Martial Attitude Voice

#193: Blindness, confidence, and spatial navigation - Juliette and Dominic (Part 1)

Episode Summary

The nuances of touch can be both a supportive and occasionally intrusive element in the lives of blind or visually impaired people, especially in public spaces. My MSc in Applied Sport Psychology research premise is that for blind individuals, uninvited or unexpected touch can be particularly distressing since it lacks the visual cues sighted people use to anticipate and contextualize physical interactions. This led me to propose training to build confidence in "touch exchange"—a practice aimed at enhancing comfort in crowded environments where incidental touch is frequent. Juliette responds by explaining his personal experiences, noting that she has become comfortable with receiving help from others, even accepting some degree of unsolicited physical guidance. She also points out that his proactive and outgoing nature likely aids his adaptability in these situations, which contrasts with the experience of others who might feel a loss of independence or discomfort when needing assistance. The whole conversation with Juliette and Dominic captured the personalized nature of confidence and support in visually impaired individuals' interactions, where personal history, personality, and relationship dynamics influence how individuals navigate social and physical spaces. Eventually, their lived experiences suggest that the need for touch, or its effects, can be as individual as one’s unique journey with visual impairment.

Episode Notes

The nuances of touch can be both a supportive and occasionally intrusive element in the lives of blind or visually impaired people, especially in public spaces. My MSc in Applied Sport Psychology research premise is that for blind individuals, uninvited or unexpected touch can be particularly distressing since it lacks the visual cues sighted people use to anticipate and contextualize physical interactions. This led me to propose training to build confidence in "touch exchange"—a practice aimed at enhancing comfort in crowded environments where incidental touch is frequent.

Juliette responds by explaining his personal experiences, noting that she has become comfortable with receiving help from others, even accepting some degree of unsolicited physical guidance. She also points out that his proactive and outgoing nature likely aids his adaptability in these situations, which contrasts with the experience of others who might feel a loss of independence or discomfort when needing assistance.

The whole conversation with Juliette and Dominic captured the personalized nature of confidence and support in visually impaired individuals' interactions, where personal history, personality, and relationship dynamics influence how individuals navigate social and physical spaces. Eventually, their lived experiences suggest that the need for touch, or its effects, can be as individual as one’s unique journey with visual impairment.

Episode Transcription

Mathias Alberton (00:01.026)

Hello everyone, this is Mathias Alberton. I'm the creator of Martial Attitude. This is Martial Attitude Voice, as we know. This is a podcast about discipline, how different sports disciplines can teach us something on how to live better our daily lives. And you know that as a trainee sports psychologist, after a master in applied sports psychologist, working and researching about vision impairment, confidence, touch... and participation in physical activities. I have developed a training program called the Martial Attitude Training, which I deliver every week on Sunday in central London with a group of vision impaired and blind people and whoever wants to participate. if you're vision impaired or blind or you know someone who is and wish to keep in touch, please do so. I would be more than happy to meet you and to train with you. 

And for my research project for the Masters, I actually pulled out a series of interviews with visually impaired and blind people, and I'm going to publish them in the following weeks. We are now around the end of October 2024. And I wanted to keep going, so to have more conversations about this topic with other people. And as it happened, I started the martial arts tutor training program at the beginning of September 2024. And I have worked so far for several weeks with incredible people. Two of them are with us with me today on the podcast. And I can welcome Juliet and Dominic. Ciao guys, how do you do?

 

Juliette and Dominic (01:52.175)

Bye. Hello.

 

Mathias Alberton (01:54.198)

All good? Yeah. Weekend has been great. Now, this is very strange. I know that people who are listening to this might be somewhere out of London, but, you know, London in this period of the year is not exactly Sunnyland, but today is absolutely wonderful. So it's really, it doesn't even feel like autumn, but quite rather spring. So I'm quite happy. Happy to be with you. Thank you very much for being here.

 

Juliette and Dominic (01:55.405)

Yeah, you all right?

