Full Transcript
Joshua Loya:
A blind or visually impaired person who wants to train for personal self defense, again Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is probably a really good one.
Jeff Thompson:
Please welcome professional adventurer, martial artist Joshua the Jedi Loya.
Joshua Loya:
I love it when I get to teach somebody else who’s blind because then they go, “Wait, oh you’re blind too. Okay.” It helps them to adjust their thinking about whether something’s possible or not.
Jeff Thompson:
Two time U.S. visually impaired surfing champion.
Joshua Loya:
People think that courage is being fearless. Fearless is not the same thing as being courageous. I cannot be courageous if I’m not afraid. Courage is being afraid and going anyway.
Jeff Thompson:
Instructor and student of martial arts.
Joshua Loya:
Oh, you mean a blind person can do this thing? Oh, you mean that blind guy’s doing that thing, maybe I can give it a shot. We don’t know what type of impact we’re going to have on people. I was given the nickname Joshua the Jedi, and certainly somebody gives me that nickname I’ll own it.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app from the App Store and Google Play Store. That’s two words, Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
Enable the blind abilities skill on your Amazon device, just by saying, “Enable Blind Abilities.”
Joshua Loya:
There are times when I have really dark periods where it is a struggle just to get up out of bed. Well, I live a lot on my iPhone, quite a bit. I use it for reading, I use it for communication. Oddly enough, I tend to use my iPhone for a lot of things.
Joshua Loya:
I’m fortunate enough to be an IRA explorer, and certainly IRA’s been a huge help. You have those additional tools, you kind of forget about them, and then you go, “Oh yeah, I have this additional thing in my toolbox.” In this case, it was IRA.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. And today in this studio, I got Joshua the Jedi Loya. How are you doing?
Joshua Loya:
Doing well, thanks for having me.
Jeff Thompson:
Hey, thanks for taking the time and coming on the Blind Abilities.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah no, this is good.
Jeff Thompson:
Why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about you’ve got an extensive resume today, what you’re doing today and what are some of the … Professional adventurer, right?
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, well basically three years ago, almost to the day, a little bit past three years, it was August 19th of 2016, was the last day I worked a regular job. I worked as an Assistive Technology Trainer at the San Diego location for Braille Institute. I decided to go on and pursue something a little bit unique, and so for the last three years and change I’ve pursued martial arts and adventure living full-time.
Joshua Loya:
I am the co-head instructor of Guardian Quest Dojo in Spring Valley, CA, just outside of San Diego, and I’m also the head of self defense instruction for Blind Community Martial Arts, an adaptive martial arts program at the Blind Community Center of San Diego.
Joshua Loya:
U.S. 2019, 2018 Visually Impaired Surfing Champion, I’ve done a few other things. It sounds like I’m bragging sometimes, but I basically love adventure. I love doing difficult and scary stuff. I think there’s a lot of living to do, so why not live as much of it as I possibly can?
Jeff Thompson:
I like that. So any listeners out there wanting to break away and do irregular jobs, go for it. Listen to this podcast.
Joshua Loya:
Although I have a very high fiber diet, so we’re good there as for as regularity goes.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great. What is your day like today? You’re an instructor?
Joshua Loya:
I am. So this morning … And my wife is also an instructor. She’s sighted, or light slave as the case may be, cat’s out of the bag on that. She and I are both instructors at Blind Community Martial Arts this morning from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time, and then kind of having a low key afternoon.
Joshua Loya:
I’m hanging out with you at the moment, and then tonight I’m going to go do some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu up in North County at Studio 540, which I’m not an instructor there, but I do train and try to go train with my friend John or whoever else who outweighs me by 50 pounds and tries to choke me, then we hug each other afterwards and tell each other we love each other, so there you go.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh wow.
Joshua Loya:
Jiu Jitsu’s one of those things, for anybody who’s been out there, who’s done it, it is interesting because you’re basically trying to kill each other but still with respect for each other.
Jeff Thompson:
I’ve heard Judo, that’s usually what I hear. What’s the difference between Judo, martial arts, Jiu Jitsu?
Joshua Loya:
Sure, so martial arts is like the … Most people think of karate or Tae Kwon Do or kung fu, and honestly martial arts is any systemized focus on warfare or hand to hand combat, that kind of stuff, and it can even be more on the stylistic level. So if somebody could learn how to do say sword dancing, where it’s specific choreography, it may not be as applicable for combat but it’s still connected enough that somebody would call it a martial art.
Joshua Loya:
So there are even historical European martial arts, things that are native to various countries in Africa or to Ireland. There’s some pretty neat kickboxing out of France called Savate. So any martial art, it could be wrestling, it could be punching, boxing, that kind of stuff, all that is considered a martial art. And there are probably, give or take, like 1,600 different martial arts and variations that we know about.
Joshua Loya:
So martial arts is sort of like that big umbrella term. Judo and Jiu Jitsu are both grappling-specific martial arts. So in the earlier times, probably several hundred years ago, in feudal Japan, you had Samurai and other warriors that would primarily use swords and spears and that kind of stuff. And many of them were wearing armor, so punching somebody through armor’s probably not going to be super effective, and so you had Japanese Jiu Jitsu, spelled slightly differently than Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and in the I think bear with me, my historical knowledge might be somewhat suspect, so feel free to correct me, and anybody if you want to send me a DM later. The founder of judo saw what Jiu Jitsu was, Japanese Jiu Jitsu and decided he wanted to modify it so it was a little bit safer to train, that he could use it as a means for teaching character, and it was a little bit more of a structured way, Jiu Jitsu had a reputation of being the martial art of gangsters and that sort of thing by the time judo was developed.
Joshua Loya:
And then it was interesting, in the early 20th century, there was sort of this weird dynamic where the terms judo and Jiu Jitsu were even somewhat interchangeable for a little while, but eventually judo came to be Jigoro Kono’s art that he developed that most people would recognize, it’s an Olympic sport and a lot of blind people practice it. One of his students brought it to Brazil, and the Gracie family and others took judo and modified it somewhat so it was even more effective for somebody who was smaller than their attacker, and really expanded it to focus more on the ground techniques.
Joshua Loya:
So once you were already on the ground, being able to manipulate and go for submissions and that sort of thing. Because I’ve had maybe three years experience in judo, probably six years or so in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, maybe a little more, and there’s been some grappling, some of the other stuff I’ve done. Judo spends probably about two thirds of its time getting you to the ground, so a lot of trips and sweeps and throws and that kind of stuff, and maybe one third of the time on the ground, going for pins, chokes, arm locks that kind of stuff.
Joshua Loya:
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it’s probably flipped the other way, so you spend probably a good two thirds or more of the time on the actual ground, at least in terms of the way you practice it, though certainly each could be used for both context. Does that answer the question there for you?
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, that’s really interesting. What advice would you give to someone, or actually, what would you tell someone who is interested in getting into the martial arts, and is visually impaired?
Joshua Loya:
Sure, first off, there is no best martial art. So let that sink in for a second. There is no art that’s better than every other. There are arts that are more applicable to different circumstances, or different context, for sure. And different arts that are relevant to different things, so if you want to do competition, and you are visually impaired, I would probably recommend judo or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, because grappling is more directly connected to how we have to interact with the world, very tactile.
