[Sportsandrec] FW: [nfbsc] A twist on tennis allowstheblindtoplay

Sun Jul 8 19:49:57 UTC 2012

Oh, come on. Let's not be a joy kill! Just Teasing! Doesn't sound like 
tennis? What does it sound like?
Tennis is a game that I have always wanted to play.  I am definitely   going 
to try this.  Although I do agree that perhaps players should wear eye 
shades just like in Goalball.
On the other hand, I say that beep baseball is pretty much nothing like 
baseball but there are folks that still like it so it makes that a cool 
sport to me.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
To: "Sports and Recreation for the Blind Discussion List" 
<sportsandrec at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: [Sportsandrec] FW: [nfbsc] A twist on tennis 
allowstheblindtoplay


> well, let us know how it goes. good game, but does not sound like tennis 
> with the modifications it makes.
>
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: TNABA
> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 2:15 AM
> To: Sports and Recreation for the Blind Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [Sportsandrec] FW: [nfbsc] A twist on tennis allows 
> theblindtoplay
>
> The Tennessee Association of Blind Athletes is working on bring this 
> program
> to Tennessee. I think it is great.
>
> Ricky Jones
>
> Tennessee Association of Blind Athletes
> 1081 Zophi Street, Nashville TN 37216
> Email:      tnaba at bellsouth.net
> Phone:     615-390-4178
> Web:        www.tnaba.org
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
> To: "Sports and Recreation for the Blind Discussion List"
> <sportsandrec at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2012 10:40 PM
> Subject: Re: [Sportsandrec] FW: [nfbsc] A twist on tennis allows the
> blindtoplay
>
>
>> with so many changes, it really doesn't sound like tennis
>>
>> -----Original Message----- 
>> From: Eric Calhoun
>> Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2012 8:41 PM
>> To: sportsandrec at nfbnet.org
>> Subject: [Sportsandrec] FW: [nfbsc] A twist on tennis allows the blind 
>> toplay
>>
>>
>>
>> Original Message:
>> From: Vicki Phillips <xpirate412 at gmail.com>
>> To: <nfbsc at yahoogroups.com>
>> Subject: [nfbsc] A twist on tennis allows the blind to play
>> Date:
>> Sat, 7 Jul 2012 20:06:37 -0400
>>
>> A twist on tennis allows the blind to play
>> By Laura Shin | June 11, 2012, 4:14 AM PDT
>>
>> Tennis for the blind seems like a fantastical notion. After all, when
>> Sighted people have a hard enough time making contact with a little ball
>> that's whizzing through the air, how could a blind person be expected to
>> do
>> so without the benefit of sight?
>> But a new kind of tennis ball filled with ball bearings that rattle every
>> time it hits the ground or a racket is making it possible for the blind 
>> to
>> play.
>> The origins of blind tennis
>> Blind tennis originated in Japan in 1984 with a blind high school student
>> named Miyoshi Takei.
>> According to The New York Times, His widow, Etsuko, who is also blind,
>> said
>> he saw the court in his mind and he knew where he was standing, where the
>> ball was flying and bouncing. By listening, she said, he could control 
>> the
>> ball very well. (Takei died last year at 42 when he fell in front of a
>> train.) Japan now has about 300 players who compete in tournaments, and
>> the
>> sport is also played in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Britain and Russia.
>> American high school student Sejal Vallabh, who is sighted, learned of 
>> the
>> game while on an internship in Japan. The 17-year-old native of Newton,
>> Mass., founded a volunteer organization called Tennis Serves that is
>> starting to introduce blind tennis to the U.S., where about 1.8 million
>> Americans over 15 have severe difficulty seeing, according to the Census
>> Bureau.
>> Tennis Serves has brought the game to the Perkins School for the Blind in
>> Watertown, Mass., Lighthouse International in New York and the California
>> School for the Blind in Fremont. Vallabh hopes to someday hold a national
>> tournament and to have blind tennisrecognized as an official sport at the
>> Paralympics. She is also working with an engineering class at  Harvey 
>> Mudd
>> College to design a ball that emits a continuous sound, so players can
>> hear
>> the ball as it travels through the air, even before it bounces.
>> How blind tennis differs from sighted tennis
>> The ball is larger than a regular tennis ball and made of foam that
>> encases
>> a plastic shell holding the ball bearings. (You can hear the sound it
>> makes
>> in the video below.)
>> The game is also played on a smaller court with a badminton net lowered
>> to
>> the ground, with junior rackets with oversize heads and string taped
>> along
>> the lines. Players with some sight get two bounces, the completely blind
>> get
>> three, the Times says.
>> How the mind adapts to play blind tennis
>> One of the key adaptations of blind people is their ability to localize
>> sound.
>> In the blind, the human brain seems to use the area usually devoted to
>> vision, the occipital cortex, to instead process sound and touch in order
>> to
>> help them see what is around them.
>> For instance, studies show that when blind subjects read Braille, their
>> visual cortex activates, and that, in sighted people who are blindfolded,
>> the visual cortex begins to process sound and touch within five days.
>> So, when it comes to blind tennis, the players ability to localize sound
>> is
>> key to their ability to find and make contact with the ball. The Times
>> quotes William R. Wiener, an expert on orientation and mobility for the
>> blind, who is dean of graduate studies at the University of North
>> Carolina,
>> Greensboro, on the importance of sound localization to the blind:
>> Listening
>> To the ball, locating where it is and swinging at it probably helps you
>> with
>> the sport and also with your mobility.
>> Still, it takes a few years for totally blind players to be able to play
>> a
>> match of blind tennis, according to Ayako Matsui, former secretary
>> general
>> of the Japan Blind Tennis Federation.
>> But sound localization isnt the only sound processing skill that enables
>> blind players to see. Some of the blind use echolocation to navigate the
>> world  in other words, they use palatal clicks or hand claps to see
>> objects
>> around them the way bats use sonar. For  instance, Daniel Kish, who lost
>> his
>> sight as a baby, uses echolocation to hike along cliff edges and ride  a
>> mountain bike.
>>
>> LINK: Watch the video below to see a blind tennis tournament.
>> http://www.youtube.com/v/6ZELzVCvaHI?version=3&hl=en_US
>>
>> SOURCE
>> http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/a-twist-on-tennis-allows-the-b
>>
>> lind-to-play/12904
>> -- 
>> Please note: All articles posted to this list are copyright of their
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