Joining me is Andrew Jones, a dedicated participant in our Martial Attitude Training sessions. In this episode, we explore the physical and mental shifts that come with learning Kung Fu Wing Chun techniques in a non-visual format—where movement is felt, internalized, and then adapted to everyday life. Andrew shares insights on how this training has enhanced his confidence, spatial awareness, and even deepened his bond with his son, who often joins him in the sessions. From the challenges of translating movement into words to creating a truly inclusive environment, we’ll talk about how adapting martial arts for the visually impaired can foster greater self-assurance and a resilient mindset.
Mathias Alberton (00:00)
Hello everyone, this is Mathias Alberton, I'm the creator of Martial Attitude, this is Martial Attitude Voice. You know, in this series of podcast episodes we are exploring visual impairment, blindness in regard to spatial navigation, touch, what I try to call touch exchange, and the training that I am organizing for visually impaired and blind people in London every weekend on Sunday afternoon. If you are interested, of course, please let me know. And I have the pleasure today to be here on the podcast with one of the participants that have been working with me, training with me for the last few weeks since the beginning of September. His name is Andrew. Ciao, Andrew. How do you do today?
Andrew Jones (00:52)
I'm good, thank you.
Mathias Alberton (00:54)
One question just to clarify a second. How old are you? 52. And you are completely blind?
Andrew Jones (01:00)
52. I've got some light perception, of shapes and shadows, but most people consider that I don't have a lot of useful vision at all.
Mathias Alberton (01:16)
So you perceive the light of the environment, let's say. So you know if the light is on or the day is bright or if you're in a dark room. Is that right?
Andrew Jones (01:25)
Within certain circumstances, so in different lighting conditions, I might pick up something different. it functionally, it's like I can't read any prints at all. I couldn't walk out of home without using a long cane on my guide dog or taking someone's arm. So it...
Mathias Alberton (01:34)
Okay.
Andrew Jones (01:57)
I use a lot of technology. I suppose I've been making adjustments for the past 30 years. So I've got used to things as my eyesight is deteriorated. To me, the sight I have that's remaining is very useful, but I'm guessing it's probably, I don't know, 1%, 2 % of my vision, and it's not particularly clear. So for someone who's fully sighted, they said that's not eyesight at all. It's still useful for me because I've adapted to it and can make use of it.
Mathias Alberton (02:37)
And as you said, you have adapted to it, means that you became blind, you lost your vision, but originally you did have a full vision or just partly sighted from birth.
Andrew Jones (02:52)
So I have a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, which is a hereditary condition and it's degenerative. I found out when I was 17, because of applying for a provisional driving license, to ask whether you experience night blindness. And I can remember tripping over speed bumps on French campsites where we went on holidays sometimes. So I went and got tested and found out when I was 17. But at that point, I could see everything that somebody asked me to look at. So, but what I didn't realise was I would turn my eyes or move my head to see the thing that somebody wanted me to describe or to look at. Whereas if I kept, if I didn't move my eyes and kept my head straight, it wouldn't be in my field of vision. And then in my early 30s, my central vision started to go as well. So now I've lost my peripheral vision and my central vision. So I have a sense of some things, but most people, like I say, would describe it as not very functional. But when you've experienced something for a long time, it still has some purpose you know that maybe something's at the side of you, or something might suddenly come into your field of vision or flash past your field of vision. So there is some benefit to it, even if it's limited. So it's useful. It's just what you make use of.
Mathias Alberton (04:41)
And this, let's say, progression to visual impairment, into blindness, if we want to say it in that way, it lasted how long? Five years, two years, a few months? How long was the transition?
Andrew Jones (04:50)
Yes. Well, in one sense, I'm not certain it stopped. I could lose the vision that I have potentially.
Mathias Alberton (05:08)
Of course, I'm just saying up to this point, let's say.