Joshua Loya:
A blind or visually impaired person who wants to train for personal self defense, again, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is probably a really good one. Wing Chun has some applications, Jeet Kune Do depending on the instructor. You may not want to train really hard. So if you have additional health concerns or what have you, maybe you have brittle bones, or you have balance issues, kind of go to a school, think about what it is you want to focus on, whether it’s more for fitness, if it’s for self development. If it is for self defense or competition, then spend some time maybe looking at the websites of various schools, go in and talk to the instructor. Even if it’s an art that interests you, if you don’t feel comfortable with the instructor, and this goes whether you’re blind or can see fully, if you don’t feel comfortable with the instructor, then maybe you shouldn’t train there. Maybe find a place where you feel like they value you. Martial arts isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be unsafe.
Joshua Loya:
Somebody isn’t doing you a favor by teaching you. Yeah, there’s the whole can you afford it and those sorts of concerns. I would say try it and go talk to the instructor. Go sit in on a class, have a conversation with the instructor. Have they ever taught a blind or visually impaired person before. Even for me, I’ve been studying martial arts for 14 years now, pretty consistently, but I didn’t start working with other visually impaired people interested in martial arts until probably six years ago, seven years ago. And it was a completely different experience.
Joshua Loya:
I had one student that I was teaching for a while who was blind since birth. I saw before, so I have a context for some things. I was teaching him how to draw a sword. I had a sword that was made out of wood so I didn’t cut myself when I was trying to work with him, and have my hands on what he was doing. I like to keep my hands on my body, thank you. The verbal instructions that I gave him, he technically responded and did what I asked, but what he didn’t actually match what I wanted him to do if that makes sense. So sometimes, anybody who teaches somebody something, you will give them instructions, and technically it followed the letter of what you’re asking, but there’s a missing piece. It forced me to be a little more descriptive in my language.
Jeff Thompson:
Especially when you got a blind person with a sword.
Joshua Loya:
Well, a blind person with a sword who has never seen before. And this isn’t like we get into these weird conflicts sometimes, I saw before, I didn’t and which one’s better, which one’s worse. It’s not a matter of better or worse, because I didn’t start studying martial arts until I was totally blind. I had a lot of visual memory of watching kung fu movies and seeing things like that, so I had a mental framework for a lot of the stuff, even when I was first learning. My friend had never seen any of this stuff, and he had things explained to him. Initially, the more different something is to your personal experience, the longer it’s going to take for that to make sense. Having to take that into account, I went forward, and we adjusted, and he learned … He was only here for a handful of months so he only got so far, but he eventually started figuring things out. But it forced me to be a better teacher.
Joshua Loya:
The other thing is, for a blind person, for somebody with a visual impairment, if you want to study a martial art, you may decide that somebody who has experience with somebody who’s visually impaired, you don’t like them as much as maybe somebody who might not be as experienced, but is willing to give it a shot. My primary instructor, Scott Conway, the grand master instructor that I study with right now primarily still, he had never taught a blind person before. He had met visually impaired people and that sort of thing, but he said, “Well, we’ll just see what we need to do to modify it so you can do it.” The thing is, he was extremely open to me studying everything he taught, even including the weapons curriculum, and the karate curriculum that he taught. Not just the grappling stuff, because obviously grappling makes the most sense, but I wanted to learn it all.
Joshua Loya:
I’m overly obsessed in my interest in martial arts, so of course I want to study it all, and he was absolutely willing to let me do that. And it was a little bit of a discovery process as we went, and honestly I think for a lot of us who are visually impaired, there is that whole thing. We have to be willing to do things, and be the first one doing them sometimes.
Jeff Thompson:
And that makes me think, is there a network that listeners could check out to see where there are instructors who have taught people who have blind visually impaired, because I’ve heard so many stories that, and just like other things like a professor at school. They haven’t had someone who is visually impaired, so they ended up educating them a bit, and that might be how it is for anybody, just going down the street finding your local martial arts, but is there a network that someone could look up?
Joshua Loya:
You know, I really wish there was. There is a Facebook group there’s a blind and visually impaired martial artists Facebook group, so if somebody’s on the Zuck’s social network so to speak, I think that could be a good place to start. Feel free to ask a question on there. If somebody wants to message me, I’m happy to offer some suggestions, but I don’t think there’s some sort of network of schools that are part of an alliance of visually impaired people. If you specifically wanted again to say judo contacting Heidi Moore, or Steven Scott Moore out of Colorado, there’s absolutely some ways to get in touch with a judo club that would be comfortable working with you. As far as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, there’s a guy named Ricardo Liborio, his daughter is also totally blind. He’s sighted, and he’s done some interesting things with the lighthouse down in Florida there. I think he’s at the one near Orlando.
Joshua Loya:
Unfortunately, there really isn’t a full network, but it really just depends on what it is you want to study. If you want to study judo, you’re in good shape. A lot of people are used to blind people doing judo, but if you want to do something a little more unique, or different, or varied, I think the big thing is to start trying to make friends and connections with people who are in the martial arts community. I’m happy to talk to just about anybody though. If somebody wants to get in touch I’ll do what I can for you.
Jeff Thompson:
How can they get in touch with you?
Joshua Loya:
On Twitter, Servant Warrior, and then certainly if somebody wants to email me, Joshua@JushuatheJedi.com that will work. I may not get to you right away, but I’ll do my best to respond pretty quickly.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, that seems like a great way, if you do meet an instructor that wants to learn, you could drop a name of another instructor so the two instructors could be talking a little bit giving some heads up tips and stuff like that, and spread the news.
Joshua Loya:
I am working, it’s in the early, early stages. There is a gentleman by the name of Sifu Singh president and CEO of the Jeet Kune Do Athletic Association. He and I have done a little bit of work together. I’ve had a [inaudible] JKD, or Jeet Kune Do experience through him and some of his students. He studies with a Wing Chun instructor, a Wing Chun master in the San Jose area, and his instructor has asked him to develop a curriculum specifically for blind and visually impaired students, because there is that need, there’s a lot of people where they only do judo, or they only do wrestling, and our intention is, and we haven’t really done a lot of deep work on it, is to develop a curriculum pulling from largely from Wing Chun for sensitivity, but then incorporating Brazilian Jiu Jitsu wrestling and judo for something that can be taught and duplicated.
Joshua Loya:
Because there are things like the one touch project, which I have zero familiarity with at all, so I can’t speak to its efficacy, or how good it is, but the intention is, and one of my larger goals is to create a network of exactly what you’re talking about. Create some curriculums where blind people can teach other blind people, because I think that’s one of the tricky things is it’s all great when you have a sighted instructor, and yes sometimes that’s need if somebody is using a sword, or something like that, you have to maybe pull somebody in to help evaluate so nobody’s getting injured. That being said, when we can teach each other, I think that has tremendous power, and that it doesn’t have to be, oh this sighted person is doing it. I love it when I get to teach somebody else who’s blind, because then they go “Wait, oh you’re blind too. Okay.” It kind of helps them to adjust their thinking about whether something is possible or not.
