Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

A member of an indoor rowing team or club? If so, this is the place for you.
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brotherjim
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Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 23rd, 2010, 7:53 pm

RowofLife began when Angela Madsen, a paraplegic, from Long Beach, CA USA, and Franck Festor, a single below the knee amputee, from Metz, France, decided to ROW across the Atlantic Ocean in the Woodvale Challenge-2007 Atlantic Rowing Race. On Feb. 7, 2008, after 66 days at sea, they completed that challenge. There were 22 boats in the race (4 persons, pairs, and singles) RowofLife came in 8th in the pairs class and 10th overall.



On June 25, 2009 the Indian Ocean 8 Crew of Angela Madsen, Doug Tumminello, Helen Taylor, Bernard Fisset, Paul Cannon, Brian Flick, Simon Chalk and Ian Couch, completed their ROW across the Indian Ocean in the boat Audeamus after 58 days at sea. They set the World Record for the fastest Indian Ocean Crossing by Oar, Helen and Angela were the first women to row across the Indian Ocean. Angela became the first disabled person to row across the Indian Ocean and to row across two oceans (Indian 2009 & Atlantic 2007). The Pirate Row Crew is now in the Guinness Book of World Records.

On June 1, 2010, Angela will join a crew of 4 women to row around Great Britain. You can find info on this at http://www.SeaGals.co.uk or on the Row Around GB page on this site.

In Spring 2012, Angela is working on organizing a TransPac Ocean Rowing Race from California to Hawaii. She is looking for crews to participate. She would like to get together some different military crews, both able and alternatively abled, to row. The row is open to crews from around the world. http://www.TransPacRowing.com

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brotherjim
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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 23rd, 2010, 7:58 pm

Hello, I am going to try and post inspirational and motivating feats people with disabilties have accomplished. It won't be only rowing, but life events, sports , etc.
Please post articles you have come across if you wish.
I am a stroke survivor and thriver. I have balance problems, Aphasia, and sometimes get confused, but I love rowing and sports.
jim

anitah
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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by anitah » December 23rd, 2010, 8:16 pm

Hi Jim,
I am on your team. I lost both legs in auto crash when I was child. I am active in many sports. Good that you have team for disabled. We sometimes are overlooked , not understood, and made much fun of.

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 23rd, 2010, 8:34 pm

Anita , i am happy you have joined this team. Congratulations on all your accomplishments and activities. It looks like you cross country ski too. WOW. way to go :)

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 24th, 2010, 8:23 am

AMSTELVEEN, Netherlands – Monique van der Vorst's competitive spirit thrived even after she lost the use of her legs as a teenager. She won two silver medals at the Beijing Paralympics and hoped to win gold in London in 2012.

Those dreams are gone now, because another was fulfilled: She began regaining feeling in her legs over the summer, and now she can walk again.

Van der Vorst savors every step through the snow. Every climb up the stairs. The ability to look somebody in the eye standing up.

The Dutch 26-year-old says she doesn't need Christmas this year: "Every day was special."

But her gift also means that more than a decade after reinventing her life, she has to reinvent it again. At the London Paralympic Games, she had hoped to win gold in both handcycling and wheelchair racing. Now that she can walk, she's ineligible.

Competing "was such a passion," she told The Associated Press from her apartment, filled with Paralympic medals and mementos, weight machines and her idle handbike and wheelchair. "It's difficult because I need to find a new purpose in life."

Those who knew her as a competitor understand her mixed feelings.

"It is not easy for her because she must say farewell to the Paralympics," said Andre Cats, head of the Dutch Paralympic Mission. "But in this we support her so she can make the transition."

Van der Vorst was a 13-year-old field hockey standout but kept on twisting her ankle. She says an operation to correct the problem went wrong and afterward, "my leg swelled up, went purple and cold, filled with liquid that stayed there." She said she couldn't move her leg, even after the liquid subsided.

She said doctors still aren't fully sure what caused the leg to go limp. The following year, she lost most movement in her right leg, too.

"It affected my muscles and nerves and everything in the leg. When I got it, people didn't really understand it."

"With my family we tried everything possible, but my leg was paralyzed. So at one point, there is no longer any use" to look for medical explanations. So she never got the exact medical details. She declined the AP's request to talk to her doctors from the late 1990s, citing privacy concerns.

The handcycle, a three-wheeler powered by the arms, helped her rediscover the joy of competition. Van der Vorst competed in her first handcycle race in 2000, at age 15.

"It gave me self-esteem. I learned how to think in possibilities, not limitations," she said.

She turned out to be so good, there almost were no limits. "I really missed running, but there were so many things that made up for that. I was independent. I could drive, I could fly. I had a good life," she said.

Paralympic and international sporting federations certified her paralysis and allowed her to compete in the HC C class for athletes with complete or partial lower limb function loss.

