- [Announcer] Welcome to TPGi's "Real People Real Stories" podcast, where you'll find interesting and diverse stories from folks working to make the world a more inclusive place. - Hey, welcome to the "Real People Real Stories" podcast, brought to you by TPGi. I am your host, Mark Miller, thanking you for helping us keep it accessible. Do us a favor, if you're enjoying "Real People Real Stories," share it. Tell someone about it. Hey, even link to it from your accessible website. Welcome, everybody, thanks for listening once again to "Real People Real Stories." I'm so excited to introduce Pat Pound to you. She and I were geeking out just before this because we're really excited to talk about fencing, which is something that we both did. The difference is, is that Pat recently comes to fencing, and she has a vision impairment, so it was a little bit different of an experience than I had, or is a little bit different of an experience than I had. So, Pat, first of all, tell us a little bit about your vision loss so that we can have kind of this background for your new passion, which is fencing. - [Pat Pound] All right, I was born very premature, and like many people at the time in which I was born, which is a while back, prematurity caused my blindness in terms of the amount of oxygen that I was given, and I had low vision until I was about 14, and then I was total after that time. - Wow. So there's probably a ton for us to talk about, you know, in terms of your experience in school and through life in general and all the things that you had to do, but right before we kind of turned on the mics here, we were both talking about fencing. And this is amazing to me 'cause we're also talking about the fact that you've been retired for a little bit, which seems like semantics because you're very busy in retirement, but it wasn't until recently, and while you're in retirement, that you decided to take up fencing. So why? What drew you to- - [Pat Pound] Well, I was doing some work with a gentleman named Rabia Dell. His and my career are somewhat similar along the way. We've both run blindness rehab programs of sorts. He was a student at, a teacher at, and later, the director at the Carroll Center for the Blind. And we were doing some work on people calling their pets guide dogs, and legislation in that regard. And we were waiting on people to come to a meeting at a Starbucks and all of sudden he said, "Oh, you might like this, I'm a fencer." And I said, "You're a what?" And so he proceeded to explain to me how it works, and he said, "And I was also a fencing coach." And I said, "Whoa, whoa, tell me where." And he said, "At the Carroll Center for the Blind." Well, I had run our rehab program here in Texas and, you know, immediately I wanted a redo. And immediately I had two new bucket list things. I wanna fence and I want to reinstate fencing in the blindness world, not just as a recreational pursuit, because the other PC told me, the Carroll Center, at least at the time he was there, strongly could tell a significant connection between fencing and orientation and mobility, like the use of a white cane and walking in traffic. And some of it has to do with body awareness and spatial awareness, balance. There's just a lot of parallels. And he even said to me that if a person there was having trouble in mobility, like say they were veering left, crossing streets, they immediately just turned to the fencers, fencing coaches and said, "Can you fix it?" And they said, "Yes," and they did. Well, of course I was thinking, "Geez, if I'd known that, I would've done it in Texas, and I wanted a redo, but I don't really want a redo. But you know, back then we didn't have the internet, but the Carroll Center's still doing this. Father Carroll had seen it at Hines Rehab Center, as vets came back from World War II who were blinded, they were fencing. So it's been around a long time, but we lost it somewhere along the way. So friends of mine that we were meeting with showed up and then they got interested, and we got back and we did the work that we were actually meeting about, but one of them in the group, and I kept calling fencing places, trying to generate some interest, you know, because Rabia lives in California, so he's not gonna be, you know, useful other than over the phone advisor kind of person. Anyway, so he explained to me that, okay, what people do is, first of all, both fencers wear blindfolds. I don't care how much vision, no vision, whatever- - Makes sense. - [Pat Pound] That way, you know nobody has vision. - Yep. - [Pat Pound] And the unique thing about that and fencing is most fencing coaches have sighted people do at least one lesson under blindfold during their time of training. And they do this because it forces people to concentrate in a different way. And they get it. They understand it. And so Rabia told me that as he travels around the country, sometimes he gets into fencing, and he just looks up a fencing place and walks in cold and says, "Is anybody willing to fence me?" And he says he's always found people willing to fence. So that's a unique thing, I think, because people aren't scared of