Jeff Thompson:
When you say adjust your thinking, when I think of the martial arts, there’s more to it and the physical grappling wrestling type of contact or weaponry, there’s also a mindset, could you go into that a little bit?
Joshua Loya:
Yeah. For sure. I think it’s an interesting thing. I was having this conversation with somebody recently, and they’re talking about how every single martial art teaches a philosophy whether on purpose or inadvertently. It’s a fulfillment or an embodiment of a particular philosophy. So you’ll find that people who have a tendency to, and this isn’t by in large, but if somebody trains in something like Muay Thai, which is very aggressive they’re either very quick to respond. It doesn’t mean that they’re a horrible person at all, but it means that they tend to be more assertive, more focused, and it tends to condition their mindset that direction. Martial arts can often times be a vehicle for somebody’s spiritual practice, it doesn’t have to be, but it can be, so in the instance of a friend of mine who is a tai chi, Qigong, and a bagua master those are all primarily Chinese arts, and he’s also a Daoist Abbott, and so he uses his martial arts practice in what he teaches in as well his spiritual practice, as a conduit for meditation, mindfulness and that sort of thing.
Joshua Loya:
I happen to have somewhat of a Christian background, and though I’m considerably unconventional as a lot of people go, so I wouldn’t want anybody to be surprised if they followed me on Twitter, that being said, for me it has been a value in appreciating the sacredness of life. For me, and Guardian Kenpo in particular, my goal is to create or restore peace, not to enjoy the violence.
Joshua Loya:
So one of the things I want for my students is to be desensitized to violence. People say, “Why would you want them to be desensitized to violence?” Because I want them to be willing and ready to act if possible, but I want people to be hyper sensitized to right and wrong. Certain things are going to vary a little bit, like what we consider right or wrong, but most of us would prefer some sort of moral governance on whether we decide to punch somebody in the face or not. If I need to respond, if I need to use physical skill, I want to be ready to do so, but if I can talk somebody down, if I can have a conversation with somebody, or educate somebody that it’s not, I prefer you not to grab me, please let go, and they let go and they leave you alone. If that’s enough, then why create a fight if there doesn’t need to be one.
Joshua Loya:
For me, the martial arts that I practice, helped me to appreciate life more, because I know how to kill, I know how to hurt people in very significant ways, but because of that I also don’t want to. It’s a very counterintuitive thing, where you learn to hurt, but you learn also the value of not hurting, and then the last thing too that I’ll say on that, and this is transcends just martial arts practice, but doing anything that’s difficult and scary it’s valuable to do something that you suck at.
Joshua Loya:
If you do something that you’re not good at and is difficult for you, and there are absolutely aspects of martial arts that are much more challenging for me, slow progression, it keeps you humble, keeps you from thinking that you can’t do anything wrong. You realize very quickly, and this is why I go back to grappling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, that sort of thing is that I cannot fake Jiu Jitsu. If somebody is choking me, they’re either choking me or they’re not. I’m either escaping that hold, or I’m not. And that forces me to realize that this is something very concrete, very real. I have to pay attention to this present moment at this particular point in time. I can’t be thinking about getting to that next episode on that show on Netflix, because if I do, then before I know it I’m having to tap so that I don’t get hurt.
Joshua Loya:
And if somebody doesn’t want to do the combative aspects of martial arts, but they want to do more the meditation practice of it, there’s something very neat in learning how to draw a sword properly. There’s something very neat in learning how to have better balance, how to have a metaphor for philosophical concepts and principles in a way that doesn’t require them to just read them.
Joshua Loya:
I think sometimes when we try to just read about stuff, we don’t get a chance to experience it, it seems very abstract, we don’t get a chance to … It doesn’t feel real no matter how well reasoned the arguments or the articulations of any idea is without the experiential component, it just doesn’t sink in as deep.
Jeff Thompson:
And that experience is you told me earlier when we were chatting, I think it was the master put on some blindfolds to experience how you were experiencing it.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, I was recently on an episode of 52 Masters. I don’t the episodes been released, although it may be by the time this podcast is released, Sensei William Ford is a karate master, and he has a dojo in Torrance, California, just a few hours north of me, and it’s not a perfect scenario of understanding what it’s like to be blind by blindfolding yourself. That being said, it gave him a better sense of what it’s like to teach a blind person. I taught him some basic self defense techniques, and movement drills and sensitivity drills that would be relevant to somebody who can’t see, and because he had his blindfold on, he couldn’t cheat. He had to pay attention to my verbal instructions and my movement with him, and my tactile connection to his body. And that was really, really cool.
Joshua Loya:
I’ve also had the experience of, and this was kind of amusing, first time I had ever done this, this summer when I was in Las Vegas at a martial art’s convention, my friend Sifu Singh, that I mentioned earlier, we did a flow drill with what they call a shock knife where it doesn’t cut you if it touches you, but it basically almost a little bit weaker than a stun gun. So it’s very uncomfortable if you get hit, or simulated cut. Of course I’m blind, and I’m moving around him, and he’s like, “Oh Joshua, we got a surprise for you.” And he blindfolded himself.
Joshua Loya:
So meanwhile we’re flowing and I got this thing going and I’m trying to move around from it, and it forced me to kind of pay attention to things, and it also forced him to pay attention to the tactile sense as well. And I think that even for very accomplished sighted martial artists, some of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belts that I get a chance to train with, when we roll or that’s what we call Jiu Jitsu sparring when we’re rolling they’ll close their eyes. Not because they’re trying to make it even because they’re going with a blind guy, but because it helps them focus on subtlety of movement in the body. Yeah, sure if I’m coming out from long grange, they might want to see where a kick is coming from.
Joshua Loya:
As much as it sounds like some sort of fragment out of the Kung Fu series Master Pud or whatever. There is actually something to be said for blindfold training, even if you wouldn’t live your life day to day like that. Closing out one sense to develop another has very real applications beyond just those of us who don’t have the option of using that sense.
Jeff Thompson:
Now taking this into a typical blind vision impaired community there’s a lot of situations where they’re challenged with do they fight or flight, that type of situation, and it may not be a contact sport, or something, but it might be just the challenges ahead of them. How would you counsel someone, or apply that in just the typical blindness community and the challenges that people have every day.
Joshua Loya:
If I’m going to condense down a lot of what is required for adventure, and I think one of the things I had a very fledgling podcast, I might resurrect it, just a goofy little anchor thing, but I called it adventure mind, because I like the idea of cultivating an adventure or spirit, an adventure mindset. And two key ingredients to that are being strong and courageous. And if somebody wants to be an adventurer, they don’t have to go out and jump out of airplanes or off buildings or go surfing like I do. They can absolutely-
Jeff Thompson:
Whoa, whoa, you jumped out … You just can’t throw that out there, professional adventurer, you’re jumping out of a building.
Joshua Loya:
Off a building. But it sounds more-
Jeff Thompson:
By choice, by choice.