Andrew Jones (05:12)
I guess most of the time it's, when I was, it goes in stages and it's not, it's not fixed. So each person's experience is different. So I had most of my peripheral vision at the point where I was diagnosed or a lot of it still. So I could see what I was looking at. I could read, I could read the small print in a quality newspaper. I could read books. But when I was in my early 30s, I started struggling to read, which was my central vision going. And that affects other things as well, your sense of perception of depth. So walking around gets harder. So I suppose 20, 25 years, I suppose. It's made less difference in the past five, 10 years. But partly because you adjust to it. You get used to things changing. It's a hard part of it and it's an easy part of it because it's not your site all going at once, but you don't get to a point where you lose your site and then you just adjust and it doesn't change again. It's like a constant change. So now it's a bit more settled, but there's still things that you adapt to. Because now I've got much less vision. Any change is a bigger percentage, if you like, of what's left. So if I had 10 % of my vision left and I lost one more percent so I've got nine percent left well I've just lost ten percent of what I had previously so it has a as your site deteriorates the changes then can have a bigger impact
Mathias Alberton (07:10)
Of course, it is incremental, let's say.
Andrew Jones (07:12)
Yes, but you adjust, ideally you adjust to it. So I've had a long...
Mathias Alberton (07:19)
And let's say emotionally, psychologically, I guess this process has taken a toll on you, at least at the beginning. Do you have a memory in retrospective of that moment, that period?
Andrew Jones (07:32)
In some ways, my father used to say that I was angry to start with and then I came home from going away with a friend for a weekend and I just wasn't angry anymore. I didn't know how initially to describe to friends or to other people what I was seeing or what I needed. And that was part of me adjusting. It's part of the grieving process. Whereas now I'm a lot more used to it. So I can still get frustrated. And there things that difficult, as far as I can, I try not to let it stop me.
Mathias Alberton (08:20)
And this frustration that you're referring to is addressing some specific challenges or generally.
Andrew Jones (08:28)
For example, things on a website that aren't accessible. I've been using a screen reader for, you know, I started using a computer in 1990. I got one funded by the local authority for my studies. I used to write small batch programs using DOS. So I'm used to that. And yet there are companies who choose not to make their website accessible enough for me to be able to use it. So although I'm used, I know how to use the screen reader and I'm not bad at using a computer, there are things I can't access because of how it's all been implemented. Or somebody will say there's a narrow road and there's a workman at a property and they decide in order not to cause a blockage for the road, they park their car or their van on the pavement. So I'm walking along the pavement with my dog and the dog will just say, I can't go any further. And the only way to get past is to tell my dog to walk into the road to get around the van. Now he's trained to do that and I understand that, but it's not ideal. And I get the same thing. I've made a complaint to the local authority before.
Mathias Alberton (09:39)
Of course. Absolutely.
Andrew Jones (09:49)
about bin men leaving rubbish on the streets. Because rather than being a van that's solid, the rubbish is low down and it might be on the floor, there might be several bags, so it's not a defined, I might walk 10 yards and get another one and then it's 50 yards before there's another one. So on bin day, that can be not particularly pleasant experience. I don't generally get hurt and I get around it, but it's a stress or frustration.
Mathias Alberton (10:21)
And talking about, for instance, your vision that you had in the days. Let's say you have built up, let's say, visual bank memory, memory bank, some sort of. And I believe this guided you through the process of losing vision, meaning that you kept on referring to your memory bank. So to adapt and to, let's say, compensate for what you were losing at the time. So you don't see the table very well but you remember it very well so you put the two things together. Is that right? Something like that happened to you.
Andrew Jones (11:07)
Yes, you try and have some constants in order that you can then adjust and then if you want to try something new that's possible. So I chose to remain in the area where I grew up because it was familiar. But then I remember one point when in between a couple of years ago when my second guide dog was about to retire I asked the organisation guide dogs to give me some mobility training with a long cane. And the instructor took me to a pedestrian crossing with traffic lights near my local station. And this is probably the crossing throughout my life that I've used the most. So to go to the shops, I use it. To go on the public transport, I use it. To go to work, I use it. It's not quite every single time, but I've used it for years. And there was a point where I came unstuck and the dog has crossed it the wrong way. I've used it with a cane and used it the wrong way. And I got upset. I thought, I'm in trouble. If I can't use this crossing, what's gone wrong? This is the most familiar crossing. And it was just me not quite keeping up with what had changed.