it. - Yeah. - And you don't have to have a blind person to fence with. You don't have to have a team. What you do have to have as a coach. And so that was our hardest thing to do locally, is to find a coach. And there was a gentleman that owned a fencing club in a suburb by Austin, called Round Rock, for 40 years. And my colleague that was working with me on this happened to call him the second day of his retirement. And so he is now our fencing coach. And so he was trying to learn blindness off the internet, and so the second call I said, "Gee, Coach, how about you just come to the house and I'll make this a lot more real for you. We can do this a lot more quickly and probably in a more fruitful way." And what I didn't know is he brought fencing gear with him. And so I had my first fencing lesson that day. - Wow. - [Pat Pound] So it evolved into, we did a number of demo classes at our school for the blind. And of course, you know, a lot of blind kids have never seen fencing, never heard of fencing, so they thought we were talking about a cedar fence or a picket fence. - What work am I gonna have to do over the weekend? - [Pat Pound] That's right, they said, "Are you putting your cane over the fence or what are you doing?" So a lot of it is, initially, passing around swords and explaining what the different parts are and how it works because you don't have that visual information happening to see it on TV or on the internet. - Oh yeah. - Whatever. Anyway, so we started our first for-pay class. Unfortunately, transportation is our nemesis because the particular suburb that we're good in, from our standpoint of the fencing club, is not good in transportation. But also our coach tends to foster and train teenage coaches, so they become assistant fencing coaches, and he's done that all of his career. And so he took some of his better assistant fencing coaches and asked them if they wanted to learn about how to be blind fencing coaches. And they volunteered to do that. And so in my class, I have Coach Murray, who's my coach, and then three other young people who are excited to share their knowledge of fencing, and then learn best how to coach, and how to coach blind folks, and how to be comfortable. So we're now on my intermediate class. We start with plastic foils, partly because you can get 'em into schools easy because they're a lot less dangerous than the metal ones. And, and you know, the tips been, you still need masks, but it works. Rabia prefers metal all the way. He says it's kinda like the difference between a plastic, foldable, wobbly cane and a real cane. - Right. - Which I can see that. So I'm very much a newbie, but I'm very much enjoying the experience. And I can personally tell, even as I walk around my neighborhood with my guide dog, I've already applied, just because of muscle memory, a lot of the things that are useful, and like being on the balls of your feet. Well, for blind people, that's tremendously useful 'cause if you step and there happens to be a rolling stone, you know, a little one right under your foot, you can go down. - Yep. - [Pat Pound] And dog or not, and so anything you can do that helps you not fall and maintain your balance... So I would say, in that sense, it's sort of like dancers who use fencing to be better dancers. And you don't have to think about it. You don't go, "Oh yeah, I remember that thing that they told me and da da da." Your hands and feet have been trained, and you just do it. - Yep. So there's a lot to go there. So first of all, I'm gonna tell you that I'm about an hour away from the Carroll Center. I'm assuming you're talking about like- - [Pat Pound] Oh wow. - Austin? Yeah, so real familiar with that. I've been down there several times, great group of people. But also, my family's from Texas, and lived in Austin and in Round Rock. So talking about Texas and Round Rock, I'm like, we're here. But as you- - Yeah, we were supposed to meet. - Yeah, we were supposed to meet, but and as you and I, we were starting to talk about, before we even jumped on the podcast, I actually, I'm a long term martial artist. So I've been in the martial arts since I was like 13 years old. I'm no longer 13 years old. So- Math, I think- - Join the club. - We'll call it 30 plus years ago. And when I was in college, I did several years of fencing. So as you're talking about the relationship between fencing and orientation, because fencing's very... So for the listeners who maybe haven't fenced before, from a combat standpoint, it's extremely linear, right? It's almost like combat that happens in a very narrow hallway is kind of the easiest way to think about it. Whereas if you watch two boxers fight, right? Which would be another one-on-one, kind of mano y mano combat situation, it's very circular. The boxers are always circling each other, trying to avoid the power hand and stuff like that. But fencers, the whole sport is designed, there's some, like with a coupe and stuff, there's some sort of moving by the side of the person, but the sport's designed to stay in this linear path. So what I'm saying, Pat, is that when you were talking about how it helps you oriented, it