Joshua Loya:
By choice. Anybody can do this by the way. If you go to the … It was the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, so they have this thing where you go up to the top of the building, and it’s not like I’m just jumping out of random buildings. I’m not trying to be the new real life Spider-Man or anything like that, but if you go up to the top of the Stratosphere Las Vegas, they’ll strap you in, you have a harness so you’re not going to go splat, and you walk out on the end of this ledge, you jump off, and then max your descent at about 45 miles an hour, which is still pretty fast, and it’s 100 stories or something up there. It’s quite the adrenaline rush for sure. It’s actually a pretty gentle landing. So it’s a little different than say bungee jumping where you get jerked back. So if you actually have a back issue, you’re probably safer doing that, but for me, doing something like that, I love stuff like that. I haven’t been skydiving for a while, so I got to do that again.
Jeff Thompson:
What was that like? I mean in a nutshell, jumping out of a perfectly-
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, we’ll get back to the [crosstalk] in a minute of course, but what was skydiving like or what was jumping off the Stratosphere like?
Jeff Thompson:
Oh my gosh, either one. Like they say it’s a perfectly good plane and you jumped out. That free falling, that feel.
Joshua Loya:
That guy was nice enough to take me up so I could jump out of it.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go.
Joshua Loya:
Why would I waste that opportunity?
Jeff Thompson:
Your professional adventure, but I think a lot of people who face the challenges of visual impairment, blindness, they’re adventuring and challenging the society that we’re in, because not everything is set up for us, we have to go that extra distance, we have to do out of the box thinking.
Joshua Loya:
We usually do have to work harder. We have to work harder, and sometimes it can be exhausting for sure. And even for me, like I have my moments where I might be willing to go tonight and go train, but you know walking into a Jamba Juice and the person doesn’t want to look up and realize that oh shoot, he can’t read the menu or whatever. That does get frustrating. And I think going back to the needed components for cultivating an adventure mindset, and this is one of the things when I give talks and stuff I talk about this a little bit, is the value of becoming strong and courageous. How do you become strong? We’ll use the lifting weights analogy, and I’ll apply this to the day-to-day life thing in a second. Do you get strong by looking at weights? By reading books about body building? By sniffing the iron smell, the metal smell that’s in the weights? Do you thinking about the molecular structure of the particular materials? No, you get stronger by lifting the weights.
Jeff Thompson:
So much for osmosis, right?
Joshua Loya:
So much, right? And the thing is, what is courage, so being afraid. People think that courage is being fearless. Fearless is not the same thing as being courageous. I cannot be courageous if I’m not afraid. Courage is being afraid and going anyway. There is a value to the fear, because fear helps you know where the edge is. Fear helps you know that somethings coming that you’re not ready for. If I’m standing out in the middle of the street, and a big semis coming, I’m glad that I’m afraid, because I’m afraid that if I stand there, I won’t be there anymore.
Jeff Thompson:
Go splat.
Joshua Loya:
Splat. I’m going to use that fear to motivate me to get out of the way of that car. That being said, there are sometimes our fears are a little bit overactive, and sometimes we don’t feel ready, but one of the things we can do is if we do more difficult things, so do basically be strong, do hard stuff. If you want to be courageous, do scary stuff. The more difficult and scary things you do, it helps develop and forge a resilient spirit, because what’s scary for me, is going to be something different than what’s scary for you. What’s perfectly fine for you, might be something I’m totally afraid of. We don’t know until we dig in to the various layers of our respective personalities, but if I develop resiliency and the ability to be strong and courageous in one area, there’s this odd thing that it does to us, that allows us to realize this isn’t as bad. I got ability here, I have confidence here. I used to suck at that before.
Joshua Loya:
Say for example, if somebody starts lifting weights, just as an example, and I’m not a big weight lifter, I do strength training and stuff, if you realize and you think back, six months ago, I could barely lift up 20 pounds, now I’m whatever I’m lifting. You start seeing that improvement by doing difficult things and scary stuff on purpose. Then it helps develop the resiliency to put into context some of the other stuff we deal with. It doesn’t mean that the discrimination when you walk into a Jamba Juice and they talk to you like you’re mentally in deficit, because you can’t see, it doesn’t mean that doesn’t hurt, but it helps you to realize that maybe it’s not the worst thing you could have to deal with. Does that make sense? Where you do difficult and scary things on purpose and then the other difficult and scary stuff it doesn’t impact you as much, because you’re kind of stronger and more courageous in other areas.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh yeah. You may have traveled eight miles to get to the Jamba Juice, but they discount all that, you’re just the blind person in front of them right there, they don’t realize that you managed to take a train, get on a bus, find the Jamba Juice, all those skills.
Joshua Loya:
By the way, Jamba Juice is not sponsoring this podcast.
Jeff Thompson:
Yet. Yet.
Joshua Loya:
Hey, you know if they want sponsor a blind surfer or martial artist, by all means.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, you know when I first went blind, I did not know what I could do and obviously you’ve taken it upon yourself to find your passions, you were working and teaching accessibility, but that just wasn’t enough. You wanted something more, you found that you wanted to pursue some stuff, so not you’re an instructor, a student of martial arts. What led you to the water? When I hear waves crashing against the rock I say, “That’s powerful. I want to go out there and drift into that, and get slammed up against these rocks.” I don’t do that.
Joshua Loya:
Well, I don’t want to go get slammed up against rocks either.
Jeff Thompson:
There’s the fear factor.
Joshua Loya:
Sure.
Jeff Thompson:
So to overcome that, you have to outsmart that, and figure something out.
Joshua Loya:
Yup, so it’s interesting. I think one of the things that will give a little bit of context, going back to when just before I lost my eyesight, which was in my mid teens, that last six months that I had eyesight, I was so restricted in what I could do. They didn’t want me running or lifting weights, or swimming, or straining myself, and even the smallest task. I got super restless. And so once I eventually did lose my eyesight, there was a little bit of a slingshot effect. And there were moments where I slumped and wasn’t as physical in there, but knowing that previously, surfing wasn’t an option for me, because of just one simple hit to the head could have made me lose my eyesight, now that I don’t have the eyesight, I don’t have to worry about losing it.
Joshua Loya:
It’s sort of this sort of increasing crave for new experiences and things that I would have wanted to do. I grew up in a surf town, but I wasn’t able to surf because of safety concerns. Thankfully, literally the day after my last day at Braille Institute there was a surf event and I was like, “All right, I’m going to go.” It was the local blind surfing event. There’s actually two now in San Diego, there’s one typically in June put on by the Swami Surfing Association, and then the Lions Club of Escondido, they will put on one typically in the fall.
Jeff Thompson:
A blind surfing event.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, where they have people that will take people out into the water, and depending on their various levels of ability a lot of people when they first start, you’re very hand holdy, take you into the shore break, kind of the smaller waves closer to shore, and as people get better you go further out. But I tried it, and I didn’t want to have the experience of people making it really, really easy for me. I really wanted to do it as I put it for real, kind of learn how to do it. So I didn’t want somebody to stand me up and have me ride the board in. I wanted to figure out how to pop up to my feet and stand up and ride the wave in.
Joshua Loya:
Which is to not minimize somebody who’s just trying to go out there an experience the water for the first time. There’s nothing wrong with that everybody starts somewhere. For me I was like, “Okay, this makes sense. All right, this is a doable thing. Okay, the fact there’s a blind surfing event clearly somebody does this.” And there are a few people who do this, and eventually I got to do more of it. Hooked up with a coach who thought I had some talent and kept working with him.
