My first blog :)

So, here it is, my first blog - you might ask why? I often do!! But I thought that now would be a good time to start charting my progression in judo so that  I can look back in the future and see what I accomplished, what difficulties I overcame and the fun I had along the way!

Im 15 years old (1996) and live in Lincolnshire. I started judo at the age of 6 and have competed regularly since then. I am currently a brown belt, and also a Gold standard junior referee and timekeeper.

In Oct 11, I was selected to join the England cadet Judo squad and have been loving it ever since!

Now, all that is fine and dandy, but life also threw me one heck of a curveball in the diagnosis of a condition called Ushers Syndrome. Its pretty rare (which makes me special!!), and basically means that I am profoundly deaf, and also have a degenerative eye condition. I currently have only 10 degrees of vision (central) and no peripheral vision at all (which as you can imagine is a bit of a challenge when it comes to judo!). I have no vision at all in low light/darkness and suffer from glare blindness in bright light! What a great combination eh!!!

So whilst I compete in mainstream competitions, I am actually a B3 competitor which means I can compete in the VI (Visually Impaired) judo side of things. I am currently in touch with the Paralympic judo manger, and the 'dream' outcome is that I get to compete in 2016 and onwards in the Olympics!! Of course that will not happen overnight, I've got a lot to learn, and a lot of fitness to improve on!! Its gonna be tough but I want to show that having this condition does not mean that I cant do anything!! I want to smash that negative ideal and have a great big cherry on the top of it :)