Tag: goalball

Into the Dark (Goalball / Night Races) – 1/17/19

USABA Blackout goggles and knee/elbow pads

“Get busy living, or get busy dying.” – The Shawshank Redemption

For a very long time, I’ve struggled in the dark and at night because of my vision. So to most of you, it may seen counterintuitive to be doing races and sports where my vision is ‘taken away’. But there is a method to my madness… at least this time.

With the vision changes that I’ve noticed in the last 12 months, I strongly believe that the next radical change will happen at some point within the next 5 years. I wish I had a crystal ball so that I could tell you when and what it would be, but I don’t. And since I don’t, I’ve got two main choices — do everything that I can with that vision during the next 5 years as well as proactively prepare for the future OR go hide in a cave.

Spoiler alert; I’ve chosen the former. To that end, one of the sports that I’m trying to get more involved in is Goalball. For those of you whom have never seen it, go to YouTube and watch a few videos. But as a very small thumbnail, it’s played by teams of 3 (center and 2 wings) with a ball that has a bell in it. Everyone has on blackout goggles and pads, and is on the ground. It’s a tremendous amount of fun, and even more so when you keep the proper form (so the Goalball doesn’t hit you in the nose). Saturday will be the second prectice of the season, and we’ll see how things continue to go.

But Goalball isn’t the only ‘dark’ sport that I will be doing in 2019. Over the last two years, I’ve done the Chicago Glo Run in the dark. If all the timing works, I plan to be doing a minimum of 3 night races. These are ones where I have to put total faith and trust in my guides since I’ll be able to see very little outside of the ‘glow zones’. Two of them will be races similar to the Color Run, so I know going in that I need to have ‘throwaway clothes’ for them.

You may be asking ‘so why the radical change to doing all of this dark stuff now?’ The simple answer is to tell my vision to go screw itself. As I said to several thoughout 2018, I refuse to be a prisoner of the dark. And this part of my 2019 schedule just further proves that.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL[ball] (2/17/18)

When I first heard about Goalball, my initial reaction was ‘absolutely not; never; that just sounds awful’. But over the last year of so, I’ve changed my view on Goalball, wanting to try it.

Since I can’t drive, GLASA’s programs in Lake Forest aren’t feasible. At a minimum, I’d spend 8 hours in transit or $100 in Ubers/cabs. So when I saw the Chicago clinic, I was excited to do it and finally have a chance to try Goalball.

As I was on the way down, I had started listening to Simon & Lesley’s book. One of the points that stuck with me from the first couple chapters was ‘you know you can get through the pain because you’ve experienced it before and it hasn’t killed you’. That point will become key/apparent later.

During the initial drills, the two Dans stressed form. I think the best way to describe it is Superman with bilateral breathing. I know, I know, that’s not an exact representation; but it’s the best I’ve got. And since you can’t see anything, have at most 3-5 seconds to react to the ball coming at you, you just have to work at form until it’s catlike muscle memory strong.

Having never done Goalball before, the form wasn’t always there or perfect. During one of the opponent’s throws, I didn’t get my arms in the right place, so the ball went right into my face – hard, hitting the nose painfully.

All those falls I mentioned during the CA camp sucked, but I think the last one (where the bike was on top of me) just confirmed the fact that a fall won’t kill me. So instead of the reaction being ‘[Explitive, explitive, explitive], walk to the side’, it was ‘Is it broken? No. Okay, give me 10-15 seconds to get blood flow back to it and let’s go.’

It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I really hope that the 2 Dans can get legs under a Chicago program. Even though it’s 90+ min of transportation each way, that’s far better than a minimum of 4 hours.