If you’re the type of person who loves committing acts of violence while seated, boy do I have the sport for you. Arizona State has started up a wheelchair fencing league, because even immobile people like to pretend to stab each other for sport every once in awhile. You never know when the situation will arise when you’re sitting in a chair and somebody lunges at you with a pointy sword, and when that day comes you’d better be prepared. These people are. From the Arizona State Press:
Arizona’s first seated fencing team, created in January 2009, has given some with disabilities a chance to promote exercise and health when they may not have many other options, said Lauri Alexander, a board member of the Grand Canyon Seated Fencing Foundation.
ASU students and other fencers practice seated fencing because it helps them to develop faster reflexes. The exercise challenges them because they are never allowed to fence a seated fencer while they are standing, so they cannot back away from the their opponent to think about their strategy, Colcisca said. Seated fencers range from those who were born with severe disabilities to those with minor injuries that affect agility, said Pia Douglas, secretary for the seated fencing foundation.
“It’s really fun stabbing at folks,” said 58-year-old Sonya Perduta, a team member and certified rehabilitation nurse, won the silver medal and the bronze medal at the 2010 Atlanta Summer National Championships and she said that she hopes to qualify for the 2012 Paralympics in London.
I never knew a 58-year-old paraplegic and Los Angeles gang bangers would have something in common. She’ll stab you and then carefully nurse the wounds she created back to health, and all in the name of fun! What a world.
Another fencer, 19-year-old Jacob Driscoll, has brittle bone syndrome and Alexander said when he started fencing he couldn’t hold the weapons for more than a few minutes. Now he fences for two hours at a time.
A kid with brittle bone syndrome who spends his free time fencing? Now that’s a sentence that’ll send a shiver down the spines of health care providers around the globe.
– Josiah Schlatter
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Seated fencers takes a stab at competition [State Press]