 

Mathias Alberton (02:24.302)

For the audience listening, so I am online with two people. Juliette, she is young and she is blind and her partner Domine. And they came together to martial arts training in September. Juliette, how old are you?

 

Juliette and Dominic (02:46.784)

I am 32.

 

Mathias Alberton (02:48.68)

And do you work?

 

Juliette and Dominic (02:51.119)

Yes, I do work full time at a charity.

 

Mathias Alberton (02:53.92)

Okay, what do you do?

 

Juliette and Dominic (02:56.117)

I work, I do youth participation at a charity for blind and partially sighted young people.

 

Mathias Alberton (03:02.44)

You have done this for a time?

 

Juliette and Dominic (03:04.623)

About a year, a year and a bit now. Yeah, I used to work for a local authority in London. used to teach Braille and assistive technology to VR kids in schools.

 

Mathias Alberton (03:06.742)

And before that, we're doing something else.

 

Mathias Alberton (03:18.703)

And you are blind. Have you been blind all your life since birth?

 

Juliette and Dominic (03:25.803)

And so I was born with a visual impairment and I kind of all-right-ish vision and then in my mid-twenties my vision started to get worse and about three years ago I lost all of the rest of my vision.

 

Mathias Alberton (03:41.546)

And if I may ask, how was the transition for you?

 

Juliette and Dominic (03:48.751)

it was difficult in lot of ways but not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. It wasn't a massive surprise in the end when I lost all of my sight so I was kind of ready for it which I think always helps. But it was quite hard, I had to sort of learn my way to around my local area again which was quite weird but I was like kind of up for it, I didn't want to be stuck inside so I was like well I've got if I want to go anywhere I'm gonna have to do this.  But it was hard sometimes and I think even still sometimes you just you get really tired and it's yeah, it's not always the easiest.

 

Mathias Alberton (04:26.243)

tired of getting used to things or how to do things or the timing of doing things? What do mean about that?

 

Juliette and Dominic (04:35.503)

More like just mentally tired, it just takes more energy to pay attention to your surroundings when you don't have the option of doing it visually. Tiring in that you've essentially got to walk around whacking a stick into stuff if you're going anywhere by yourself and that can be quite a lot of effort. Like it's just more, you've got to pay a lot more attention and like you can do it but it definitely, it uses up a little bit more energy I always think.

 

Mathias Alberton (05:05.838)

It is interesting because I now think about a piece of conversation I did have with one of the participants during my study and this person told me, know, blind people don't even take a stroll. I mean, it's too fatiguing, it's too much mental effort. So it doesn't happen casually. So...

 

Juliette and Dominic (05:25.486)

Yeah.

 

Juliette and Dominic (05:30.253)

Yeah, I would agree with that completely. Yeah, I wouldn't just go off for a walk around the park. would honestly, couldn't be bothered. It would be a lot of effort to do that by myself.

 

Mathias Alberton (05:40.146)

And as we have here your partner, for Dominic, how was the transition on your side? Because you were together already at the time, wasn't it?

 

Juliette and Dominic (05:53.986)

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I try not to make it about me, frankly. yeah, I mean, it was hard. We had to just sort of do a lot more things that you take for granted when you can see everything just preparing routes and things like that that you don't. Yeah, you don't you don't really think about as being a thing you would have to spend any effort on.

 

Mathias Alberton (06:01.271)

Hmm.

 

Juliette and Dominic (06:24.335)

So yeah, it's an interesting one to go back to first principles and think, no, if you can't see, then you really just need to go back to... How do you walk in a straight line? Real basics of the... You just don't think about.

 

Mathias Alberton (06:39.746)

This is, for me, is particularly interesting and I don't want to be poking you but it's really interesting meaning that we have one person who lost her sight and therefore the world changed meaning that the approach to reality has changed because I need to, let's say...

 

Juliette and Dominic (06:50.415)

Hmm.