Although it was a familiar crossing, I was telling myself, it's familiar, it's fine, I can just cross it. Whereas what I needed to do was check I was crossing at the right angle, because as you lose your sight, if you can't see enough, you can't walk in a straight line. In your head, you're walking in a straight line, but if you haven't started at the right angle, you're walking in a straight line, but it's actually diagonally to the other side, rather than straight ahead just because you were a few degrees off at the point where you started. And then when I got my head around all that, I need to check that I'm facing the right angle, have a fixed point that I understand, put my foot at the edge of the curb or touch the button box to know that I'm facing the right way to start with. It's always all those little adjustments. I moved house at one point, before I used a cane or had a dog, I moved house basically because I started to struggle to find my front door. And I decided that that was going to be a big stress if I didn't sort it. So I thought, well, then I want to find somewhere where I can manage that more easily. So I started to look, OK, what do I need to take into account? What's going to make the place accessible? and the estate agent struggled to find me somewhere. So I went and said, look, I need somewhere this road, this side of the road, two minutes from the station. And two weeks later, he'd found somewhere. I it's not quite in your price range, but go and have a look. And that's the place that I ended up getting. Because I was...
Mathias Alberton (14:23)
And this adaptation to new environment and to find accessibility where possible or to create accessibility where possible, how does... How did it work for, let's say, interaction with people? So, let's put it in this way. What is touch to you?
Andrew Jones (14:52)
It's lots of different things. There's touch with people, touch with my dog, with a cane, with an object to orientate myself. But it happens in different stages. So your relationship with other people and knowing how you relate to other people. And then, like I said, it's like a con... I remember... At one point I would react, somebody would offer me a packet of crisps or a crisp or something and being friendly or sociable. But I would have a reaction because people would wave the packet of crisps in front of my face, like to get it into my field of vision. And what my brain was telling me was it was like an invasion. That's my space. You can't just force something into my field of vision. That's obtrusive. But I couldn't express that initially as it happened because I hadn't had time to think it through. Whereas once it happened a couple of times and I could note my response to that, I thought, okay, rather than having a go at someone, I need to try and explain to them why I react that way on what would be more helpful. Because otherwise what people remember is you getting cross with them rather than what would be more helpful. So now if people try and help, even if they don't help in a very useful way, I try and appreciate that they're coming from the right place. And if I'm able to, I try and explain what would be useful or just say, no, thank you, I don't need help at the moment. But it changes depending on context.
Mathias Alberton (16:49)
And in this, for instance, touch, in the sense of not, let's say, touching the table or touching the apple or touching the dog, but when you are in contact with other people, how this touch exchange has been important for you through the years that you have arrange to get along with the loss of vision.
Andrew Jones (17:25)
It gives you a sense of where you are in space. One of the things I was thinking about when signing up for your course, my son who's been joining me in the course, sometimes he will say something to me, say in the kitchen, and then he'll say something to me almost as part of the same conversation but he'll be on my other side and I haven't heard him move. sometimes I would jump because he's touched my arm to tell me I'm on the other side, but I'm not expecting it or he'll just speak. So initially his voice is coming in more in one ear and suddenly he's on the other side. And he's not trying to confuse me, but I'm, I don't know, trying to make my lunch for work for the next day.