makes sense because, even as a person sighted who's fencing, it's sometimes hard to just stay on that kind of tight rope that you're sort of fencing on, right? And so without the benefit of sight, all that orientation is even that much more difficult. But if you train yourself to fence, I can really, as a fencer relate to how that helps you. And then of course the balance, you know, being able to stay in balance during that linear movement while doing something, that requires such dexterity, like manipulating, and for those of you who haven't fenced, it is small, small, subtle manipulations. If you think about the length of that foil that Pat was talking about, a small movement of the hand means a big movement at the tip. So everything requires a great deal of coordination, a great deal of thing. So, and then oddly, it also kind of makes sense because just the articulation of a cane, which a lot of people who are blind used to navigate with, and to fine tune that skill with a foil makes a whole lot of sense. - [Pat Pound] Well, and also in mobility, blind people go from somewhere to somewhere, not just to somewhere, okay? So it's a calculated movement, even if you're lost, it's calculated. And the same thing is true with fencing. Now things will happen along the way. Your opponent may not be doing what you were thinking they might be doing, but that's the same thing in traffic. You're protecting yourself as well as trying to get to your destination, and you're trying to do it assertively and in time with the light, and you know, all those kind of things. The Carroll Center is still doing fencing, as is Perkins, and I don't think they're emphasizing the mobility connection as much. They just know it, you know, they don't talk about it. But they still do it, and I think the two compete quite a bit. In fact, one of the things we're gonna do is do some competitions. You know, we gotta get a few more people taught so we have enough people who've learned. But the other piece that I think is important is at least in Texas, fencing is allowed as an out-of-class PE activity. And what that means is, if you're a fencer, and instead of taking your regular PE class, if you wanna go to fencing outside of your class and your fencing instructor is willing to monitor what you do, and your parents are willing to monitor what you do, then you can get credit. Now it's a pass-fail credit, it's not a great credit, for PE. But I just think of all the blind kids that, you know, during basketball or volleyball, sit on the side because there's not a good way to modify that. And so we already have the bones for sighted people, and I don't know why it would be any different for blind students- - Right. - [Pat Pound] To go use that as a PE activity. - So let me ask you this, and by the way, I picked up that subtle hint that I should go to the Carroll Center and throw a blind- And have those guys pick on me a little bit- - [Pat Pound] Hey sure. Report back. - That's right. No, but what I wanted to ask you, just thinking as somebody who fenced before, and I'm just thinking about kind of the mechanics of this, so there's a lot of tactile sensitivity in fencing, right, as you know, and that means that when the foils are in contact, a lot of your understanding of what your opponent is doing, going to do, might do, whatever, is through the tactile sensitivity. So in that case, sight almost becomes a secondary sense to perceive all that, for somebody who's sighted, like myself. So here's what my question is for you is when you're not in that condition, when you're separate from your opponent, so that there's no contact anywhere through your foil or elsewhere, what senses or how are you trying to judge and perceive what your opponent might be doing before that contact is made? - [Pat Pound] Well, first of all, you need to be searching because they're gonna be searching, you know? 'Cause obviously, unless you make contact, neither of you know much information for real. So you're trying to gain information. You think about, you know, where the last time you had contact was, but that may not matter. You wanna make sure that your foil is not horizontal because you need to be slanted because you have more chance of encountering their blade. You do little circles to try to find them. And one of the things that's interesting, by the way, Italy is really big. You ought to do internet research on blind fencing in Italy. They're probably most active folks right now, and they do huge competitions. And in fact, my coach got them to be able to do a demo at the Paralympics in Paris, which we're all really excited about. Blind fencing is not a paralympic sport, but we would love for that to happen someday. And boy, the Italians are the people that carry it. So we'll see what happens with that. So you just kinda keep doing these circles, but of course, you can step backward and forward too. And so sometimes you wanna move out of range, and you know, just to see what happens. Or maybe you have a plan for, you know, what this particular opponent does and some of those kind of things. So a lot of it's guesswork, but then you have to take whatever