Okay, welcome to the AdaptX Podcast where we have conversations with individuals who are building accessible businesses,
advocating for inclusion, or excelling in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities,
but give them a platform to share their stories so we can make a more accessible world.
Today we are joined by Chuck Aoki, a three-time U.S. Paralympic medalist, four-time World Championship medalist, and three-time
Parapan American medalist in the sport of wheelchair rugby. He is currently training for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games,
where he will captain the U.S. team. Now residing in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
he also works for the University of Michigan in their adaptive sports and fitness department. Chuck, thank you for joining me today.
Yeah, my pleasure Brendan. Thanks for having me.
We're big fans of UMich.
We worked with their fitness and recreation department. A bunch of their trainers took our AdaptX course,
and we've been following the work of Dr. O, Eric, yourself pretty closely, our creative director for the nonprofit as a student at
University of Michigan in undergrad,
majoring in UX design. So Michigan is big fans, exciting football season as well.
So what is your role at the University?
Yeah, so my role at the University of Michigan is actually a pretty unique one and pretty cool.
So we have a position called the Community Access Navigator, and that's a role that we designed via the
Craig H. Nielsen Foundation grant we received to essentially, you know, very broadly speaking, get folks with spinal cord injuries more active, sports and fitness,
competitive sports, recreation sports, fitness opportunities. It doesn't really matter.
Just how can we get them more active?
And then on the second hand, a little more unique to us is we also really are trying to get the medical community more engaged,
whether that's doctors, PT's, residents, OTs, really seeing that as the pipeline and way to get people involved in adaptive sports.
You know, anyone who's been in adaptive sports for a while knows that there really is no systematic way you get involved in it.
It's not like a kid who grows up, you know, five hits, oh, what's your kid going to play? Sports? Oh, baseball, soccer, whatever.
There really isn't that for disability because it strikes at so many different times.
And so one of the goals of our program, along with our program director, Dr. Farron Leo Kalami, is to let's systematize it.
Let's find ways to build consistent pipelines and pathways into adaptive sports.
And the way we said is everybody goes to the doctor. So why wouldn't we reach out to that?
So I do a lot of work educating, like I said, educating medical providers, medical students as well, kind of trying to get them on the front end saying,
hey, you're in school. Let's get you some experiences with this so that, you know, as they become future clinicians, they're like, oh, that's right.
I remember adaptive sports and they'll seek that out, you know, wherever they end up across the country.
You know, that some will hopefully stay here in Ann Arbor, but inevitably a lot will travel elsewhere.
So it's been a really, really rewarding program to get to be a part of and a really cool thing we're doing here at Michigan.
Yeah, that was a conversation that we had with a guest 10 episodes or so ago, Sarah Skiells, about medical professionals maybe not being well equipped to work with disabilities or maybe not being well versed in the etiquette and the communication.
Did you have any experiences growing up that kind of were negative or maybe on the contrary, positive?
Yeah, you know, like a lot of kids who grew up with disability, I grew up with my rare congenital genetic disorder.
I certainly had a mix, you know, certainly had a mix of interactions.
I think we I think what I would say is I had a lot of sort of neutral to bad ones until we sort of found the good doctors who we really liked a lot.
My mom, you know, is very persistent and we're going to find you the best possible care.
She said, I don't care if we wait in the waiting room for an hour to see them, as long as when we get in there, they spend whatever time is necessary with us.
And so we went through some iterations of, you know, some doctors who would kind of look at me and say, oh, OK, not really sure what's going on there.
Like, I guess we could try something until and so we'd say, OK, great.
Kind of on to the next one. Let's find someone who's really going to sit down and and deal with it.
So I think I've been lucky in my life to have doctors who were who are really open to learning.
You know, what I have is fairly rare.
And so it's not the kind of thing where even something like spina bifida or spinal cord injury, doctors at least have heard of that and know, like, OK, I know generally how to treat this,
even if there are idiosyncrasies to every single person.
What I had was very rare. So it's like, OK, how can we really treat that?
