What a story, the blind and the ghost
Very cool that he learn it and do it !
Maybe you should offer a lesion of knife throwing to those “Experience” freaks, unicycling was maybe not dangerous enough for them
I had to manage a PC System for a blind Person that works in the German Ministry of Health as a Secretary. He writes the whole day Letters on his PC.
He could read over his braille Board (like Leo show) or he could hear over his voice Output.
He also has a scanner where he cut scan documents and print them out in Braille. So he was able to manage this Job as any other Secretary’s there.
It was much more difficult to find settings, for an eye handicapped person who can see but not much, on an 21" TFT Display when she was used to work on a 21" CRT with 640x480 and big Icons and big Fonts and strange Colors.
If she could read braille it would be much more easier.
If he is good, he could start coasting with the dog
I saw a book while the weekend from 1978. It was printed in the USA and they show a picture of training with blind people on unicycles
So it seems to be normal since 30 years and there must be more blind unicyclist all over the world
The general story of John Lizza learning to ride involved Bill Jenack working with him using mostly the same techniques as with others. But once he could ride on his own, he needed a “leader” or other type of indication as to which direction would be a safe, clear path. So his wife walked in front of him wearing a pair of wooden shoes, and that solved the problem. This was from an interview with Lizza in the video, Unicycle.
But then I learned more. Once upon a time I worked in a photo lab that was about 1/2 mile from John Lizza’s house. A customer came in and saw one of my unicycling photos or T-shirts, and mentioned his blind neighbor who unicycled.
So how does a blind guy go out for a ride when his wife isn’t home? Fortunately his street is a court (dead-end with big round part at the end), but it ends on a very major road. This neighbor described how John would walk the street with his cane, to “spot” all the parked cars, then he’s go back and get on the unicycle to ride it around. This probably applied mostly to the round part at the end of the street. Still, the most impressive example of blind unicycle I’ve heard to date.
Other blind riders:
I’ve heard mention of others, such as the ones mentioned above
An old issue of the JUA news shows two kids riding holding hands, saying (when they used to include English subheads) “Blind children on uni!”
There was a guy in the Mobile Unicycle Club (I think) who was visually impaired enough to be legally blind, who rode in their club’s formations but occasionally lost his place.
The guy Leo mentioned
Yes, it’s funny that the AADB’s own web site is not fully compliant with W3C standards. This is perhaps due to a limited budtet (it was in my case), and possibly the specific needs of a deaf blind audience. And they sure do know about different kinds of translation/interpreting devices. The keynote speech at their conventions contains an audience filled with every type of communication and interpretive method I’ve ever seen for communicating with various levels of sight and hearing impaired, or totally blind and/or deaf people. It’s very labor-intensive!
