a spinning kick."

Colin says karate is a based on development and learning.

"Karate is a work in progress," he says. He plans to continue building his own skills, with the hope of one day becoming Australia's first blind black belt.

"I'm in this for good, for the long journey," he says.