You know, some doctors were very curious. Some weren't.
And so it was it was a process definitely of getting through the system and finding it.
But, you know, you talk to anyone with disability, they inevitably have a story of, you know, they weren't believed.
Someone said, oh, I don't think it's that bad or whatever.
You just tried this. It's like, yes, I've tried that. That's why I'm here.
So, yeah, it's a really important thing to work with doctors on disability, educate kind of how do you interact with a patient with disability who may present with something that normally you would say, OK, I'm going to I'm going to, quote unquote, fix this person.
That's my job. It's like, well, no, some of this thing is just static. This is how I am.
I need help with this other thing that any.
And so I think that's that's one of the biggest challenges and one of the things we worked to overcome.
And I know it's a it's a challenge as well that, you know, quite frankly, they're just not taught it.
You know, medical school is already busy and packed as it is. It's kind of gets left by the wayside.
So that's also something we're working here at Michigan to try and change is how can we get involved with the medical school and their curriculum as well.
But but yeah, overall, I would say, you know, my my interaction with doctors now are pretty pretty positive.
But I think that's through, you know, sort of painstaking effort to really spend the time to find that person who's really going to spend that good time with you and and get to know you and understand you, which, you know, quite frankly, I think you'd want for a doctor able-bodied or disabled.
Yeah. What was the diagnostic process like? I was reading some various things about how you broke a leg and continued to to play sports because your condition, you don't have necessarily feeling in your extremities.
So, yeah, so I have a very rare genetic condition.
Briefly, it's called for hereditary sensory autonomic neuropathy type two.
Very fancy word. Essentially, I have no sensation. Elbows down and knees down.
Nothing pain, hot, cold vibration. And so the diagnostic process for me was actually quite interesting, you know, as a as a very young child, like infant to toddler presented fairly normally.
Maybe it was a little colicky, but nothing that nothing that seemed out of the ordinary until I learned how to walk on my knees, which my parents like, that's kind of odd.
Like, I don't know why he's doing that. And then as a toddler, when I was teething, I would literally chew my fingers like not like suckling actually chew.
And my mom would see the little bite marks I was leaving and she took me to the doctor, the doctors and said, hey, like, this seems unusual, right?
And actually, oh, he'll grow out of it. She was like, well, shouldn't this hurt?
He's like, I don't know, he'll grow out of it. And, you know, a new mom does not expect her child to have a rare genetic disorder.
So she kind of said, OK, I'm sure the doctors right and seen it before.
And so but so there was sort of ongoing things like that that would happen the next couple of years.
That was probably when I was two or three, a lot of ongoing different things where I would say I would one day I think I was curious.
I ripped a bunch of my nail off as a little kid, so I wanted to see what was under it.
And this led to a discovery of a bedroom wall covered in blood in the morning.
And my mom terrified. And there was me smiling. I say, hey, good morning, mom.
And so that led to getting nerve biopsy done and eventually going down to the Mayo Clinic when I was 10 years old to sort of get the official diagnoses of the hereditary sensor on my neuropathy type two, which, again, fairly rare.
There's five different types. What I have, I actually have one of the least severe.
It goes all the way up to folks who have no sensation in the entire body.
I have significantly more than that. And yes, that's pretty much what happened is we went to the Mayo Clinic.
We did some tests. We learned about the autonomic component. I also don't sweat on parts of my body.
So really, you know, from a scientific perspective, a very interesting process.
And luckily we were but we figured it out fairly early. As you mentioned, I when I was six, I think I broke my leg and walked on it.
And no one really realized because it didn't hurt. And so that is what led me to start using a wheelchair part time.
And then finally, so it's using it full time at age 10 so I could preserve what mobility I have in my legs, which is not a lot, but I've still got a little bit.
So it was an interesting process to say the least. I know I'm certainly caused a lot of stress on my parents at the time.
But all in all, it's landed in a good place. I've got a good understanding what I've got going on and sort of know how to handle myself.
Why was there a seven or eight year period between the initial concern and like the Mayo Clinic?