 

Mathias Alberton (07:09.366)

I'm not intending to joke around, but I need to visualize what I remember was a curb, was a step, was a chair, was a table, was a spoon, was a fork. And on the other hand, instead, I have one person talking to me right now that out of necessity, because of the occasion, started to...

 

Juliette and Dominic (07:13.647)

Mm.

 

Mathias Alberton (07:36.818)

look at things twice as much, because programming, whatever you imagine, wouldn't have been seen by the other one. It's quite interesting, so I'm really interested in unpacking this, if you don't mind too much. And I understand that Dominik wants to downplay a bit, out of respect for Juliet, but it's really interesting

 

Juliette and Dominic (07:54.393)

Hmm. Yeah.

 

Juliette and Dominic (08:02.667)

haha

 

Mathias Alberton (08:07.003)

is perspective. So how hard is now to think twice everything, to elaborate twice everything?

 

Juliette and Dominic (08:22.083)

I mean, on the one hand, some of that I was doing already and in some ways actually you getting the cane and just fully navigating, not fully, but navigating more with that took a bit of pressure off. Previously, I'd have to do things like tell you when curbs were, whereas when you started using the cane, actually you were starting to pick more of those things up yourself. it was, in some ways the transition was that you got used to doing things that enabled more of it to be done by you rather than before. Not loads more of it, but some more of it was just me telling you things, whereas using the cane gave you slightly more knowledge of what was going on, rather than relying on me telling you. In terms of thinking about everything, yeah, I mean, makes it, when you go out, it's slightly more effort for me to be concentrating on things than when I'm just out by myself, but... Yeah, so since you went fully blind and started using the cane frankly, don't know, I've become quite used to it now, so I don't really think about it as much anymore. Yeah, and I think I'm not very nervous out, like sometimes when people, some visually impaired people are, they can be a little bit nervous when being guided, or it's like it's not always as smooth, which is totally fine, but for me I'm kind of... I don't get that stressed out being out if I'm with someone or like especially with Dom I'll have my cane, I'll hold your arm or hold your hand or whatever and then I'm just kind of like I'm fine, you'll tell me what I need to know and it's kind of alright like I like to think I'm relatively low maintenance in that regard but I also think there's something about having no vision and I find this with you but I find it

 

Juliette and Dominic (10:25.749)

generally anyway. It's almost... I don't want to say easier, I don't know if that's the right word, but people assume if you use a white cane that you can't see anything anyway, which is an annoying assumption that I wish people wouldn't have. But I can't see anything, so it's kind of just easier. If someone comes up to me, I think it's clear I can't see anything, and it's like... it's just easier because they'll just assume I can't see anything and we go from there and it's like... before I had, like I lost my vision really slowly and then kind of all at once. So I've had a lot of in-between and there would be times when like I didn't know whether I was going to use my cane or it was a bit of a dither for me and it was a bit stressful when it was like I think I could still see something. I don't know, it was a lot of in-between and I think people, they didn't always know how much to help and I didn't always know how much to... that I wanted them to help, whereas now I'm just like, it's almost just easier if I say I can't see anything, that's quite understandable. And so I could be clear on what I need and if someone's trying to get me to do something visual, I can just straight up and down be like, nope, I literally can't do that. And it's sort of easier in a way. mean, lot of other things are more difficult, but it's a bit more simple for me. It takes the... It takes the dithering out of it. used to be like, how do I... do I need my cane? Am I gonna do that? I don't know. It, yeah, it makes it a little bit more straightforward for me in that it's just the same now and it's easier to explain, I think, as well.

 

Mathias Alberton (12:06.144)

All right, is, you you gave us so many prompts. There are a couple of things that come into my mind straight away. One is referring of everyone I believe has dwelled a bit in psychology studies has come across a classical case study of a guy who was blind and for whatever reason, intervention, medical cure, has at some point regained vision, fully. It did happen and has been studied wildly. However, a bit of time afterwards, he went suicidal and he ended his life. And he lived a long life as a blind person, but he couldn't take it in as a sighted person. It is a quite famous case. And your, let's say, admission of easy reminded me of this case. Of course, it's very hard to speak this word, but honestly everyone knows how much stuff is there out there and we have to...

