Today in class we discussed a topic that I felt was really
interesting regarding wheel chair rugby.
The topic itself was not what caught my attention, but some of the
topics brought up caught my attention. For example, we talked about how playing
sports with people with disabilities is just different. From a personal
experience of my own I know that people with hearing disabilities are just as
capable baseball players. When I was a junior in high school we played a near
by team that was from a school in which was designed specifically for hearing
deficient students. At first I was oblivious and felt that the team would not
be as good as any other teams we play. But, I was very mistaken; this team was
so detailed with the fundamentals of the game that they were able to compete
just as well as any other team in our league. To a person in the stands there
was no difference between the two teams. Baseball is different then most sports
in the sense that verbal communications is not nearly as important as non-verbal.
We use hand signs to indicate exactly what is going to happen. There is really
no need for verbal communication during a game. Although, at first I did not
feel that the team we were playing was going to be able to compete with us, but
in the end I was mistaken and in fact they played a great game. The moral of the story is to never really
underestimate anybody and give every person the respect they deserve for
playing and compete with the same amount of intensity no matter the opponent.
That is a realy good moral to live by. I am glad that the team was able to be a challenge for you team. People sometimes tend to not realize just because a person is deaf does not mean they are inferior. I actually took ASL and took classes with severaldeaf students who were capable of working as hard as any other student. I learned that in their culture they do not consider to be handicapped rather than they just consider themselves as simply non-hearing it's fun to interact with them.
ReplyDeleteI think it is great that you got that opportunity and experience to play with them. I am glad that you were able to appreciate their talent and see them as equals. I have never had an experience like that but I definitely feel like it would be very rewarding.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have an interesting experience like that, playing sport with disability team. Because I've heard similar saying that they're just as good as physical capable people. But unfortunately I've never had a chance like that for my junior high and high school are always playing with regular sport teams.
ReplyDeleteYour post was really interesting! You have very good insight into the topic that we discussed. I agree with the idea that people with disabilities just play sports differently. In my opinion, it's not better or worse and shouldn't be weighed in terms of negatives or positives, it's just different. There is a 3rd degree blackbelt at my Martial Arts school who is deaf. He is currently testing for his 4th degree and he knows the curriculum better than a lot of people. He truly amazes me and I am impressed how dedicated he has been in learning the curriculum because obviously he cannot hear how to do the moves. He has to watch and then mirror what the others are doing. People help him out of course and one of the guys I train with knows a fair amount of sign language, but still it's very impressive!
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