A couple of reasons. I think one was just uncertainty kind of generally from my parents like, well, maybe this we don't actually know.
Again, this is the thing I have is quite rare. So it was like the nerve biopsy we did in Minneapolis from was sort of like, oh, it's probably this.
But I think it never really presented as a big problem until I broke my leg and that was probably about seven.
And at that point, it's like, OK, let's really kind of settle down and actually drill down and kind of figure it out.
And I think another reason that it took some time is because while going to Mayo Clinic is very interesting, very cool place, the reality is that going there was really just to confirm what we had kind of already figured was happening.
You know, the doctor and the neurologist I had in Minnesota had research in pretty sure this is it kind of done some good digging on that.
So it was really just a case of let's go here to kind of double check, confirm, make sure we're not missing anything. We discovered that I didn't sweat on parts of my body.
But but yes, it was really just more just sort of a it was no rush to go down there because we've gotten a pretty good sense of what was going on.
It's like, let's just sort of, you know, check the box and make sure. Yep, we're right. This is what's happening.
And again, if there's any little things you could do, I actually have not been back to the Mayo Clinic as a patient since because it was sort of like, all right, this is what you got.
Call us if you need anything. So how was your childhood like navigating like disability and social dynamics?
Yeah, it's interesting. I think my childhood was was was was all in all pretty good.
You know, my parents were very supportive of me, but they were also very sort of driving of me.
You know what I said, I grew up playing sports, love sports, you know, played baseball, played soccer, able bodied.
And, you know, eventually it was like, OK, can't play this anymore.
I was obviously very upset, very distraught as a little kid, as any young kid would be being told, hey, you're not going to play sports anymore.
But, you know, my parents allowed me to be upset. They didn't try to say, hey, don't be mad.
Don't be sad. They were like, you know, they got it. But they also said at the end of the day, OK, I know you're mad, but we're going to find something for you.
We're going to find some way for you to be active. Like, you're not you're certainly not just going to sit at home all day.
And so they enrolled me in swimming lessons. And through that is how I then also found wheelchair basketball.
And so that really gave me a nice a nice pathway into being active and being around other folks with disabilities.
There were certainly a lot of times, especially as a younger kid, where I really felt isolated and that like I'm the only one in a wheelchair.
Why is this happening to me? This doesn't seem fair. You know, nobody else has to deal with it. Why do I have to deal with it?
Did I do something wrong? A lot of frustration on that.
But, you know, I get I give a lot of credit to my to my parents who said, like, hey, you're just we're going to figure this out.
You know, yeah, it sucks, but we're going to figure it out. We don't have a choice in life.
And then socially, I think I was really lucky. I went to a school where the teachers in the building and the students are actually quite supportive.
I encountered a little bit of bullying as a kid, but not a lot.
Honestly, I consider myself really lucky. Had a good group of friends who were kind of like, hey, yeah, you use a wheelchair.
OK, like, we're just going to figure it out, you know, and inevitably, I'm sure I missed out on some social opportunities, but didn't really know about it.
And this is, of course, before social media dating myself well, so it's not like I was watching on Facebook or Instagram or something, people doing stuff that I wasn't at.
But, you know, I think I ultimately was able to find a good group of friends and again, really finding sports and having a team in that aspect of other kids also going through the challenges really is a was a robust support system.
I think helped me a lot. And, you know, some of those people are still my very close friends to this day.
Awesome. Yeah, I think I'm sure we'll talk about representation a bit as we kind of transition into the Paralympic discussion.
Did you were you able to connect with anyone that had the same diagnosis as you? Did that matter to you?
Yeah, so I have never met anyone actually with type two. I cannot I really can't stress out how rare this is. I think when I was officially being diagnosed the Mayo Clinic, the doctor said, yeah, well, we know the family of five in Canada with this.
And that's all the people we actually know with your type. So it's very, very rare. There's probably there's certainly more.
But, you know, in a country that maybe doesn't have quite as advanced medicine, it might present very differently or confusingly.