Joshua Loya:
But for me, the beautiful thing about surfing, again going back to when I was talking about Jiu Jitsu, it’s a very, very similar thing of having to pay attention to this thing right now. I can’t pay attention to some lingering thought of somewhere else or whatever. I had to pay, oh the waves coming, I’ve got to paddle for it. It’s time to get up. Let’s make sure I keep my balance. I fell off I got to find my leash and paddle back out so I don’t get slammed by these waves. Let me try for another one. Okay, and paying attention to the roar of the waves so I can surf away from it, and all that kind of stuff. There’s not time, and as much as rocks obviously hurt, the ocean itself, if you’re a halfway decent swimmer and you’re able to … And typically I’ll be out in the water with somebody. I’m not out there by myself, because A, if I go surfing I don’t want to slam into somebody, but two I can’t always feel when the wave is coming. So having somebody spot the wave for me, certainly in a competition, that’s absolutely necessary.
Joshua Loya:
The water doesn’t hurt as much as concrete does. You fall off your board, I guess yeah you could get hit in the head with your board, depending on how challenging the wave conditions are, and I have been hit in the head with my board before. At the same time, most people probably safe. I was in some pretty challenging conditions in a contest when that happened. As long as you can hold your breath, try to stay calm, have a good partner that will look out for your safety. It sounds really scary, but it not the most dangerous thing … It becomes increasingly less dangerous the more adept you are at doing it, if that makes sense.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s really neat that they had that opportunity to you to go explore, and you were in the mindset to say “Hey, let me give this a shot.”
Joshua Loya:
I mean I literally did it as a diversion. Because at the time, I was trying to build on my marital arts experience to let me do Judo see if I can figure that out, and work towards competition. I didn’t do so well in judo competition. I’ve competed a bunch, but for whatever reason surfing worked, and I seemed to be pretty good with that.
Jeff Thompson:
And when you went into surfing, you took the championships.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, my first surf contest, I had been surfing for less than two months, at least with formal training. I had done a couple of those blind surf events, took third in my very first surf contest. U.S. Open Adaptive Surfing Championships back in 2017 it was the first adaptive surf contest to have a cash payout, and last year was the first place winner in the visually impaired category. There was at least one other surfer that had usable eyesight, so that was actually really cool to be able to be a totally blind person beating a partially sighted person surfing. Because there is a distinct advantage, because if you can see a little bit, you can see the lip of the wave and so more techniques and that kind of stuff. I was the U.S. champ 2019 and 2018, and then I got the U.S. Open coming up. It’s kind of a weird thing, because I’m by all comparison a fairly beginner surfer, but I seem to be doing pretty well.
Joshua Loya:
And I love the competition. I want more people to come out and start entering these contests. I know there’s a guy, Brian Shaw’s out there in the Carolina’s and there’s a couple of other people that are out there that surf, and I would love to have multiple heats that I have to surf through in order to keep my first place spot.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s really exciting.
Joshua Loya:
Because for me, it’s about the journey and the challenge, not necessarily about oh look at me, you know?
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, that seems like everything you’ve done. I mean you learn some technology, and then you’re teaching technology. You learned some martial arts, and then you’re teaching it. And now you’re into the surfing. I like your attitude that you want to bring the sport, bring your activities to other people, as much as you enjoy them yourself.
Joshua Loya:
Well, it’s not for me, there becomes a hollowness if you’re just the best at everything and nobody’s challenging you. That goes back to the whole reason I do half of this stuff anyway, is I want the challenge. Does it feel good to lose a competition, not it doesn’t. At the same time, I’m really not competing against other people as much as I am myself and I’m getting better. If other people are competing it forces me to get better. It forces me to up level my game, and you know what, that’s more people that are in the water now, that are getting to experience more of life.
Joshua Loya:
I think we have this attitude, there are a handful of safe occupations for blind people. I think medical transcriptionist is still kind of there, it’s not as lucrative anymore as it used to be, but it’s still there. Blind people, if you’re really go hung and you want to go further you can be a blind lawyer, you can work in technology, you can be a massage therapist or a music teacher. Then it starts to dwindle off. If they want to do something more innovative.
Joshua Loya:
Like Christine Ha she just opened up her first restaurant. You have a bunch of things that blind people can do, there’s no reason why we have to have the safe career path. One of the things in this country that is really kind of fascinating is if somebody wants to do something unique, yeah if you want blind services training, or their support, or if you want department of rehab, or whatever situation you’re in, they tend to want to invest in safe careers. They tend to want to invest in things that have a very clear end and likelihood of success. And there’s nothing wrong with getting a second job.
Joshua Loya:
That being said, if your responsibilities are low, and this is going to seem controversial to some, but why do you have to get a job as long as you are contributing to society and pursuing something. Long term, do you want to make what you’re doing sustainable, and provide with you a means or an income, sure. But if you want to pursue something unique like pursuing martial arts, or pursuing acting or pursuing writing, if somebody wants to write a novel, you don’t need a college degree to write a novel. Obviously I’m not advocating people don’t become educated, or educate themselves, that’s not my point, but I think we’re fortunate enough that as much as the safety nets that we have in this country may not quite be as significant as we want them to be, certainly the U.S. and I know other developed countries have similar things like Australia has a pretty support for people who are visually impaired as far as economically speaking, if you have those opportunities, consider that as an opportunity to pursue something a little different. Pursue something maybe a little bit less safe.
Joshua Loya:
I think people who have or receive some kind of disability benefits, you have that opportunity to think a little bit outside the box. Now, maybe it’s not enough, and maybe you have children, and obviously that changes the dynamic for sure. My wife and I don’t have any children. For when I decided to quit my job, and I wasn’t rich, but I had decent medical coverage, and it was pretty stable, my wife can agree to go along on that journey with me, because she’s an adult, she can make the choice like okay, things are going to be lean for a little while, we’ll kind of figure it out as we go. She can make that choice. If I had a child, that child couldn’t make that choice. That wouldn’t be fair to say a three or four year old say, “All right, daddy’s not going to go to work anymore, so you’re going to get Top Ramen for dinner three nights a week.” Or whatever it is. You can’t do that if you’re an athlete.
Joshua Loya:
I think when we are so absorbed with safety, and for many of us sometimes, we come from a difficult background. Some of us are the victim of abuse, whether it’s because of our blindness or otherwise, or maybe that’s a result of our abuse. It can be very scary to do something different, that’s not safe. We’re all individual people. We have different personalities, different strengths, different interests. If my life has to look like yours, I mean Jeff, you’re a cool guy, but we have different interests. We have different personalities. I’m way more interested in the debate between Captain Kirk and Picard than some people. Or I like spicy food, and you may like your coffee with cream and sugar. I like mine black.