And whilst I'm doing that, I've got sound in one ear and all of sudden it's on the other side. your head moves to try and adjust, but it's disorienting. Or he would try and get my attention and I'm not expecting it. So one of the things that I thought it would help us to understand how I respond to touch and to space. And he would also see how other people relate to that. So that it's not necessarily just me as somebody who is blind responding negatively, but this is how people with a vision impairment or people that are blind might respond. And it's about us adjusting together. So it's not just about me adjusting, it's about him taking account of my needs, but me also not responding negatively towards him so that he can understand. And I think it's, you have that with all sorts of different experiences. So for example, working the dog, the dog responds to a touch as a reward. And the dog has helped me to get through the environment without knocking things. But sometimes you don't appreciate that the dog's walked you around something. So for example, again, when my last dog retired, my instructor at one point said, mind the bollards on that bin over there. I was like, no, there's no bollard here and no bin. I've been coming here, walking here every day for 10 years. And he said, yeah, and you didn't thank your dog for it either because you didn't know he'd done it. And I just had this eureka moment and I thought, my word, my dog's been doing the right thing and doing a fantastic job the whole time I've had him without me realising he's been walking me round an obstacle where I could have got hurt. And he hadn't been, you try and praise the dog, but I hadn't known that he was doing that. And it's just, in terms of what the dog does to you and understanding that space on my behalf, it's huge. And when you then have to work around that space using a long cane, you're doing the opposite. So with a dog, you're avoiding the obstacle, that bollard or the bin that's in the way. With the cane, you're trying to find them with the cane so that you don't hit it, maybe with your face, if it's a lamppost or a tree. And I've done that several times before. If you don't use them properly or you're in too much of a rush, you end up hitting things. And yeah, so that's about your awareness of space. And the touch then is very different. You rebound off hard surfaces with your head. And it's a very abrupt sense of touch in terms of finding out that there's something there. It's very different than someone touching your arm just to tell you they're there or to get your attention.
Mathias Alberton (21:48)
Now, we have been training for a while and for the audience listening, I just remind them that what I'm trying to do with the Martial arts training is to create a safe environment for visually impaired and blind people to train together in some movements and techniques derived from Kung Fu Wing Chun, which are let's say an exchange of movement of arms and forearms pushing and receiving pressure and responding to pressure when two people are one in front of the other, either standing or moving, but always standing, let's say, one in front of the other. And of course, one of the challenges is to, let's say, translate these movements, whatever they are.
Andrew Jones (22:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mathias Alberton (22:43)
into words which might be internalized and understood by the blind person training, because otherwise, you know, I can't show you the thing. I need to show you the thing, but in a different way, make it, make the movement accessible. Now, now that we have trained a few times from September.
Andrew Jones (22:58)
Thank you. Okay.
Mathias Alberton (23:10)
How did you like the processor? How would you describe it?
Andrew Jones (23:14)
I think it... You do get a sense of your space and how you move. So for example, one of the things you fed back to me is how much my torso turns. And even if my feet are in the correct position, I can still turn my torso without realizing it. So being aware of that, so I was saying earlier about crossing the road and being at the right angle. Sometimes you could do that just by not realising that you've turned. So that's like an awareness of what your body does. The description of things I think helps, because like you say, you have to relate to something in a non-visual way. So by your hands or your forearms or arms being touched or manipulated into the correct position, so you can get a sense of that feedback. Because when someone's touching your arm, you kind of know where their arm is. And it's creating those neural pathways for your brain to be able to go, okay, this is the position we want, and making it repeatable. I suppose, as I mentioned, the other thing I'm getting from it is the time spent with my son still exploring those issues but that helps our relationship together because it's exploring touch and space but with me having a visual impairment and him being able to see how other people with a visual impairment respond to those in that same context so that other people find some of those things difficult to take in and how they manage that. So there's lots of aspects for me to what we're doing. I like the aspect that it's using the hands and the forearms. So we're not getting thrown to the ground. It's all safe, but it's still very much training. They're creating a safe space and the movement that we're doing keeps you safe when you're outside. So it all makes a difference. Sometimes it's difficult to perceive the difference that it might make. But I'm very conscious that it's there, because you have more confidence. And that, I think for some of the visual impairment, that's the big thing. And a lot of it, suppose, is emotional or mental. It's how you think about, you know, walking down the street. Do you walk like a victim or do you, you know, walk with confidence and understand...
Mathias Alberton (26:17)
What is confidence to you?
