How can blind people play sports?

VICTA Changemakers
Blindness Awareness Month

This article is about sports and how visually impaired or blind people play them. There lots of different kind of sports VI people play such as football, goalball, baseball and much more. They can be played through sound, communication and connection.

There are different levels of VI classification which participants can take part in – for example B1 is for someone who cannot see at all, B2 means they can see little bit, B3 is someone who can see bit more and B4 is someone who is partially sighted. You can find details descriptions on classifications here: britishblindsport.org.uk/sightclassifications.

I do mixed martial arts (MMA) and am visually impaired. You do not need sight to take part, again it can be accessed through sound, connection and the feel of your opponent and their footsteps which tell you where they are. I have a passion for it and want to complete one day as a pro visually impaired MMA female.

This video shows me at a training session and I explain a it more about the sport!

I also love going to the gym – as we know there are lots if benefits such as it being good for your health, and mentally it is good as it releases happy chemicals. I go to the gym with my PA but the way I use gym might be different to other VI people. As I have been going for a few years I have learnt the layout. On days when I have a personal training and if we are doing something new, they will demo it or will get another PT to do a demo so I can feel the technique and they will explain it to me so I know what to do.