 

Juliette and Dominic (14:06.041)

Hmm.

 

Mathias Alberton (14:10.154)

account for everything. Instead if you do not have as much input you account for a less amount of input and therefore maybe it's easier to make sense of the lesser amount of input or you don't have to stress about so many things. Now it's just you know

 

Juliette and Dominic (14:23.534)

Yeah.

 

Mathias Alberton (14:39.119)

I don't want to say that I comprehend what I just spoken, but I'm asking you, do you believe from your perspective that it is easier to account for less things or in comparison to what you did before, or is just that you have, let's say, given away some of the, let's call them hopes that you might have had for a certain period of time, like, okay, maybe I can retain some of my vision for longer. And now, okay, now I don't have distress anymore. I don't have to battle anymore with this unknown of will I or will I not have some vision. So you just, you know, came down to terms with whatever you have right now. What do you reckon is?

 

Juliette and Dominic (15:36.985)

I think definitely it was definitely the last bit that you said I would agree with. was because it was sort of up and down for a few years and I was... it was all very precarious and it was I would wake up every day and think how much will I be able to see today and would it be like this next week? So in a way it took a lot of mental load off. I don't know. I don't wake up every morning and be like I wonder if I'll be able to see. I know I won't and that's sad but it's fine and it takes a lot of the mental load off. I think one of the things I realised as my eyesight got worse and worse is how much I was... there were a lot of things I was doing not particularly visually anyway. There were a lot of things that didn't change that much. There was a lot of things I was doing tactilely. There were things that sighted people would talk about like when you look at that and I would be like I didn't used to do that visually anyway so I think I because I have always been visually impaired I think you you almost don't know how you're adapting you just do it if if you are kind of you don't know any different so I think there's some of that as well and then thinking about what you're saying what you were saying about there's less to sort of comprehend when I'm out and about it that I'm not sure about because I think it's more and this is part of what makes I think uses up a bit more energy is you're trying to pay attention to stuff in different ways So you're trying to do it by a lot of it by sound a lot of it by like I guess exploring with your cane a little bit and that's Sometimes that can be a lot more effort. So like I'll find When I first like like the first few times I was going out on my own If I was somewhere and there was like a lot of noise for some reason I found that really, really disorientating and I still do quite a lot. And that makes sense because that's how I navigate. But I think I've definitely noticed a change in how I process like sound and stuff. Like when I first was learning cane skills and that when I lost all my sight, that my mobility officer would talk about, you'll be able to hear when you're next to like a really tall building or you'll be able to tell when there's a car next to you, but you'll be able to hear it. And I was like, I dunno, am I really going to progress that much? But I actually can now. And so it's also, I feel like one of the main things that I learned since losing all of my eyesight is how, like, how much your brain can adapt to how it needs to learn and how it needs to take stuff in. Like I went from taking in information visually to like,... For example, if I'm working or reading or whatever, most of that is audio now. And that was really weird at first, but now I just do it without really thinking. So I just think that, I think brains are sort of impressive more than anything. It's the main thing that I've learned.

 

Mathias Alberton (18:52.008)

And Dominic, again, you have been, let's say, active spectator of this transition. Do you reckon now in retrospective that Juliet has struggled more on something than on something else from your perspective?

 

Juliette and Dominic (19:20.343)

I'm trying to think. Not anything in particular. mean, on the last point when everything was very uncertain, it was hard to know how much to really prioritize cane skills or learning brain or things like that. Whereas when you lost the site completely, it was just it provided some certainty of what the position is and just all definitely needed to learn these things. In terms of difficult. Difficulties.

