[blindkid] wrestling

[Mindy Lipsey]

The local rec leagues will accomodate a blind wrestler.  And they don't care if the kid is homeschooled either.   I would try there rather than the public school team.

--- On Wed, 2/24/10, David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com> wrote:


From: David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] wrestling
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 10:07 PM


I can't address the home schooling thing, as I know nothing about it.  I wrestled in a public high school, I was the only blind guy on the team -- in fact, the coach recruited me.  While there might be barriers, I don't think you need to limit your thoughts to a school for the blind.

As others have pointed out, wrestling is pretty physical and touch-oriented, and lots of blind persons have done it over the years.  One way to learn is that generally the coach has to demonstrate moves on somebody.  If he uses the blind guy, then the blind guy knows how to do stuff first hand.

Dave

At 11:12 AM 2/23/2010, you wrote:
> At some point I might try to get Jeremy into wrestling, but it will be difficult, because A. the closest school for the blind is a joke, and I wouldn't send my dog there, let alone my son.  I know there are better schools for the blind out there, but even if we lived near one, I don't know if they would let him compete and participate, since we will be homeschooling him.  B. Getting a coach in a public school to accomidate a blind child or a homeschooler admited to the school for extraciricular activities only, is not an easy thing, put the two together, and it could get quite difficult indeed.  I really want to get him into nice mainstreamed sports like horseback riding, gymnastics, swimming, wrestling, etc, that require little adaptation and are not spacific teams for blind children. Therefore, although, I won't refuse to let him play something like beep baseball or goalball, I will make sure that he knows what real baseball and football and
 soccer are like and I will encourage him to also play a sport on a sighted team.  I always hated playing goal ball myself, for two reasons.  1.  They never let anyone win.  No matter how many goals our team scored, they would never say that we won, that we beat the other team, and it drove me crazy.  And we are not talking about seven year olds.  We were fifteen.  In one game we made 28 goals and the other team made three.  I congradulated my team mates saying, we won.  We kicked butt, good job team, I was the unofficial team captain, and the organizers went nuts on me saying that there are no winners or losers.  I bluntly informed them, that the other team were losers, this time, and that we were winners, that we didn't think less of the other players, but that saying that we had not won would be a lie.  I really got going, saying that it was assanine to never let any team claim their well won victory, that that was a defeatest and almost
 communist view, and the rest of my team went nuts with me and we all walked off and they couldn't get together games anymore.  and 2.  Whenever people would see me playing a highly adapted or specialized sport, they would ask if I were going to be in the special olimpics.  This drives me absolutely insane, as, although there are official competition games for blind people, deaf people, those in wheelchairs, etc, the special olimpics is a seperate thing, and is for people with MR, not simply people who are blind, deaf, etc.  I would always tell ignorant people off, get in their faces if need be, set them strait nicely when possible, but, I knew that for every ten people that I explained all of this to, there were probably a hundred who saw me playing beep baseball and just walked away, making assumptions about me and my blind teammates.  Long story short?  Any team Jeremy plays on, blind or sighted must be a truly competetive team, the coach must
 not give him extra privilages or praise when he hasn't earned it, and he must give him equal play time and opertunities to the other players.  I had never really considered wrestling before, but I think it might be right up Jeremy's alley when he gets older, as he is a very physical little guy, has relatively strong bodily kenesthetic intelligence and would probably enjoy being part of a team, he is a people person.  Thanks for starting this thread, it has given me some fun new ideas.  Also, it would probably really apeal to Jeremy's father, since he is a United States Marine and he had a lot of fun with me, when we took a personal defense class together for our PE requirement in college.  Have a nice day all.


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