Boards of two or three people, including at least one person with a medical background, conduct such certifications, and athletes may be examined several times in the course of their careers, said Robert Balk, head of the Athletes' Council for the Paralympic Movement.

Van der Vorst can still feel the thrill of the 2008 Paralympic Games, when she missed gold in the 40-kilometer handcycling road race by just 0.13 seconds and won a second silver in the time trial.

She medaled in a neck brace. Months earlier while training on her handcycle in Florida, she was hit by a car and suffered spinal cord damage.

"I don't know how I did it, but I had focus and a goal," she said. "Willpower did it."

Van der Vorst thinks another accident in March played a role in her recovery.

On the Spanish resort island of Mallorca, a cyclist rammed into her from behind as she raced down a road on her handcycle. The impact sent her crashing to the ground. Her legs seized up with spasms.

Her first thought was about how the injury would affect her competition schedule. She resumed training but soon back pains were making her workouts agonizing. She was hospitalized, then went into a long rehab.

In June, she says, she started to feel a tingling sensation in her left foot. Her legs were still thin from years of inaction, but before long she could feel them both. At first she told only her doctor, not even her parents.

"There is no way you can realize this. To feel something in your legs, where you felt nothing before," she said.

Standing up was the next step. She used her powerful arms to hoist herself between tables and dangled her feet to the ground, gradually increasing the pressure, forcing herself to build strength and balance.

"Every time, I crashed to the ground and fortunately, I didn't feel any pain yet. I tried it hundreds of times," she said.

She progressed to walking, she says, a few steps at a time.

"Mentally, Monique went very deep," her rehabilitation coach Dr. Christof Smit told Dutch TV. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

The crash, he said, "apparently lifted this blockage and recovery started. I find it medically difficult to explain."

None of several specialists contacted by The Associated Press could comment on whether a trauma like the one Van der Vorst experienced could play a role in reversing paralysis. They said it's extremely rare, but not unheard of, for paralysis victims to regain use of their legs under any circumstances.

"About half of all people with spinal cord injuries have varying amounts of sensation after a period, but it is unusual to be able to walk again," Dr. John Ridwell, who specializes in spinal cord injuries at the University of Glasgow but has not treated Van der Vorst.

He said an athlete like Van Der Vorst would have a better chance at recovery.

"With a strong cardiovascular system and minimal muscle wasting, a determined, strong person could use whatever remains to strengthen their nervous system and possibly become functional again," he said.

Van der Vorst does her rehab at Amsterdam's Olympic Stadium, but she misses the intensity and camaraderie of competition.

In her apartment, she proudly points to pictures of the 2009 Ironman triathlon in Hawaii, where she was the top handcycle athlete.

There is no running for her yet, but already her mind is racing forward.

"It would be a dream of me to do the Ironman as an abled athlete," she said.

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by rosita » December 24th, 2010, 9:44 am

Very cool articles. I like them, keep posting them.
I play football (soccer) and find I do not miss my hand much at all. I love the rowing as it gives me full body strength that is needed to play. I also run every day.
Rosi :D

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by ronnie1 » December 24th, 2010, 5:49 pm

MERRY CHRISTMAS to our team :D Sending positive thoughts and good will to you all.
RONNIE :wink:

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 25th, 2010, 8:29 am

Merry Christmas !!!! I hope in your hearts, you receive what you need.

This next article is copied form Karen Darke's bio.

Luckily I've got an adventurous gene, as life in a wheelchair is full of unexpected adventure. I was a keen runner, climber and all round outdoor addict, and then at the age of 21, I fell off a cliff and became paralysed from the chest down. There begins the opening chapter of my book ‘If You Fall…’ and the beginning of an extraordinary new life.

Just the night before my accident, I said I would rather die than be paralysed, but little did I know what lay ahead. Instead I found fortune in my misfortune, inspiration from people in similar and more challenging situations all around me, and began pursuing alternative ways to access the outdoors. Not being able to move or feel anything below my chest level has of course been a challenge, but I’ve come to learn that nothing is impossible if we set our mind and our efforts to it.

I’ve had to challenge my own physical and mental barriers, completing many trips that others, including myself, believed impossible; from marathons and triathlons, to kayaking, sit-skiing and hand-cycling in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet.

These trips have included a crossing of the Tien Shan and Karakoram mountains of Central Asia on a hand bike (1997 and raising £12,000 for charity), handcycling the length of the Japanese archipelago (2000), sea kayaking a 1200 mile length of the Canada – Alaska coastline (2003), crossing the Indian Himalaya by handcycle (2006) and skiing the Valle Blanche on a sit ski.

The most recent and physically challenging adventure was a 600 kilometre traverse of the Greenland ice cap, a month long journey across one the world’s last great expanses of wilderness. The winds can reach 200 miles per hour and temperatures drop below 40 degrees. I seriously doubted our chances of success, particularly as paralysis means you can’t regulate your body temperature, yet with hard work, determination and a lot of support, it was a journey that became possible.