 

Juliette and Dominic (19:54.227)

When we first moved, it's just not knowing the routes is the most difficult thing. And where we had been living when you first lost your sight, there was a reasonably good support from the council with learning the routes. Whereas when we first moved here, it was slightly patchier. Well, and also I knew because where we lived, we'd lived for a couple of years, year and a half before I lost my site and I ironically have quite a good visual memory so I think it really helped whereas when we moved to where we live now a couple of years ago and it was I knew it would be quite hard work but it was a lot harder than I thought it would be because I had no frame of reference for where we were I couldn't like it was yeah it was a lot more effort than I thought it was going to be because I hadn't we moved somewhere we'd not been before, so I didn't know where anything, I had no real visual memory of it. So I think that was more intense than I expected. And it was just very limiting not to really know how to leave the house as well. Yeah, that wasn't that fun. Yeah.

 

Mathias Alberton (21:02.443)

So when you're talking about this adapting to a new navigation to a new environment, you're talking about the environment of the house. So the domestic environment, disposition of the object, the disposition of rooms, what the curtains are and where they are stored. Or are you talking about in and out the house and going to the grocery store and this kind of spatial navigation? What are you talking?

 

Juliette and Dominic (21:24.617)

a little bit.

 

Juliette and Dominic (21:39.117)

Yeah, more out and about. The house obviously I did have to learn my way around and where stuff was but they didn't really take that long and it's easier when you know it's your own space. So that wasn't as bad although I did walk into a lot of stuff but it was more out and about learning the way to the station, like trying to get an idea of what's around or just to get some general bearings. That was quite hard work.

 

Mathias Alberton (22:04.206)

So if I understand correctly, just to reframe it, when you lost your sight completely, having a good visual memory of where you have been out and about for a long time, even if you didn't realize at the time you kept using that visual memory of those surroundings, you know that to navigate when you lost your site. When you change location, those same references couldn't apply and therefore it was twice as hard to try to make sense of any possible navigation. Is that what you meant?

 

Juliette and Dominic (22:32.377)

Hmm. Yeah.

 

Juliette and Dominic (22:49.677)

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, because I still use so I have because I lived in London forever. I sort of really like when I go out and about on the tube, I still remember the layout for stations that I know quite well. Like if I'm traveling with people, usually I'm the one giving if we're on the tube often, I'm the one giving directions. So it's it's that visual memory really like that spatial memory, I suppose. It kicks in quite a lot I think. But then I think my spatial memory now is still not bad. It's different now but I think it's as enough. you might not agree Dom but I think it's not too bad.

 

Mathias Alberton (23:35.246)

Well, I have to say on my side, I have known both of you for a couple of months now. And of course, Juliet struck me enormously for the personality. So very strong personality. There is nothing there that is not so often that you meet someone who is so crystal clear, in a way, neat. There are no shades. mean, it's so nice to meet someone like you. You stand out very well in a very clear way. So you convey an idea of a very fine-grained personality is, I don't know, for me is very obvious as compared to other people. after a while that we were working together, I said, okay, there is nothing that this person can't do and regardless of the visual impairment. And here is a bit what we've together just for the audience to understand. So,

 

Juliette and Dominic (24:48.267)

haha

 

Mathias Alberton (25:01.634)

