Day 13

I heard a lot of "upper hand" being called out to me. This is in reference to upper hand and forearm technique, which is a protective measure where you place your hand palm out in front of your shoulder or modified upper hand and forearm which is where you place your hand palm out in front of your face. When someone says "upper hand" we generally assume the modified position to protect the face from obstacles. Here's why I heard it all morning.

I had a lot of obstacles in my way today. Lets talk a minute about crosswalks. Please don't park in them. Let me show you why.

My cane picking up the drop off.

Properly lined up and listening for traffic as my instructor watches, ready to stop me if I make a mistake and try to walk out in front of a car. See how his hand is at the ready?

This is my view of the crossing. Note the ladder sticking out from the back of the truck directly in my path ON the crosswalk?

Here I am making a perfect textbook crossing. I am completely unaware of the ladder.

Right before I would have run into the ladder I hear "let's see that upper hand" and it totally saved my nose from smacking into the ladder. I slowly worked my way around it mumbling about negligent people the whole time.

If I hadn't had any warning, I would have ran right into those things. When you travel under blindfold, you actually walk at a regular pace in order to travel in more of a straight line. Going slow you have more opportunity to veer and potentially get into trouble. Learning to cross streets I heard "hustle, hustle hustle!" behind me. Not only do you want to avoid veering by traveling at a good pace, you want to get the heck out of the road!

On the sidewalk there is a very large sign with another large sign underneath it. It is huge, and in the way. If you cannot see it, you will run your face right into it.

My instructor told me "upper hand" so I could avoid hitting this sign with my face. Notice how it is surrounded by sidewalk. How would you ever know it was there?

Well, I lived to see another day. The campers went to Lake Nacogdoches and went swimming, boating and tubing. We went out to the middle of the lake and the kids just jumped out of the boat with their life jackets on. I don't even do that! Talk about not letting a disability hold you back!