And so my mom actually, you know, early on this is, of course, early days, the Internet was all forums trying to find she connected actually with a mom in Sweden whose son had type three.
So fairly similar to mine. And I know they chatted and talked and kind of interacted. We've never actually met, unfortunately, but they they chatted and engaged.
But no, I've I've never met anyone else really with my diagnosis. I you know, I think what's what I've always found with my disabilities, I find people who have bits and pieces kind of like, you know, someone who's walking to bed.
Oh, yeah, I get that. So there's hand in parents. Oh, yeah, I kind of get that. You know, I kind of bring all these different things together and really just find community and, you know, just moving through life differently or, you know, opening plastic bags differently or whatever like that.
So it's never been something for me that I just felt like this desire. Oh, I've got to meet someone else who's who's just like me. I think just the community as a whole has been has been really helpful.
You have a very prolific academic background, masters in public policy from Minnesota and a PhD from University of Denver.
The PhDs. Oh, not there. Not there.
And process. Yeah. Yeah.
Hiatus will call it.
But yeah, what were you initially interested in pursuing and has that evolved over the last few years?
Yeah, it has. You know, I think my dad's a professor. So I've academics has always been a big part of my life and something I've always been important on. And, you know, I think my career has been in sport, of course.
And that's what I've spent a lot of my time doing. But I've always been the kind of person who couldn't just do one thing. You know, I couldn't just train and then come home and kind of sit on the couch. All right. Well, that was a good day.
I've got to have something else push me forward. And for a long time, academics was that thing. What was my undergraduate degree? And then, you know, saying, finish my undergrad. Okay. You know, what am I going to do now? Because my degree was in teaching, which I love to teach.
I would happily be a teacher, but it just that was not very conducive with the athlete lifestyle, unfortunately, of traveling and being all over the country and all over the world. So I said, all right, what can I do instead?
And so I was looking at different, you know, sort of next level higher education programs, and I landed on public policy because, you know, a big part of my life and a big part of how I've always wanted to be is what can I give back to society?
Right. How can I like build the next generation of whatever, whether it's disabled athletes, whether it's, you know, advocates on whatever issue, how can I build that? And so I think public policy is where I land on.
This is a way to kind of learn how to navigate and advocate within the systems and structures that exist, you know, like within governments, within nonprofits, kind of an understanding of how to do it.
So I think, you know, I entered into it with a global public policy focus, we call those very interested in, you know, sort of how do we how do we manage global issues and how do we kind of work together to solve these really challenging global problems like climate change or, you know, just the rights of person with disabilities globally.
Like, how do we kind of handle those things? So I was very interested in that. And then I was doing that for a while and graduated and kind of was in the same situation. I said, okay, what am I going to do now? Probably not going to go work full time.
This was two years before what was supposed to be the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. And I said, well, I guess I could. Someone sort of said, why don't you see if you could do a PhD? I was like, okay, I guess I'll apply for it.
And so I got in, if you received Denver, and I was really interested in studying the effects of big data and technology sort of on democracy, like how we view democracy, how it's affecting democracy, how it's affecting the world around us.
I really enjoyed my research there. Really was having a good time, met a good group of people, was allowing me the flexibility to travel and compete, but also sort of scratching my nerd side, as I like to call it.
But then obviously the COVID-19 pandemic happened, as we all recall. I went remote and I kind of lost steam on it, had some health issues that I was kind of battling through.
And it's something that I always have in my back pocket that I can always go back to, certainly, or lean into. But I've really been, like, if you discussed earlier, lucky to have this opportunity at the University of Michigan.
Had some other interests come up, as Paralympic sport is growing, there's more commercial opportunities there coming along. And so it's something that I'm always a learner, I've always been a learner.
I always have to be learning the next thing. If I'm driving my wife nuts, I read books, dense history textbooks. She's like, why are you reading that? Why don't you read something fun? I was like, oh, this is fun.
She's like, okay, 800 pages on the Medici's is fun for you. And I'm like, it is. So yeah, no, academics and learning has always been a big part of my life. And it's, like I said, currently it's on hiatus for a bit, but it's something I know I can always kind of go back to and lean on that background.