The idea behind my research is that allegedly visually impaired and blind people do not touch things and people as often as fully sighted people do. And that is because the prompts are lacking. So it's not that I see a cushion on the sofa that I reach out for the cushion and I touch it even if I don't need actually to touch it but just because it's there I see it there so I go and touch it or I am sat at the table having supper I don't actually play with the salt and pepper just because I see it in front of me I just don't because I don't need and I just touch what I need to touch in order to do whatever I want to do. Same thing is socially. Socially is acceptable to put an arm towards a blind person only after that you introduce yourself so that the blind person can have some, let's say, some support if it is asked for. But it is not kind to grab a blind person at the street crossing, the zebra crossing, and to just grab them around and take them around, even if your intentions are good, but that's not how it works. And if I don't introduce myself to a blind person and I just start touching them, I create intuitively more distress than anything. So that's something that nobody would do. So my, as a researcher, I said, OK, fine. So touch is not as common for blind people as it is for fully sighted people. And therefore, maybe there is some sort of confidence, behavioral confidence when a blind person is in crowded places that, you know, there are situations which are very normal for fully sighted people, like you are in the bus and the person beside you, you know, it touches you, it comes against you without even willing or asking for what time it is and You don't take it personally. There is nothing personal. It just the touch just happened But because you see it coming it doesn't affect you anyway instead for a blind person. It might be different and that simple touch Something that really is distressing and therefore I thought okay fine. Maybe we can do some training in order to create confidence in what I call the touch exchange. So touching and being touched by people, not in a romantic way, but in a social crowded place way. And from the beginning, from September, when we start working together, there is no movement that you cannot pull out very instinctively. So there are, of course, people are differently talented, that's a given. But also working with you gave me the idea that you have done a lot of work before for long time. And I'm not very sure because I maybe never really asked, but I know that you have done some dancing. Isn't it right?

 

Juliette and Dominic (28:42.329)

Hmm. Yeah, when I was younger, growing up, I did lot of dance.

 

Mathias Alberton (28:47.446)

And what kind of dance did you do?

 

Juliette and Dominic (28:49.935)

I did a bit of everything. I did some tap, modern, contemporary, little bit of ballet. So yeah, I did quite a lot.

 

Mathias Alberton (28:59.934)

And for instance, Dominic, who is now here, was involved into the dancing as well or not?

 

Juliette and Dominic (29:08.257)

No, I started when I was like five and I did it until I was about 16 and then I sort of stopped so we didn't know each other when I danced. No one believes that I used to be able to dance.

 

Mathias Alberton (29:21.871)

nobody believes...

 

Juliette and Dominic (29:23.797)

No, I'm quite, not clumsy but I, because I do trip, because when I, when I was visually impaired I've only ever been able to see out of one eye, so I had no depth perception, so I do kind of like, catch my shoulder on stuff quite a lot or I'll slightly, like I won't walk headlong into stuff, like I wouldn't walk headlong into stuff but I would like slightly trip over something or slightly misjudge the angle on something, so I probably didn't come across as a person that was particularly adept at dancing but yeah we didn't really we didn't know each other when I used to when I used to dance.

 

Mathias Alberton (30:01.792)

And does it happen that you dance time to time? You as a couple? And if I were to ask you what is confidence to you?

 

Juliette and Dominic (30:06.602)

Not anymore, not anymore.

 

Juliette and Dominic (30:20.099)

Hmm. I would say having the... having the desire or the courage to try something even if it goes a bit wrong or if you're not sure what's gonna happen if it's something you want to do having the guts to do it anyway I would say

 

Mathias Alberton (30:46.196)

and in respect to what I was saying before about touch and blindness.

 

Juliette and Dominic (30:53.177)

Hmm.

 

Mathias Alberton (30:54.786)

Would you roughly agree with what I say, what my assumptions are? Are they correct from your perspective or not?

 

Juliette and Dominic (31:05.611)

I'd say not for me personally but definitely more broadly in the AI and blind community there's a lot of feelings around being touched and yeah I would say a lot of it what you were saying makes sense I think it just happens not to bother me as much but I don't know maybe I'm weird

 

Mathias Alberton (31:30.69)

Well, let's be fair. So you're young, you have maintained some level of vision for, let's say, the majority of your life. Objectively, I'm not making a qualitative statement here. Objectively.

 

Juliette and Dominic (31:48.068)

Mm.

 

Yeah.

 

Mathias Alberton (31:59.722)

So let's say that for the minor part of your life, you have now adapted it to a different setting. Therefore, some of the things that I said before apply to you as a sighted person, not as a blind person. So you still have a strong visual memory and in a way you have a strong touch memory or touch exchange memory.

 

Juliette and Dominic (32:21.167)

Hmm.

 

Juliette and Dominic (32:30.35)

Yeah.

 

Juliette and Dominic (32:37.367)

Yeah.