Joshua Loya:
Those differences can also help to guide our life choices. One screen reader isn’t better than another, it just might happen to do what we need it to do, and if we want to pursue a particular method of living our life, as long as it’s not hurting other people and it’s not hurting us, then let’s check that out and see if that’s a doable thing. Maybe that’s actually going to be the genesis of something way bigger if it isn’t just going to affect us, it might affect a whole bunch of people and help to break that perception of you mean a blind person can do this thing? Oh you mean that bling guys doing that thing, maybe I can give it a shot. We don’t know what type of impact we’re going to have on people, and if we do something that’s good for us, good for people around us, I don’t know, I don’t like playing it safe.
Joshua Loya:
I don’t like society having to stay a certain way. Blind people can only do these things, and if a blind person decides to go off and do standup comedy for a living or I don’t know, I’ve never been satisfied with things being safe in the sense that it has to fit. And maybe that’s because I was raised by hippies and punk rockers, I don’t know. Because there’s a little bit of that. But do you think that, and maybe I’m going to throw this back to you, the interviewee interviewing the interviewer, do you think that there’s this pressure for blind people to be safe because you better hold onto that job, you may not get another one.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, I do think as you mentioned, you got to evoke rehab when you have counselors and stuff, they want a success, so success to them says, “Hey, we’ll put him down this channel, this pathway.” What you’re really saying is if you got the opportunity to pursue a passion why not do it. It may not be safe, but you’re going to challenge yourself and those things will transition or skills that can transfer into other jobs, opportunities and the people you meet, the experience you get. You’re collecting data as you’re going down these journeys, these paths. And some people look at people like oh they climb Kilimanjaro, or oh they’re the surfer champion, or they’re this and that, and they think of these people as these one item deals. These one person entities that they’re freaks of nature, but actually it’s just that you saw that they’re having an event for surfing, and you showed up.
Jeff Thompson:
Then you pursued it a little bit further. Or in martial arts, you wanted to try it and you went back, then you went back, and you just kept fulfilling this desire to learn and to gain from it, and then you turned around and people are looking at you like oh you’re a freak of nature. Technically, you’re just pursuing your dreams, and your goals, and feeling satisfied.
Joshua Loya:
And while I will say that everyone has their talents, and I might have a talent in a particular direction, there’s nothing magical about what I’ve done that prevents somebody else from doing the same thing or something similar. A black belt is just a white belt that kept going. If somebody else trained as much as I did, and was inclined to do what I did, they could have multiple black belts, they could be a surfing champion. Yeah, I’m very forthcoming in talking about my accomplishments, but it’s not because I think I’m better than anybody. Anybody could do what I did if they put in the same work.
Jeff Thompson:
It seems to me that you worked a lot at anything that you wanted to do. You were a musician, you were in a band, whatever you seem to pursue or have an inkling to do, you kind of give it a shot, give it a try, and you commit yourself to do it. I think the drive, when I was teaching, I would have hundreds of students. When I would find those students that had that drive, that they don’t want the fish, they want to know how you caught the fish, and what works best. That’s fun teaching then, because you’re just jogging alongside them as they’re on their journey, and then you pass a baton and they go off and you hear back from them later. I like people with drive, and it seems like you have a lot of that. You may be more talented in something you haven’t even tried yet.
Joshua Loya:
It’s possible. That being said, I do want to make sure that I touch on this, because I think there’s the perception that I have it all figured out, and I really want to peel back the layer just a little bit further if you don’t mind. I was given the nickname Joshua the Jedi, it’s not something I took for myself, though certainly somebody gives me that nickname, I’ll own it. And I am fairly confident in my abilities, and I’ve done a lot, and I get a chance to share life principles, and talk and do all these things.
Joshua Loya:
That being said, I have dark days just as similar as other people. I’ve even posted on social media, a couple years ago I was diagnosed with PTSD, and not from my blindness, just from some childhood trauma and stuff. And so I’ve figured out some coping mechanisms for that, and I have some strategies for that. That being said, there are times when I have really dark periods where it is a struggle just to get up out of bed. If somebody is depressed, if somebody is dealing with dark thoughts, or is the survivor of say child abuse, like I’m an adult survivor of child abuse. My mom not so much, this is actually specifically my step mom. I’ve talked about that a little bit online, so this isn’t revelations or anything.
Joshua Loya:
Somebody’s not less than because they haven’t found a coping mechanism that works. Somebody’s not less than because they haven’t found a way to get past a particular trauma. I really want to make sure I underpin that yet, I have a lot of accomplishments, yes I have a pretty awesome set of things that I get to do, I’m still figuring a lot of it out. Certainly I’m still hustling like everybody to find a way to bring in enough money for gas, and food and all that kind of stuff. And I have dark days too.
Joshua Loya:
I don’t want to give the misperception that yeah, I have drive. But I really want to underpin the importance of being kind to ourselves when we struggle, because even those of us who have had some level of success have some pretty dark days, and need to bounce back, and we need to reach out and have friends in our lives too.
Jeff Thompson:
Josh, I’m excited to have you on the show, and I’m not trying to close it out here, but what I want to say is it’s really neat to hear from someone who has such accomplishments, and is willing to talk about that. Sometimes the tires flat, or you know that metaphor. It doesn’t always look as good as it does in the articles or on a podcast sometimes. You challenged yourself many times, and you succeeded, and I like how you do speaking engagements, you talk about successes and you share the knowledge to everybody. It’s really neat that you’re out there giving people opportunity to learn of your story, you’re here on the podcast talking about it. And it’s not all glory, you didn’t even say your trophies and stuff, you’re more or less talking about your journey.
Jeff Thompson:
And I think that’s really good because we need people to come off that pedestal that seems like society puts people on, their elitist, but to come back down and talk to people, just sometimes getting your books for college, and making it to your class is Mount Everest to someone. Those little challenges, and then they go on to the next level, the next level and stuff. And right then their focus is succeeding in that. So seeing that you succeeded in your passions, and you’re working doing what you’re doing, your job is part of your passion, it’s like the whole package there, and yet you’re pretty humble to it too.
Joshua Loya:
Thank you, I appreciate that. And to me, humility is about an accurate perception of yourself. And not to say that I don’t have times of arrogance. I do, I’m sure, because we can all get cocky when we have a big accomplishment.
Jeff Thompson:
On Twitter too.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, sometimes too. That being said, maybe this will help somebody who’s struggling, my definition of humility that I use, and I learned this from my Kempo instructor Scott Conway, is thinking accurately of yourself. Don’t think any higher of yourself, that’s arrogance, and even thinking less of yourself, that sort of false humility. I’m scum, I’ve always been scum. That’s also arrogance, but in a different direction. Most people don’t think of that as arrogance. There’s a difference between me interrupting somebody their first time surfing and saying, “Hey, by the way I’m a multiple time national champion.” That’s not an appropriate time for me to mention that. But if somebody asks, “What are your surfing accomplishments?” And I tell them, then that is perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with me talking about that.
Joshua Loya:
I need to realize that I have this accomplishment and be thankful for it, and realize where I am, and realize I have room for growth. That is my definition of humility. When I have that, it’s not perfect, obviously, but it does keep me from thinking that I don’t stink. I sweat enough and I work out enough, of course I’m going to have body odor. Just because I do something doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be without flaws. Or you know what I mean.
Jeff Thompson:
Is it tough not being you? It’s like some people think that you always have to be that person at that time, but you’re just a real person.
