Post by schlager7 on May 31, 2009 15:04:30 GMT -6
WALL: These athletes aren't fenced in
By Tom Hoffarth, Columnist
Los Angeles Daily News
Original site: www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_12487701
Updated: 05/30/2009 09:57:49 PM PDT
ANAHEIM - It was the horrible result of a robbery gone bad in 1981 - Gerard Moreno, hit by the gunshot of someone invading his house, was unable to move from the waist down.
A T-8 paraplegic, if you need the technical term.
"I was so devastated ... depressed, suicidal," the 52-year-old West L.A. resident recalled Saturday of an event nearly half his life ago.
Fenced in, you could say. Until fencing made him free again.
At the Abilities Expo inside the Anaheim Convention Center - a weekend gathering that will likely attract thousands of people challenged by spinal injuries or mobility issues just looking for new ways to live better - Moreno and friend Mario Rodriguez of Ventura had just put on an hour-long demonstration in the sport of wheelchair fencing.
They sat across from each other at an angle in specially designed wheelchairs, stabilized and locked into metal platforms. At arm's length, they whipped their cold steel fencing swords at each other, trying to trip the portable electronic scoreboard in their favor.
The beauty and strategy of this sport - it takes the mental approach of a chess master with the jousting ability of a skilled dragon slayer - isn't lost just because these two couldn't use some fancy footwork in prancing forward or quickly backpedaling.
Their left arms, bracing themselves against a metal armrest for leverage, are nearly as strong, if not more, than their right arms doing the marksman work.
They pivot with their torsos, sometimes moving the chair's wheels off the ground.
It's not as if the dozens who'd gathered to watch were whipped into a frenzy, asking to put on what looks like a beekeeper's mask and start flailing away. They could more easily participate in subsequent demonstrations of power soccer (like bumper cars with something the size of a beach ball), tennis (with oversized balls hitting the rackets), basketball, rugby or lacrosse. Not as if those last few are for the less-than-timid.
But most - especially those facing their own struggles in search of a sport that best fit their situation and personality - stared in quiet concentration, trying to pick up on the subtle style differences in the epee, foil and sabre disciplines that were skillfully played out in front of them.
Moreno and Rodriguez definitely had game.
An 11-time national champion in his category B class, Moreno won a bronze earlier this month at the World Cup in Montreal. He was also in the individual foil and sabre at the Paralympic Games in Beijing last summer. That was the third Paralympic appearance for Moreno, a skilled epee fencer at Cal State L.A. prior to his injury.
Rodriguez, an amputee who lost his right leg as the result of cancer that doctors expected would claim his life 25 years ago, also fenced at the University of Texas for three years. He has won three World Cup bronze medals in his class since.
Neither got into the wheelchair version until the mid-1990s - or even knew it existed before that. But without it, Moreno, who also succeeded in disabled basketball and skiing, isn't sure he wants to know what other course his life could have taken.
"Because of sports, I think I was able to integrate back into society," said Moreno, who, among other things, has become the chief financial officer of a global outdoor billboard company and a legal administrator at a Century City-based firm that specializes in life-altering injuries.
"Everything I did in sports (after the accident) was a building block for me, encouraging me to try more things. Be more willing, rebuilding confidence. At least I'd try something new."
It's tough enough finding anyone in these parts interested in fencing; it's much more popular on the East Coast as well as in Europe, Russia and Asia. Even more difficult is luring in someone with a major disability, knowing they'll have to finance the equipment, lessons and travel to competitions.
"There are only a couple dozen of us (wheelchair fencers) across the country," said Moreno, who trains twice a week at the Los Angeles International Fencing Center near the 405 and 10 freeways. "I'd love to help recruit more for our national team.
"This is a sport that, if you're in good shape, you can be older and still do it well. It's a lot like martial arts, a physical game with a very mental element, trying to get your opponent to do things he doesn't want to do, giving him misinformation, testing his instinctual reactions."
In other words, it's about adapting on the fly, adjusting and moving forward. In life, without a road map, or with a chair, yielding a sword.