 

Mathias Alberton (32:38.612)

Also, there is Dominic. So if you and Dominic have been together for roughly more than 10 years, so it means that for a large part of your life, actually, there has been there a consistent nourishing effect of the same person having an exchange with you across...

 

Juliette and Dominic (32:46.051)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mathias Alberton (33:08.97)

the two different settings.

 

Juliette and Dominic (33:10.841)

Hmm.

 

Mathias Alberton (33:13.838)

We are far from being in an ideal position, but let's say that somehow this... Touch exchange has been retained because of the specificity of you, which is great, I mean, it's really great. But now, for instance, when you are in crowded places and other people come across you, something, how do you feel? How confident do you feel when this situation comes about?

 

Juliette and Dominic (33:50.223)

I've sort of okay. I think it honestly depends on when and where and it might even just depend on how tired I am or if I'm in a bad mood or if somebody really surprises me, like and it makes me jump if someone sometimes someone will grab you and it will really make you jump that's quite That's like a little bit unpleasant to deal with I haven't had that loads but it definitely has happened a little bit and I think I sort of work on... I don't know, often I will expect that someone will touch me if someone talks to me and they're not that far away. realize I think I'll expect that they might put their hand on my arm and it's fine if they don't and I don't mind at all but I will sort of expect it so then it's less of a surprise and I think It would be nice if people would not be as grabby, because I do get grabbed a lot, but I personally have sort of made a choice not to get worked up about it because I would just be annoyed all the time and I don't really want to be. And actually a lot of the time people are really helpful and a lot of why I think I'm relatively confident when I'm out and about. And I'll kind of... I will take the being touched as a bit of a side effect of it is if I'm out and about on my own and there's like I'm not sure I'm going or I've got a lost usually it doesn't take long before somebody offers to help me so if they've kind of touched my arm as a part of that it's like yeah okay maybe like check first but actually I'd rather have the help because that actually means that when I go out I'm quite confident so for me it's a bit like a bit of a double-edged swords and I'll kind of take one with the other. I mean, obviously there's always limits either way and I will have had times where I've had to say to someone, know, don't just grab me, you need to talk to me. But a lot of the time people, they're not too aggressive and people are trying to be quite helpful. I've been quite fortunate generally and I think it actually has improved my confidence in a way. So I can kind of, I can kind of take it.

 

Mathias Alberton (36:17.87)

It's interesting because I remember clearly at least, not just one, but at least one participant was very true for this participant. It was a struggle for the participant to ask for help. And it was one of the things that was really difficult of being blind, given that the person became blind later in life. And so there was...

 

Juliette and Dominic (36:32.079)

Hmm.

 

Juliette and Dominic (36:41.283)

Hmm.

 

Mathias Alberton (36:46.583)

a sense of lack of independence. Let's put it in this way because you need to... or the reason the person felt like giving away some need of support was giving away some independence, some sort of. Which is a thing that...

 

Juliette and Dominic (36:51.267)

Mmm.

 

Juliette and Dominic (37:08.889)

Hmm, yeah.

 

Mathias Alberton (37:12.736)

instead for you is not there, you said just the opposite. So, you know, people are offering the help quite quickly and I found out that, you know, I'm better off with some extra support.

 

Juliette and Dominic (37:25.795)

Yeah, and I think like it would be nice not to have to ask for it, but I yeah, I just don't mind that much. Like I'm and I'm more I'm more gung-ho about it than I thought I would be as well. Sometimes if I'm traveling about like on public transport, if I get off the train and like my assistance hasn't turned up, I will very happily just wrangle a random member of the public and get them to help me. And it's like But I think it really depends, it completely depends on the person as well. It depends maybe when they lost their eyesight and what happened, but it depends maybe what you're like anyway. I'm always pretty chatty. I will talk to anyone. I have always been relatively outgoing. So for me, I was just like, I will, I'll grab someone. It'll be fine. I'll find someone. So it was probably not something I was ever gonna find too difficult, but I can imagine if I was even a bit more shy, it would be like a lot. And there's sometimes there's things that I'm like, don't want to do that. That's, that's too much for me. So it really depends.