Climbing the kilometre high overhanging precipice of El Capitan, a giant granite rock face in Yosemite National Park, USA, was a huge mental challenge, overcoming my doubts about climbing and dread of heights, getting back on the ropes and working through the fear. 4000 pull ups felt easy in comparison to the mental obstacles.

jim

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 26th, 2010, 9:42 am

This is a short piece written a few years ago taken from the Disabled athletes website.
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas , filled with love, friends, family, hope,peace, and goodwill.

By Mike Savicki

For certain individuals, life isn’t about living within the accepted boundaries of society, it is about pushing the limits, moving beyond convention, exploring, discovering, and redefining. For the individuals behind an organization called No Barriers, life is a unique mix of adventure, challenge, and turning the seemingly impossible into reality.

An idea comes to life

Hugh Herr, a bilateral amputee and director of the Biomechatronics Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mark Wellman, a paraplegic mountain climber, two-time Paralympian, and avid skier, and Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind man to reach the summit of Mount Everest, came together in 1997 at the base of a 1,000 foot rock tower in Moab, Utah, to undertake a climb that many labeled impossible. Never having worked together in any capacity, the team assembled at Wellman’s urging to put into action an idea Wellman had been contemplating for some time.

Wellman reasoned that by focusing on ability rather than disability, and utilizing each team member’s strengths, an all-disabled team could safely and successfully climb a five-pitch rock face together, without any outside assistance and support.

The climb would not break any records nor would it bring them newfound fame and fortune. According to Wellman, the team simply wanted to remind us that man’s desire to push his physical, mental, and psychological limits cannot be deterred by trauma, disease, and disability. Their climb was a success and somewhere on the rock face, the idea for an organization came to life.

Opening doors to a full life

Six years after the trio succeeded on their climb in Moab, Herr and Weihenmayer joined forces with Wellman and Jim Goldsmith, a retired businessman and passionate outdoorsman, to form No Barriers. The organization aspires to use innovative ideas, approaches, and assistive technologies in combination with the human spirit, to create opportunities for all people to live active and full lives. At the core of its efforts is the belief that No Barriers is a state of mind. It is the attitude of reaching out and finding ways to accomplish one’s dreams - no matter what it takes.

According to Weihenmayer, No Barriers brings together people with different disabilities who possess their own unique goals and dreams, and who share a common desire to develop imaginative solutions. “No Barriers isn’t entirely about the outdoors,” says Weihenmayer. “No Barriers means different things to different people. Since the outdoors is a powerful environment for self discovery and realizing potential, we use the natural world as a springboard for shattering barriers of any kind.”

Along with founders Goldsmith and Wellman, Herr, Weihenmayer, and Malcolm Daly – president of an outdoor gear company who became an amputee after an accident on Alaska’s Mt. Hunter – serve as directors of No Barriers. Through their actions, it becomes clear that when technology is combined with a passionate and unyielding human spirit, what some might label as impossible is not only possible, but readily achievable.

“We hope to export one simple idea throughout the world,” said Goldsmith. “In life, there are no barriers.”

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by anitah » December 26th, 2010, 1:32 pm

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I am enjoying the posts.
We are leaving on ski vacation of 4 days, be back 31/12/10. Feel fit and strong to travel from cabin to cabin. Will row when I return.
Anita

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 26th, 2010, 1:43 pm

Have fun Anita. Stay warm if you can. I hope you have a wonderful mini vacation :D
jim

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by ronnie1 » December 26th, 2010, 2:42 pm

anitah wrote:Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I am enjoying the posts.
We are leaving on ski vacation of 4 days, be back 31/12/10. Feel fit and strong to travel from cabin to cabin. Will row when I return.
Anita
Have fun! Brrrrrrr, sounds very cold :D
Ronnie

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by brotherjim » December 26th, 2010, 8:29 pm

I will try and post stats on a daily or maybe every other day basis for us.
Here is what I have for this evening 12/26 as of 6:25 my time.

Allie----------------------200
Ronnie-------------------9200
Sarah--------------------7100
Samuel------------------11000
Rivka---------------------7700
Elton---------------------3000
Anita---------------------8790 hopefully having fun in the crisp air of Europe
Rosi----------------------7955
Jim-----------------------29715

We rowed 84660 meters. Very nice rowing ! Especially with a holiday in there.
jim

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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by rosita » December 27th, 2010, 10:23 am

Jim, If you would like, we could take turns doing stats. I know you said your head has trouble.
I am going to try a half marathon this week. Wish luck to me
Rosita

ronnie1
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Re: Overcoming Disabilties Team Room

Post by ronnie1 » December 27th, 2010, 11:09 am

rosita wrote:Jim, If you would like, we could take turns doing stats. I know you said your head has trouble.
I am going to try a half marathon this week. Wish luck to me
Rosita


Me too Jim, I can help.
RONNIE

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