Joshua Loya:
I struggled with that actually for a little while. When I first started speaking, because I came to a realization a few years ago that I can’t be a private person, I’ve tried, and even amongst blind people, people tend to notice that I’m there, and maybe it’s just my personality or whatever. So maybe I share a little bit more, and I started feeling this huge, huge pressure to be perfect all the time, because people saw the martial artist, they saw the guy who’s doing all the things. I went through a period probably about a year and a half ago where I felt like I had to be on all the time, and then I just realized, you know what, that’s not helping anybody.
Joshua Loya:
And maybe it was around the time that Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington, when they both committed suicide, very soon one after the other, they looked like they had it all together, both in successful rock bands, both very talented musicians. Chris Cornell one of the greatest vocalists of our age, possibly of all time, and yet it got dark and he had his moments. And when people and not to speak to their experiences, I wasn’t in their head, I can’t know that, but when somebody feels like they’re alone and that other people don’t struggle, they don’t feel like there’s the room to move forward. I realized that the biggest way that I could help other people is by not trying to be perfect, and being honest.
Joshua Loya:
If you look at my Facebook Live videos, or the handful of YouTube videos that I put up, there’s typically very little editing, and maybe that’s because in part, I don’t like editing stuff and there’s something to that, but also I like showing the imperfections. I like showing that sometimes I stammer, sometimes I get words wrong, sometimes I mumble. And I think it shows people that you don’t have to be perfect. It’s not about whether you fall, it’s about what you do when you do. You fall down seven times, get back up keep going. And that, it sounds trite, but it’s true. If you get back up, then there’s some really awesome stuff you can do if you just keep pursuing what it is you’re passionate about. What makes you feel alive, then you go from there.
Jeff Thompson:
I like that. What makes you feel alive. All these accomplishments, living life every day, what are some of your go to tools that you use for accessibility?
Joshua Loya:
I live a lot on my iPhone. Quite a bit. I use it for reading, I use it for communication. Even more so, I have an iPad, I have a Mac with Windows and Mac OS installed on it, but oddly enough I tend to use my iPhone for a lot of things, and that makes a big difference.
Joshua Loya:
I lost my eyesight later in life, so I don’t read braille as fast as some people do. I do use it from time to time, but I can’t read nearly as fast in braille as I would pref to, so I do a lot of voice stream reader and audio books for a lot of my reading.
Jeff Thompson:
I saw a post that you posted, and I’m sorry about your guide dog.
Joshua Loya:
Oh, thank you.
Jeff Thompson:
That must have been a moment for you.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, yeah. I mean for anybody who’s had a guide dog, whether they worked for you for a year or in my case, Hobs worked for me for almost eight.
Jeff Thompson:
Eight years.
Joshua Loya:
That was a bit of a rough transition for sure.
Jeff Thompson:
So you had to get back to a cane, or are you in line for another dog?
Joshua Loya:
I don’t know what my life is going to look like here. I have a couple of things that are in the works that might cause me to have reason to travel to places where maybe a guide dogs not really the best situation. So I would really like to go to Bali and China and stuff, but I don’t know how soon that’s likely to be. So I’m not sure yet. I’ll kind of reevaluate in another couple of weeks here to kind of figure out whether I’m going to get another one, but I’m caning for the foreseeable future, at least for a little while.
Jeff Thompson:
What was it like to pull back and be 100% caning it?
Joshua Loya:
My dog was halfway retired a little bit, so he was probably three quarters time. He started developing some separating anxiety, so I was having an occasional time walking out with a cane, so I was able to keep my cane skills relatively sharp, but walking long routes was a little bit on the tricky side, and certainly unfamiliar areas. And I’m fortunate enough to be an IRA explorer, and certainly IRA has been a huge help. Not long ago, in fact it was the day I came back from the airport, he lives up in Washington State now, and I’m down in San Diego. After I got home, I went out and kind of did some things to help myself relax. And I hadn’t walked the particular route home that I took, even with a dog for close to 10 years, and then lining up this particular intersection, it’s a little bit wonky where the light poles nowhere near where the actual crosswalk is, and if you cross wrong you walk out in the middle of the middle of the four way intersection rather than across the street. I’m sure we’ve all had experiences like that.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh yeah.
Joshua Loya:
One of the neat things is, I didn’t have my horizon glasses with me, but I did have my phone, and I was able to use with the assistance of an IRA agent, I was able to line up, find the light pole, line up the crossing and then of course they don’t generally talk to you while you’re walking across the street, but I was able to line up that extremely difficult crossing with a dog or with a cane, this time with a cane, and it’s funny. When you have those additional tools, you kind of forget about them, and then you go, “Oh yeah, I have this additional thing in my toolbox.” In this case it was IRA and it made a huge difference. And I think that for people who are interested in kind of finding a tool to help line up, I mean right now IRAs free for five minutes and all that kind of stuff. You can line up a crossing with that. So it’s really neat to have all these tools.
Joshua Loya:
One of the things that I’ve said, and I think other blind people have said similar things, being blind sucks, don’t get me wrong. There are definitely some things where all things being equal, would I prefer to be able to see? Probably, but if I had to be blind, we live in probably one of the greatest times in all of history to be in that particular situation. We have dogs, we have canes, we have IRA, we have multiple ways of accessing books, even books published on the same day. We have all that. And being thankful for those, it goes back to being able to have the extra strength to keep moving forward in the face of adversity a little bit.
Jeff Thompson:
We also have Jamba Juice.
Joshua Loya:
We do have Jamba Juice. Oh, you know we don’t have Jamba Juice anymore.
Jeff Thompson:
It’s gone.
Joshua Loya:
They changed the name, it’s just Jamba.
Jeff Thompson:
Jamba.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, I don’t know, they’re either taking a page out of Dunkin Donuts. Dunkin Donuts isn’t Dunkin Donuts anymore it’s just Dunkin. Jamba Juice isn’t Jamba Juice, it’s Jamba.
Jeff Thompson:
They’re just shortening everything. We just did that on our last podcast, shortening of words. They even did it to Jamba Juice.
Joshua Loya:
As long as you don’t call me a snowflake we’re good.
Jeff Thompson:
You know, you mentioned that five minutes, it’s not just five minutes anymore so you can take pictures, you can call a cab, Uber, Lyft to get assistance like that.
Joshua Loya:
I mean it’s still I think for five minutes before it starts counting against your minutes, but the functionality isn’t limited at all.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, when it first happened everyone made comments about this, but now they did this extra effort, and it’s like a lot of these people, they’re not eating their words, but it’s like okay.
Joshua Loya:
There are some people you will never be able to satisfy, and I don’t think this is a blind thing, but I think often times, people in our community, we are particularly used to people not living up to what they say they’re going to do or we’re used to getting the short end of the stick so to speak. So I think there’s this propensity towards complaining when we have something awesome. And maybe it’s because a lot of people have a tendency to over promise and under deliver, but so far, and I’m not just saying this, because if you go to my Twitter profile there’s a pinned Tweet where you can use my IRA code, wink, wink.