Andrew Jones (26:18)
I suppose not being afraid. I used to worry about being seen as somebody with a visual impairment. And then I applied for a guide dog and I was rejected because I wasn't using a long cane and I didn't wear any high visibility clothing or anything like that. And I had to make an adjustment. So now I specifically wear stuff where I can be seen more easily because I'm not afraid of being see and I don't walk like a victim. A lot of people that are sighted wouldn't walk as quickly as I walk and it for me that makes a difference. It's changing your mindset. I get more offers of help or support because people can see that I have a visual impairment and I can choose whether to accept that offer of support. Whereas if I don't use a dog or a cane and I'm fumbling through along the road knocking into things or people, I risk being assaulted because somebody wouldn't understand that I can't see them, I might turn around and thump me one. confidence, it's about being able to accept your limitations, but without necessarily compromising your values or what you're wanting to do. So for example, I'm a runner, so I can't run on my own. But if I ask and identify a guide that I can run with, I can then run quickly. So my site then stops being a limitation. There are things I have to adapt to, but it's not a limitation. And for example, the sense of touch that I might have from doing your course could help me with my running because I have to hold someone's arm and we might be running through an area that's crowded, that's got lots of other runners. So my sense of when I'm going past someone and whether I've, have I just knocked someone on their side or their arm or hearing someone as it goes past, not turning too much, trying to run in a straight line that sense of touch and space, it affects all sorts of things. And like I said, relationships. If you can't be touched by someone without responding negatively, that's gonna affect your relationships. Your awareness of where you are in space affects your mobility, all sorts of things. So I think it's more than we normally would understand and I think there's a huge benefit to it.
Mathias Alberton (29:22)
And I have one last question for you today Andrew, before wrapping this up. I wanted to ask you, what do you expect from the training from now on? Would you expect to continue, meaning that the most valuable thing for you now is to continue training or you would like to train with more people? So you can touch more people or to have more opportunity to work one on one just with me. to get, because of course in the training session there are three, four people according to the day. And of course me being one with the other vision impaired and blind people, cannot be a class of 20 people as it appears quite obvious to the audience listening to this. So it's quite bespoke, but it could be even more targeted and more bespoke. What's your saying about this? What's your preference? What's your expectation?
Andrew Jones (30:19)
I think if I can get to training and I have the time and I'm getting something out of it, I would want to continue. So at the moment I've been travelling to where we're training with my son if I was to try and get there independently, I would have to do more work to learn the route specifically because it involves the underground and maybe the Elizabeth Line or the Overland service and walking outside. So I'd need to train the dog and myself for that route to get there other aspects of it. Like I say, so long as I'm enjoying it and I can fit it in, I think there's a benefit in it. I have been enjoying it. I particularly enjoyed the fact that I'm doing it with my son. But he, after a point in time, he might want to do something different, I don't know. But I'm enjoying it at the moment without testing other things out, it's difficult to be certain. But I think if I can develop and grow and enjoy the process, then I suppose I would want to do it. But it's just making sure I've got the time because for me at the moment, it's quite a bit of travel to get to it, but it's fine.
Mathias Alberton (31:49)
Yep.
Andrew Jones (32:12)
My son likes to travel as well, it's working for us at the moment.
Mathias Alberton (32:18)
it is interesting for me because I need to work towards new adjustment for the course itself. I know that accessibility is a big issue. And, Andrew, thank you very much for sharing your experience and point of view with us. It is really precious. It has been super interesting to work with you. And I do appreciate a lot your interest and commitment. When you come and when you train together with me, it's really a fantastic job. I really like it and I thank you for this. And I thank you for today.
Andrew Jones (32:39)
a pleasure and if we didn't enjoy it, we wouldn't be doing it and I don't underestimate the the time that you've taken to try and develop the strategies to make it work for people with vision impairment and your description of things and trying to accommodate different people's needs. It's fantastic, so thank you as well.
Mathias Alberton (33:23)
And thank you very much to all listeners to this episode of Martial Attitude Voice. I'd to hear from you if you are interested in knowing more about, of course, Martial Attitude Training for visually impaired and blind people, or if you want to support us. So, if you have questions, please let us know. If you are interested in the training, As usual, you keep in touch.