Yeah, absolutely. Or maybe in some way you can find a way to maneuver it into your time at Michigan.
Yeah, yeah, find a way to incorporate it there. Your first competitive sport was wheelchair basketball, but now, obviously competing in wheelchair rugby. What influenced that transition from basketball to rugby?
Yeah, so yeah, so grew up playing wheelchair basketball absolutely loved it had a blast.
And yeah, really made some great friends with it. It was a great sport. But what happened when I when I when I when I found wheelchair rugby is that I'd heard of it a little bit growing up but never really considered it much.
But in 2005, the movie murder ball came out which folks may or may not be familiar with, you know, documentary about 2004.
Excuse me, US Paralympic team. And, you know, I was a 15 year old boy at the time so I saw people smashing at each other and talking trash and crashing and partying and swearing and I was like, that looks awesome.
And so my mom was like, well, I don't know, like, I don't have to look into it and so you know we did a little looking and I discovered that I would be eligible for it you know because as folks may not realize wheelchair basketball is very open to, you know, essentially anyone with a lower limb
of some kind of quite is quite open, whereas wheelchair rugby you have to have an impairment in at least three and typically four limbs. And because of my hand impairments that I have that are pretty significant I was like oh I think I'd actually be eligible for this I could play it.
So I was like well let's find out and so you know after some back and forth they finally relented okay you can go to practice so I went to practice in Minnesota I showed up.
I probably weighed 120 pounds and at the time there was, you know, guys who were former T2 football players guys who played for like 15 years and they kind of looked at, you know, scrawny little means like you want to play the sport I was like, yeah, I want to play there like
okay sounds good. So I hopped in a chair and as I like to say I got beat up and sent flying and tipped over and crashed in the walls and just, you know, utterly destroyed for about two hours straight.
And I fell in love with it that night, you know, I really did the competitiveness the intensity, the physicality of it, you know, it really just it spoke to me in a way that you know, again I love basketball but never never had played anything like rugby and just just instantly
fell in love with the sport. So that set me off on a path I am today to be here and so yeah I was like I said it was love at first sight and that other joke I like to make is it in basketball I was, I was pretty fast I was good at chair positioning
I was good at playing defense ceiling picking all those things. I was terrible at shooting. Really really terrible shooting. So a lot and then along comes the sport, where you have to push really fast, be good with your chair, be evasive, evasive good at defense, but you don't have to shoot the
basketball and I was like this is perfect so it really, it really aligned in a lot of ways for me to have success pretty quickly.
I don't think people realize how physically demanding how fast how like aggressive the sport is, I think there's always a tendency to just assume that these are lower level sports but like one if people haven't watched wheelchair rugby definitely suggest you should, and maybe
can you provide for people who haven't seen it or heard it, maybe just like a gross overview of what gameplay is like maybe how many athletes on each side, rules, etc.
Yeah, absolutely. So wheelchair rugby is the only fully full contact parallel book sport I like to say. It's played on a basketball court, four on four, four players on each team, and we each have little chairs and they're like little baton rams, like little tanks quite frankly. You can imagine your average wheelchair.
You add about 30 pounds to that thing and armor it up, put big old metal guards on it and put the wheels are covered in spoke guards and they just, they really are built for combat I like to say. And so then the game proceeds we have a tip off and we've got sort of two to try lines
to score a point and to score a point all you have to do is go across that line with the ball in your possession, you know, sounds very simple. Um, then there are some rules, sort of around how the game works it's really a mix of rugby, wheelchair basketball a little bit of hockey and do it's kind of a mix of sports
and wrestling so it's really unique. Each place starts with an inbound you know you inbound the ball, got 10 seconds to do that, you've got 12 seconds to advance across half court, you got 40 seconds to score the ball entirely so we've got a score clock, very similar to a shot clock that kind of keeps the
keeps the game flowing, you know they did not used to have that. And so you have situations where teams would stall and hold the ball for a minute or two and it did honestly was just not very good for spectators.