information you get and try to apply it to what you do. - Yeah, that's really interesting because if you had asked me that question, I would've answered it the same way. - [Pat Pound] Oh, interesting. That's cool. - Yeah, like as a sighted person who's fencing, I'm using those same circular motions. I'm searching for the blade, I'm using air quotes when I say that. I know where the blade is because of sight, but I guess the whole point is it doesn't stay there, right? That other person is articulating their blade as well. - Right, right. - Keep constant movement, and really to find that blade, you have to be, now I'm fencing, I'm making the motions of fencing. Right, I'm getting too- - [Pat Pound] Finger fencing. Finger fencing. - Finger fencing, right, but, you know, so you're sort of keeping that motion going in hopes that you encounter that blade and get that tactile sensitivity. And obviously you're using, distancing is a big thing, and I would imagine distancing, could be totally wrong, is a bit easier if you're sighted than blind, and you have to use your contact with a sword to understand your distance. But one of the things like as a martial artist that fencing taught me, was I became way better at distance. Right, so judging- - Ah, yes. - Relation to a opponent and what's a threat, and all that. But one of the things that's real, so this is another layer Pat, right? That as a person who's blind, I would imagine your ability to be sensitive with your cane and to search with your cane and to have some dexterity around how you're doing that and dealing with situations that bring up things you didn't expect or whatever the case is, and now you're taking that and you're putting that into a much more intense situation with something that's essentially a cane. - [Pat Pound] Yes, it's almost like the car's coming, the car's coming, you'd better figure it out. - Yeah. - You know. - That's exactly right, yeah, but it's starting to really come together in terms of why it's such a valuable sport and activity for a blind person. I mean, anybody's gonna benefit, right? That's why I am lifetime martial artist- - [Pat Pound] Right, right. You know, and the whole respect and in honor of my coach, the morning after my first class, I woke up and I was smiling and thinking about, 'cause I'd gone to some of the demo stuff, so, you know, it wasn't... Anyway, it was really fun, but I met these teenagers at that class and, you know, the other joy I had was when have I had teenagers who were excited to tell an older person like me about something to teach an older person like me, something that they knew. Well, usually it's like somebody told 'em to go help their grandma with their phone, you know, and they'll do it, but they're not excited about it. These folks were excited about it. And I have as much joy out of watching them grow as coaches as I do at learning. It's like, what's not to like about this? - Yeah. You know, that's the other aspect that I wanted to dive down. I'm really glad that you brought it up, but when you mentioned that, there's so much value, I think, one from respect, growth, understanding standpoint, to put young people in scenarios where they're engaging with old people, and vice versa, older people I should say, and vice versa. And I always tell people, like, you know... so, you know, full disclosure, I'm not real young either. And people always, like, I'll have conversations with people and they'll be like, you know, "Oh, they're a kid, they don't know anything." And I go, "Wait a minute, they know more than you." And they go, "Well, what are you talking about they know more than you?" And I say, "Well, this person was introduced into this Earth with the base level of knowledge that you and I have. Do they have more to learn?" Of course they have more to learn, right? Like, they've only been trying to do it for 15, 16 years, or whatever. So there's more for them to learn. But their starting point is so much more advanced than our starting point. And you brought it up Pat, right? You said, "How do I use my phone?" These kids, by the time they are eight, are better at using their phone than you are at using your phone, right? So- when they're a teenager. So that exchange of knowledge, I think as an older person, if we're going to grow, that requires interaction with young people. And I think if young people want to grow and grow in better ways, that requires not just older people being around, but really good positive intention interaction. And I think you guys have created an unbelievable scenario where you can give these young people senses of accomplishments. You guys can learn from each other and create an environment where both people are really growing beyond what you would expect through you learning how to fence and them learning how to coach. Right? - Yeah. - So, that's really amazing. And then I think, in your scenario, it's even more Pat, right? Because they have a real advantage being exposed to people with disabilities early on. And they probably avoid things like, you know, they realize right away that they're dealing with people who just happen to interact with the world