By Jeremy Warriner
When I was in fifth grade my parents enrolled me in a Karate school so that I could learn how to defend myself. I was a small kid with a quick temper who kept getting into fights he couldn’t finish. For seven years of my youth, I spent most afternoons reciting a creed to rely on strength of the body, knowledge of the mind, and honesty of the heart to “win the battle within myself” and defend others, then developed physical and mental skills that built on those concepts. I achieved the rank of first-degree black-belt before I turned sixteen.
While I did learn to defend myself, what I really learned was how not to get into fights. My life transitioned from youth into adulthood as I moved away from home for education and career. A decade later, my karate belts were nice memorabilia of my youth to decorate my walls. It was always something I thought I would get back to when I found the time.
During my commute home from work, almost eighteen years ago, I was trapped in a burning Wrangler after a car accident. Six weeks later I awoke to learn that both of my legs had been amputated above each knee.
I remember laying in the burn unit, thinking about my youth and the effort I had put in to learning Shorei-Goju Ryu. Something valuable that I had let slip away as my career took prominence in my life but had always intended to practice again. This was now gone…taken with my legs, and the effort to learn Karate in my youth now felt wasted.
As I learned to walk on prostheses, my Physical Therapist was impressed by my balance and body awareness. She attributed this to my martial arts background. It was a bittersweet benefit left over from my training in my youth, but it relieved a little of the loss.
Adapting to life as a Person with Disabilities is hard…it’s the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. Beyond the physical actions of fighting, a lot of what I learned from Karate was about self-discipline, motivation, determination, and resiliency which helped me adjust to living life using a wheelchair and prosthetics with crutches. I was using what I had learned to reach a black-belt rank in Shorei-Goju Ryu, every day now, to deal with the emotional and physical trauma of life with a disability.
These skills, learned in my youth, helped me to access the supports needed to define and achieve an independent lifestyle as a Person with a Disability. The time spent working with a Sensei (Teacher) and other students had taught me to be open to peer support. The self-discipline, determination, and confidence developed to earn my black-belt now supported the ability to advocate for myself and others; in efforts to speak up for my own rights, and to raise Disability Inclusion and Equity through increased Accessibility at a social level, which leads to a Diverse sense of Belonging. Resiliency fed a belief that I could live an independent lifestyle and led me to define what that meant and how that would look, and to ask for the help needed to make modifications and access the resources (from disability support organizations to crowdfunding) for the assistive technology, training, and adaptations to support my vision of independence.
Many aspects of the Martial Arts have benefits for People with Disabilities. Reframing your disabilities as part of your healthy state, not something working against it, Karate provides accessible and adaptable exercise that helps develop confidence, endurance, and self-awareness. Most importantly, by practicing and adapting Shorei-Goju Ryu, I have redefined my perceptions of a healthy body, mind, and spirit in a way that is inclusive of my disabilities, and I have an adaptive avenue to further develop those aspects of life.
Karate can be adapted for any person with any disability, customized to meet their goals, and modified as the individual’s skills progress. Learning Martial Arts can help you face life with adaptability and resiliency, both of which are vital aspects of the disability experience. During the COVID lockdowns, I virtually assisted a young woman with Down Syndrome doing her senior project on Martial Arts. I demonstrated strikes (punches & blocks) from a wheelchair in Indiana, and she demonstrated kicks, stances, and movement from a classroom in Georgia. I couldn’t remember any of the Katas (choreographed forms for practice and meditation), but I could help her put the basics together. When we finished, I found myself asking the question “how do I really modify this for my 47-year-old bi-lateral above knee amputee body?”
Demonstrations can be seen on the Adaptive Karate page at https://www.walkingspirit.org.
(Image Descriptions: The image on the left shows Jeremy Warriner a white man in his mid-forties with reddish-brown hair and a trimmed mustache and goatee, in a grassy yard under the shade of trees on a sunny day with a cloudy blue sky. He is centered in the picture standing on his left prosthetic leg, with two forearm crutches planted on the ground in front of him at opposite angles, he is leaning forward and to his left side as he kicks to the right side with his right prosthetic leg. He is wearing a white gi top (karate tunic), a long fabric black belt knotted at the waist, and black shorts. His prosthetic knees and legs are a shiny silver aluminum color with ball shaped “ankles” above hiking boots on his prosthetic feet. There is a rope hammock to his left and tall trees in front of a blue house with white windows & doors in the background.
The image on the right shows Jeremy Warriner sitting in his purple rigid frame wheelchair without his prosthetic legs, on a wooden deck outside of a blue house with green trim, white windows & French doors on his right. Jeremy is wearing a black gi (karate uniform) with a long fabric black belt knotted at his waist. The two ends of the belt dangle between his thighs and there is a red stripe near the right tip of the belt indicating the first black-belt rank. He is facing forward and centered in the bottom half of the picture, with his left hand resting on the armrest above the left wheel, knuckles against his left flank, elbow bent out to his left side. His right arm is relaxed with his right hand resting on the distal end of his residual right leg. The empty lower legs of his black pants are folded underneath him, exposing the empty footrest, Velcro straps, a pocket, a small circular container, and a cupholder attached to his seat and frame. There is a tablet with a red keyboard and a legal note pad with pen on a small glass table to his left, with a power strip on the deck in front of the table. Behind him, a ramp with a railing extends down to a stone path with grass and trees in the background. Jeremy is smiling at the camera, his long reddish-brown hair falls loose behind his shoulders, and his mustache and goatee are trimmed short. Sunlight filters through the leaves of a tree above him, casting a light shade on the deck).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeremy Warriner
Whether walking on next-generation prosthetic legs or utilizing a wheelchair, Jeremy is an active member of his community, founder of Walking Spirit & Spirit Therapies, LLC, charter member of the international Rotary Club for World Disability Advocates, and a devoted husband & stepfather. His passion is enhancing our communities through providing assessments, consulting, training and support on Accessible Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging from a Disability Lens. Jeremy’s current projects include adapting Karate to his disability, co-hosting the international podcast “World Disability Matters”, facilitating the virtual Disabilities & Conditions of Aging Network in central Indiana, and writing a book about his experiences adapting to life as a bilateral above knee amputee and burn survivor. He can be reached through his website at https://www.walkingspirit.org or by email at jeremy@walkingspirit.org.