Joshua Loya:
In all seriousness though, I think that even if I hadn’t had any kind of cooperation with IRA directly, they are so far more delivering than what they’re promising. I think a lot of people, we have this tendency to over promise, then we don’t deliver, and then we get jaded. I don’t know. I think we like to complain in our community especially, and I think people like to complain, and when something works, let’s find out what is good about it before we start complaining about what’s not good, and maybe that’s a particular bias I have, but it’s why I have and I have a tendency to go philosophical really quick, but it’s why I have friends that are rabid, extreme progressives, and I have friends that are MAGA lovers, and so now there are certain conversations we cannot have, but there are certain points of connection we can have.
Joshua Loya:
Like I do Jiu Jitsu with a bunch of people that one guy is really rabidly anti Trump, another guy is super, super conservative. You just find those points of connection. Going back to, reeling it back in beyond that sort of thing, people like to complain and maybe we just let IRA breathe a little bit, so we can actually experience the tool that they can be to us.
Jeff Thompson:
You know, Pete Lane and I we got connected with IRA back in I think it was 2016 and we did a podcast about this up and coming company. A lot of people were saying, “It’s for the rich. It’s an elitist type of thing. It’s not for everyone.” But as you mentioned, they’re offering a lot more. The value has been growing, and growing and growing. And then they started switching the prices, and now they offer the five minute. I’m talking them up, what I’m doing is I’ve seen this journey, and each day or every time we talk to IRA or someone from IRA or even right now, we’re adding another little piece to it. There’s just more added to it of what it can do.
Joshua Loya:
Well, you’re recognizing when somebody does something that works and is helpful why not highlight that.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah.
Joshua Loya:
The same thing, like I’m sure when NVDA started blossoming and its functionality, 15 years ago it was nowhere near where it needed to be. Now, it’s a very worthwhile competition to the shark in the water.
Jeff Thompson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah it is. It’s neat to see where it’s going. Like you said, it’s a great time to be blind.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, if you had to be.
Jeff Thompson:
I remember when I was teaching and all of a sudden the students came in and they were using the shark in the water since they first got a keyboard or note taker, and they’re reading 300 words per minute in braille, you couldn’t even understand their … And yet, they never made a sandwich. So there’s still challenges they had to meet, but the times are changing and it’s a great time to be in this world of technology. It’s exciting, it’s exciting for everybody that’s in the blindness community to be able to access information.
Joshua Loya:
Would it be okay if I step on my soapbox just for a moment?
Jeff Thompson:
Sure, we got soapboxes in this podcast.
Joshua Loya:
Maybe we can make a car out of them afterwards. One of the things I really want to speak to this, and this was largely inspired, and unfortunately I can’t think of the exact post, and maybe it’s several posts that Sassy Atwater, is it Atwater, or Outwater, I don’t know how to pronounce her last name.
Jeff Thompson:
Atwater.
Joshua Loya:
Thank you. And I think she speaks to this really, really well. These are my words now, not hers. I don’t want to mischaracterize her. We have to stop shaming people for the tools they choose to use, and for how they use the tools that they use. I saw a lot of people complaining and getting grumbly about blind people using five minutes from IRA for what they deemed as a task that isn’t worthy enough of their time. You know what? I don’t care what somebody uses their five minutes for. Whether they are paying for them or not. It’s not my place to say I’m a better blind person than you are. Other people read braille way faster than I do, and that’s why I tend to use audio books and voice stream for most of my reading. That doesn’t make me better, and when we start telling somebody, “Oh you’re not a real blind person.”
Joshua Loya:
I mean look, when I got my job, working at the braille institute several years ago, I Tweeted something about how I was having car trouble and needing to get a new car, and something about my sighted wife drives it. I had somebody Tweet at me, “Oh new job, new car, sighted wife, pass in your blind card on your way out.” We have to stop shaming people for not fitting a particular picture of what it looks like to be blind, or what their particular tool set is. And how they decide to use that. We don’t like it when sighted people tell us how we need to live our lives, we shouldn’t be doing it to each other. And we just basically got to stop it, it’s not okay. And if we just try to understand each other, know what alternatives exist, then maybe we can actually get something done, instead of fighting with each other about oh NFBs better, ACBs better, or neither are better.
Joshua Loya:
You look at the hearing impaired and deaf community. They’re so much more unified, and I’m sure there are factions within them too, but if there were more understanding and appreciation of our differences and stop with the shaming of not measuring up of what you think a blind person’s supposed to be or do or have, then maybe we can get something done, and not have government websites that are inaccessible, and not have to worry about suing Dominoes, because they want to spend thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars fighting whether or not something has to be accessible. If we would stop shaming each other for the way we choose to live and help each other instead, maybe it would be even better to be blind. That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong. It’s what it is. Thank you Dennis, whatever your name was that used to say that. I can’t remember.
Jeff Thompson:
It’s true. It’s true. We got to stop fighting within the bubble. It seems like the focus gets turned internal, then reaching out and striving to climb the next challenge, or do whatever you want to do, but if we keep on picking on each other, it’s just a waste of time. That’s why I choose to stay out of certain conversations or why I choose to just pursue what I’m doing because I’m busy, and you’re doing, you’re filling a passion.
Joshua Loya:
Well, and the groups that you and I are on together online I see that when you comment you’re measured in your responses. Probably more so than I am, as much as I say we have to stop shaming each other, if you follow me on Twitter I’m considerably more unfiltered there than I am on Facebook.
Jeff Thompson:
We have to have our spots. Some people go fishing, and they get to relax and do that type of stuff. Some people go to Twitter and they get to release a little bit. You’re a name out there, and your name on Twitter?
Joshua Loya:
Servant Warrior.
Jeff Thompson:
I like that name, Servant Warrior.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, thank you. The idea is we want to be strong, and we want to be selfless. So servant, we want to serve other people and warrior is usually a symbol of strength, but we don’t want to just beat people up, so that’s why you have to temper it with the service to other people.
Jeff Thompson:
And you’re doing a great job of it.
Joshua Loya:
Thank you.
Jeff Thompson:
You’re open for speaking at engagements? I went to your website. I did a little research on you, and you’re doing a whole bunch a lot of stuff. If people want to invite you to speak, where would they go?
Joshua Loya:
JoshuatheJedi.com.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s easy enough.
Joshua Loya:
Yup.
Jeff Thompson:
All right, well Joshua, want to thank you for such a great conversation.
Joshua Loya:
Yeah, it’s been good.
Jeff Thompson:
About your journey, your life, your life’s journey, your journey of life. And like you said, “Make life fun.”
Joshua Loya:
Indeed.
Jeff Thompson:
Thank you very much for taking the time to come onto Blind Abilities.
Joshua Loya:
Thanks.
Jeff Thompson:
Thanks.
Jeff Thompson:
Such a great time talking to Joshua the Jedi Loya. You can follow him on Twitter at Servant Warrior, and on the web at JoshuatheJedi.com. And to keep up with all of Joshua’s latest events follow him on Facebook at Joshua the Jedi. A big shout out goes out to Chi Chow for his beautiful music, and you can follow Chi Chow on Twitter at El Chi Chow, Chi Chow, Chi Chow, and most of all I want to thank you the listener. Thank you for listening, hope you enjoyed, and until next time, bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
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*****
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