slightly differently. - Right. - What kind of questions and revelations and, you know, all that sort of thing do you see from these young people who get an opportunity to work with you? - [Pat Pound] I think, you know, they each have their strengths, obviously. And I enjoy each of their strengths, in terms of coaching. And my coach had done well at schooling them about how to treat blind people, how to introduce yourself. And in fact, one thing I haven't mentioned is that our coach, coach Murray, has just gotten approved a course that can be delivered via Zoom that will teach fencing coaches how to coach blind folks. - Oh, that's interesting. - [Pat Pound] And there will be a way that they can then get certified under this program. That way we can start having fencing coaches who understand blind people. And, you know, that way we can make this thing grow beyond, you know, what it is in Austin, Texas. - Yeah, well, and that's the fast way to grow it, right? Your reach is gonna be so- - [Pat Pound] Well, and our coach did fencing during the pandemic via Zoom. And so he's got a lot of that. In fact, he's coming over tomorrow. He's built a little buzzer pad so that I can stick it up on my wall and then if my foil touches it, it will buzz. So, if I'm trying to say, you know, I wanna go to this spot, and I put it on that spot, and then I position myself in different positions. You know, and then I can walk up, if it doesn't go off, I can walk up and see how far I was. - Get that feedback, yeah, it's feedback in a couple ways. You hit it or you didn't hit it, and then you can walk up and- yourself, and just different starting points so that you're trying to hit that target from different areas. - Right, right. And that way, you know, 'cause I'm always concerned about at home practice, doing it wrong, because you don't want your muscle memory, you know, doing wrong things. But yeah, he's had fun developing some things like that. - So I teach a lot of kids in martial arts, and adults both, and one of the things I do periodically is I'll do one of two things, I'll either blindfold the whole class, except for myself, right, safety reasons. - Right. - Or I won't allow any talking during class, like zero communication verbally, through talk. And I don't give 'em any direction. We just run a normal class underneath those conditions so that they have to experiment and try to figure out, like if I don't have the benefit of sight, what do I do? And it's very interesting because they'll do things like, you know, I'll say, "Everybody go get a pad," and the pads are in one area of the room. Somebody will find them and then they'll walk back and find their partner and they'll have their pad and they'll be all set and everybody else will be wandering around the room, not finding a pad. You know, so we have questions around, well you can talk, you know, you don't have- can't talk, but you know, why not announce it? Why not have that be an opportunity to say, "Hey, I found the pads, they're over here. Follow me over here." - Yeah, yep. - But anyways, listening to your example about that pad that buzzes, that's really interesting. And it starts the wheels turning about how I could do similar things with the kids, because I think that if we can take away that sense of sight and we can increase that type of accuracy and that physical awareness of space that becomes so good- - [Pat Pound] Well our coach says that if you bring him into a room and say, "Here's two fencers, who do you wanna work with?" And one a sighted and one is blind, he will always choose the blind person. And it's about focus, it's truly about focus, because we can't function without focus. We have to focus. And so we practice it 24/7. Successful, maybe unsuccessful blind people don't, I don't know. - Yeah. - [Pat Pound] But he says it just makes a huge difference in teaching. - Well, and that's another good point that you bring out, as soon as you don't have one of your senses, that concentration of focus needs to be greater to- - [Pat Pound] Well what he says is, even once they do the lesson, people realize they can do that focus and how much it benefits them. - Yeah. That's really interesting. Man, I'm gonna take notes after this. My students are in for some treats. - [Pat Pound] Well you have to come to Austin, maybe we can fence. - I have to come to Austin. My niece is going to UT Austin, so I need to come visit her. And then I- everything. I got a lot of reasons. And then, of course, I have to track you down and have you probably school me in fencing. It's been a few years. It was early nineties. - [Pat Pound] Well, we might be about equal. Remember, I'm still a newbie, so. - Yeah, we might be pretty even. And by even, I mean, you're probably better than I am. or at least by the time I make it, if you're not now, by the time I make it to Austin, you will be. - [Pat Pound] Right, right right right. - Cool. - Should be a good match. - So with this group of kids that you're talking about, any real interesting or surprising comments that have come out of them that you can think of that- - [Pat Pound] Well, one lady has been following a couple