[Sportsandrec] Article on blind Judo Player

[tina thomas]

For judo competitor, vision is not important

Wednesday, April 1

( updated 7:21 am)

By
Tom Keller

Staff Writer

Credit:
Joseph Rodriguez
/
 News & Record

Interested in judo?

The Greensboro Judo Club meets from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. every Wednesday and
Friday at the Leonard Recreation Center,
6324 Ballinger Road in Greensboro. For more information, call 297-4889.

Judo is all about feel, Tony Johnson will tell you.

The sport, whose name means "gentle way" in Japanese, is not the martial art
you've seen in the movies, where the greased-up hero mows down a circle of
henchmen with a flurry of rock 'em, sock 'em robot punches. In judo,
competitors grab each other by the robe, called a gi, and use momentum and
imbalance
to guide their opponent into a takedown. It's full-contact chess, ballroom
dancing with body slams.

At a recent local tournament, Johnson, a Greensboro native, found himself
paired with a Marine from Camp Lejeune in his first match. Physically, it
should
have been over right there. But about 10 seconds in, Johnson sensed
vulnerability in his opponent's stance.

"Something told me his leg was up," he said. "I reached down and grabbed
him, and it was over."

The crowd rose to its feet and gave Johnson a standing ovation. He had to
take his teammates' word for it. Johnson is almost entirely blind.

There are few athletic pursuits where someone like Johnson, 34, could
compete on an even playing field.

But in judo, where vision is less important than anticipation - so much so
that participants have been known to practice blindfolded - Johnson's
tenacity
and work ethic have earned him national recognition in less than a year with
the sport.

He was invited to train at the U.S. Olympic center in Colorado Springs last
month, and he hopes to compete in the International Blind Sports Association
Pan-American Games this summer.

"I've worked with a lot of guys over the years, but I've never seen a guy
with his attitude. It's hard to believe," said Barry Siegal, a teacher for
the
Greensboro Judo Club, with which Johnson trains. "It's scary for beginners
anyway because you're flying through the air and you really don't have any
control.
Then you look at Tony, with the handicap he's got, he can never even see
you. Next thing, he's up in the air twisting and not knowing which way he's
going
to land on the mat. To me, that's pretty amazing."

Before he started vanquishing in tournaments, Johnson grew up with dreams of
being a Marine himself. The son of an Air Force officer and grandson of a
Navy
man, he'd watch shoot-'em-up movies and pictured himself on the front lines.

"Glory hound," he says with a laugh now. "I just wanted to be strong."

Those dreams hit a harsh thud at age 10. Doctors diagnosed retinitis
pigmentosa, a condition that slowly deteriorates the retina until vision
becomes, Johnson
said, "like looking through two shower glass windows."

"I can't see color. I can sometimes see movement, but I don't know what I'm
looking at. As far as ability to recognize things, I'm probably at five
percent."

By the time Johnson reached Smith High School, doctors told him there was no
way to stop the disease. "I was an angry child because of it," he said. "I
got to a point where I didn't care."

Frustrated as an outsider, Johnson transferred to the Governor Morehead
School for the Blind in Raleigh, where he befriended kids with conditions
more debilitating
than his. The experience helped him appreciate everything he had.

He had tried wrestling at Smith, but for Johnson to understand a lesson,
"you can't just say, 'put your arm behind his head and that's a
half-nelson,'"
he said. At Morehead, with coaches who knew how to teach with their hands,
Johnson discovered a knack for physical contact. By the time he graduated,
he
was the top blind wrestler in his weight class on the East Coast.

Johnson moved back to Greensboro, met his wife, Amy, at a Greensboro
Monarchs hockey game and started working for Industries of the Blind, where
he's been
a material handler for the past 12 years.

Still itching for a physical outlet, he started weightlifting four times a
week but had to quit once he overworked himself to the point of seizure.
(Johnson
also has epilepsy.) He dabbled briefly in other martial arts like karate,
but "I got tired of punching the air," he said. He picked judo out of
necessity
and walked into the Greensboro club's meeting about a year ago not knowing
if he'd be accepted.

It's a constant give-and-take, with the club's leaders repositioning Johnson
like a mannequin when introducing a new move. Johnson has learned to trust
his hands to feel an opponent's upper body movement and his ears to sense
feet shifting. At tournaments, a teammate escorts Johnson to the mat, and he
is not penalized for stepping off it during the match.

"Vision doesn't seem to be a problem to him," said Roger Rodolphe, founder
of the Greensboro Judo Club and a former national champion in Luxembourg.
"When
you see him work, he's just like anybody else in here."

He is the image of a man at peace. The anger of his youth is gone, and he
says judo makes him feel like he's doing something with his life instead of
complaining
about the things he's lost.

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or
tom.keller at news-record.com

Source:
http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/03/31/article/for_judo_competitor_vi
sion_is_not_important

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