[Sportsandrec] Fw: Article on Tony Johnson in South Carolina

Wed Apr 1 22:19:28 UTC 2009

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Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 7:43 AM
Subject: Article on Tony Johnson in South Carolina

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_vision_is_not_important