people. She's into animals, she's in Future Farmers of America and has a goat and a pig, I think, right now. But she's followed a couple of people online that she's identified that went and got guide dogs. And so she hopes, at some point in her life, to be a puppy raiser. So they've all- - So she should be inspired by the whole exposure to this. - [Pat Pound] Right, right. And so they've all gotten really good at knowing, what my dog's supposed to be doing and letting me know if she's not doing that. She has been totally unperturbed about me waving a sword around. - I'd have more respect for you too if you started waving a sword at me. - I guess so. - That's when I started to really pay attention and mind my manners is when people wave- - That's right. Well, you know, when you swim, a lot of guide dogs think you're drowning, you know, 'cause you flail your arms and stuff like that. So I had no idea how she was gonna respond. And luckily, the very first time he showed me fencing stuff was at my home. And so she was in a safe environment for her. But yeah, she knows all the people now, she knows the drill. She went to sleep the other night, you know, so she was very comfortable and knows what's happening. I think the young people, I don't guess there's anything terribly startling except they just seem so comfortable. You know, they're comfortable enough to joke and talk about what's going on in school and- - Treat you like a fellow human being and not like a- - [Pat Pound] Right, you don't get there magically. And in fact, I would say this is probably one of the better things I've ever done in my career for public relations. - That's wonderful. - You know, and public awareness, and I mean, you work at trying to do that, and hey, maybe we just need to do things like fencing. - Well, like fencing, and I think just overall, like giving people a chance to interact with people with disabilities. Like, that's one of the things I really like about this whole thing is that it's a ready-made excuse for that interaction to occur. And I think that- - Absolutely. - That only breeds understanding, and you know, I mean, you're inspiring people to raise puppies and, you know, assume new guide dogs and that kind of thing. Which by the way, I did do a seminar, a jujitsu seminar that was a mixed group of people and there was a guide dog there who got very upset with me when I was- techniques on his owner. So, how those things can go. But you can't blame the poor puppy because he's just like, "What, what are you doing? That's not normal." - Yeah, really. This is not okay. - Hurt him, I'm gonna hurt you. So yeah, this is good. You want him to be protective, but it's also really nice when they realize you're enjoying yourself. I'm sure you're in tune with the dog and the dog really, probably pick up your emotional state on a whole- - Right, but I did work at planning some of that, you know, initially so that she had some good exposure, she knew the people, all that kind of stuff. If you plant it, then if something happens, your retrieval is not nearly so hard. - Mmhmm. Well Pat, believe it or not, we're already to the end of the podcast. We need to wrap it up. And we successfully only talked about fencing, which I think exactly how it should have gone, right? - [Pat Pound] Suits me. - We talked about a lot more than fencing, we just did it all through the fencing context, right? - [Pat Pound] Correct. - Is there anything that you, like any last, you know, last words of wisdom or anything that you want to kind of highlight or point out that we didn't cover? - [Pat Pound] Well, not particularly, except that, you know, if we all take the opportunities that we have and this one fell into my lap, then, you know, a whole bunch of things come out of it that were not necessarily on our list. And I'm sure I will still get fencing into the blindness world again. You know, that will take a while, but that will happen. But if we all take those opportunities, then everybody's gonna win in the sense that websites will be more accessible, just because people come out with an understanding of disability better than they had before. And you know, it's always true that even if people don't know something, if they're interested and willing to learn it, they're gonna learn it much more quickly than if they're facing a lawsuit or a fine, or, you know, a negative reason that they need to do this. - That's a great point. And you know, the other thing I'll say too is I love the fact that in retirement, you're diving in and learning brand new things, things that are physically challenging. - [Pat Pound] Yes. - So important that you continue to grow as a human being and challenge yourself in any way that you can challenge yourself. So kudos to you for that. I think that that's super impressive. - [Pat Pound] Thank you. - Well, thank you so much. I wish we could just keep talking about fencing, Pat, but we gotta wrap up. So this is Mark Miller, thanking Pat, and reminding you to keep it accessible. - [Announcer] This podcast has been brought to you by TPGi, the experts in digital accessibility. 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