By Tom Hoffarth, Columnist
Los Angeles Daily News
Original site: www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_12487701
Updated: 05/30/2009 09:57:49 PM PDT
ANAHEIM - It was the horrible result of a robbery gone bad in 1981 - Gerard Moreno, hit by the gunshot of someone invading his house, was unable to move from the waist down.
A T-8 paraplegic, if you need the technical term.
"I was so devastated ... depressed, suicidal," the 52-year-old West L.A. resident recalled Saturday of an event nearly half his life ago.
Fenced in, you could say. Until fencing made him free again.
At the Abilities Expo inside the Anaheim Convention Center - a weekend gathering that will likely attract thousands of people challenged by spinal injuries or mobility issues just looking for new ways to live better - Moreno and friend Mario Rodriguez of Ventura had just put on an hour-long demonstration in the sport of wheelchair fencing.
They sat across from each other at an angle in specially designed wheelchairs, stabilized and locked into metal platforms. At arm's length, they whipped their cold steel fencing swords at each other, trying to trip the portable electronic scoreboard in their favor.
The beauty and strategy of this sport - it takes the mental approach of a chess master with the jousting ability of a skilled dragon slayer - isn't lost just because these two couldn't use some fancy footwork in prancing forward or quickly backpedaling.
Their left arms, bracing themselves against a metal armrest for leverage, are nearly as strong, if not more, than their right arms doing the marksman work.
They pivot with their torsos, sometimes moving the chair's wheels off the ground.
It's not as if the dozens who'd gathered to watch were whipped into a frenzy, asking to put on what looks like a beekeeper's mask and start flailing away. They could more easily participate in subsequent demonstrations of power soccer (like bumper cars with something the size of a beach ball), tennis (with oversized balls hitting the rackets), basketball, rugby or lacrosse. Not as if those last few are for the less-than-timid.
But most - especially those facing their own struggles in search of a sport that best fit their situation and personality - stared in quiet concentration, trying to pick up on the subtle style differences in the epee, foil and sabre disciplines that were skillfully played out in front of them.
Moreno and Rodriguez definitely had game.
An 11-time national champion in his category B class, Moreno won a bronze earlier this month at the World Cup in Montreal. He was also in the individual foil and sabre at the Paralympic Games in Beijing last summer. That was the third Paralympic appearance for Moreno, a skilled epee fencer at Cal State L.A. prior to his injury.
Rodriguez, an amputee who lost his right leg as the result of cancer that doctors expected would claim his life 25 years ago, also fenced at the University of Texas for three years. He has won three World Cup bronze medals in his class since.
Neither got into the wheelchair version until the mid-1990s - or even knew it existed before that. But without it, Moreno, who also succeeded in disabled basketball and skiing, isn't sure he wants to know what other course his life could have taken.
"Because of sports, I think I was able to integrate back into society," said Moreno, who, among other things, has become the chief financial officer of a global outdoor billboard company and a legal administrator at a Century City-based firm that specializes in life-altering injuries.
"Everything I did in sports (after the accident) was a building block for me, encouraging me to try more things. Be more willing, rebuilding confidence. At least I'd try something new."
It's tough enough finding anyone in these parts interested in fencing; it's much more popular on the East Coast as well as in Europe, Russia and Asia. Even more difficult is luring in someone with a major disability, knowing they'll have to finance the equipment, lessons and travel to competitions.
"There are only a couple dozen of us (wheelchair fencers) across the country," said Moreno, who trains twice a week at the Los Angeles International Fencing Center near the 405 and 10 freeways. "I'd love to help recruit more for our national team.
"This is a sport that, if you're in good shape, you can be older and still do it well. It's a lot like martial arts, a physical game with a very mental element, trying to get your opponent to do things he doesn't want to do, giving him misinformation, testing his instinctual reactions."
In other words, it's about adapting on the fly, adjusting and moving forward. In life, without a road map, or with a chair, yielding a sword.