 

Mathias Alberton (38:33.854)

And from Dominic's perspective instead, what is the level of support, description you are providing to Juliet when you go out? So it is you keep on describing things, places, spaces, directions, situations, or enough is enough and you just give the minimum because you know that it's all right. So how do you engage with this activity of feeding her back to the surroundings as they change?

 

Juliette and Dominic (39:18.305)

I probably don't actually describe the surroundings that much if we're doing things like If we're going somewhere that's not a route that you need to learn or anything like that, then I'll just guide you around and you will get what you need from the cane rather than have me describe it to you very much. I'll describe it something particularly interesting or important or if I don't think you'll get it from your cane. otherwise, I wouldn't, I don't know, possibly you would be as well placed to answer this as I am. And then frankly, if we are root learning, then it's more important that you know how to do it without me telling you what everything is. Often I'll wait in that instance, I often wait for you to ask rather than tell you because it's because you're figuring it out and you'll need to do it by yourself. So it's more important for you to get a sense of what things are. I'll make sure you're not walking out into roads and whatnot. no, I'd say I don't describe as much as you might think. only really anything that you need to describe because if it's not important then I don't really want to waste my mental, my brain space on it. I have a really good memory and I'll remember a lot of different things so it's like a finite amount of things that I can really be bothered to hold in my head so not so much that. And also, think, like, a lot of, like, I can kind of tell what's going on. If we're walking out, I know when we're near a road, because I can hear the cars. We go on, like, transport in London a lot. So it's like, I can hear when the train's coming, I can hear where the doors are. A lot of that I would actually be navigating by myself if I were, if I happened to be by myself. So it's, I don't know, I can fill a lot of it in. Anyway and then use visual memory from when I could see anyway and yeah like you say when we're root learning I kind of if you talk at me while I do the root I can't pay attention to it so it's actually I tend to get annoyed so yeah I'll just ask you what something is if I'm not sure and like I find when I learn roots I'll learn the really specific route but actually what I've learned over the last couple of years is some of the most important thing that I can do to get confident on a route is almost like... I don't know how to describe it, you almost start with this really narrow set of information so for me it's what I will get from tactile and audio for exactly how to get from A to B but then the more... the important thing that I have to learn is like the margin of error around my landmark because if you go a little bit wrong you need to know where you've gone wrong to fix it. So like when I learnt my route to my new office a year ago there was a set of stairs that I had to go up and over and actually like getting across to the set of stairs was like I got it down pretty quickly but then I would get confused if I'd go slightly wrong because I wouldn't know what was around the area so it's like you almost have to start in the middle in this really narrow sort of If it was visual, you'd be starting in the middle with this really narrow line of vision and then expand it out, but I guess not visually, like tactilely. Like now, if I approach this set of stairs on my way back from the office, I go slightly wrong all the time because I'm usually, I'm tired and I'm not, I can't walk in a straight line when I'm tired. but I know exactly where I am now because I've just widened out everything around the specific points that I need. So Yeah, usually when we're doing roots, I like to work it out myself because that's how I remember it.

 

Mathias Alberton (01:29:29.56)

Listen, I am super grateful for this time that you have decided to spend with me. I'm really grateful. Thank you very much.

 

Juliette and Dominic (01:29:43.54)

Thanks for having us.

 

Mathias Alberton (01:29:45.57)

Yeah. And I wonder, do you have any questions for me at this moment?

 

Mathias Alberton (01:29:57.784)

So thank you again and of course thank you everyone who has listened to this podcast and I remind you that I am Mathias Alberton, this is Martial Attitude Voice podcast and I am creating this training program for visually impaired and blind people which is delivered on Sunday afternoon in central London. If you are... visually impaired and blind and would like to train a bit your sense of touch exchange when in contact with other people, as usual, you keep in touch.