You know, you're on a fast pace, very hard hitting as I said it's completely full contact. The only contact that's not allowed is you can't physically like hit other players. Now they let a lot of that go to be honest with you.
Incidental contacts kind of like that's okay. And you're not allowed to hit players behind the axles what we like to say which is, which essentially is a situation where you can imagine if a person is pushing a wheelchair and you hit the very back of their wheel,
they're going to tailspin it. That can be quite dangerous a lot of players don't have trunk function they won't be able to catch themselves as they fall so those hits are illegal but other than that it's pretty much all fair game.
When you're out in the court and so it, I tell people it's very loud, one of the loudest sports you're going to hear two metal 50 pound 45 pounds here just crashing into each other there's nothing quite like it.
But there's also a lot of tactics to it you know when you first watch it you think oh my god they're just running into each other and crashing and flying. But the deeper you get into it you realize there's lots of strategies lots of logic.
Like most paramedic sports we have a classification system which I'm happy to get into it if we'd like to as well. I'm so there's a lot of strategy that goes into lineups who's on the court what they're doing at a time and so I like to say it's, it's chess, but in bumper cars,
so it's, it's a, it's a lot of fun at you know as you say I encourage folks to check it out on YouTube or, you know, obviously upcoming summer in the Paralympics on on NBC and peacock you'll be able to see see lots of it so it's a, it's a very very exciting spectator friendly sport.
We can touch on those classifications real quick if you want.
Sure, yeah you know I think it's it's an important aspect of para sport you know every, you know, a lot of people watch Paralympic sport for the first time and they're like, why is that person against that person this doesn't make any sense.
And you know the idea is that we're always trying to be as balanced as we can, based on a functional level. So what I was to say is that ideally someone who is missing an entire leg is not running against a person with cerebral palsy, for example, that the impairments are not similar there.
But so for wheelchair rugby specifically, I'll overview this quickly and briefly, is we every player is assigned a score or classification score value, and those values range from 0.5, all the way up to 3.5 in half point increments, so 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 etc.
And so as I said before, there's four players on the court, the four players total point value cannot be more than eight. So if you can imagine you know 3.5 is the highest functioning player, you cannot have more than two of those players on the court, and you can have more than
two 3.0 players which is my classification you if you're going to have a player of a higher value, you're going to have to balance it out with lower players, or lower value players I should say and so I like to say it's the meritocracy of Paralympic sport and it's a little, a little unusual
I think for folks for fans of able-bodied sport because it's I describe it as if in the NBA they said okay you can have a guy who's seven feet tall, no problem. But you got to have a guy who's under five eight, and they'd be like, oh, that'd be weird.
But that's the best way I've always found to describe is the idea is like, because disability is spread all across different function levels and it's all replaced you know you we have to kind of find a way to balance otherwise, the folks at the lower end of the spectrum,
we just have a harder time keeping up and it wouldn't be their fault they can be the best athlete work as hard as they can. But if they're paralyzed from, you know, the chest down and have limited arm function, they're simply not going to be able to do the same things in the quadruple amputee, you know who is missing their hands and their feet, but otherwise is fairly able by this is going to be able to do so it's a, it's a really unique system I think it's something that when people watch it for the first time Paralympic sport and wheelchair rugby for the first time, they'll say well why is that person going slower, like, is there someone faster it's like well, maybe, but it's, I said, well, I'm going to be able to do that.
But it's, I say that within that person's classification. They're actually incredibly fast they're the fastest in the world at their classification, relative to the other players maybe they look a little bit slower, but they're out there, they get to kind of bounce down, people get that oh that makes sense and then, like I said, there's a lot of depth and understand kind of what's going on with those classifications I think is very interesting.
Yeah, you referred to it as chess is anecdotally is there any. Is it better to have like for 2.0 or 23.5 and two halves, like, have you guys kind of played around obviously I'm sure you have and figured out kind of what the best orientation is.
Yeah, so it's a great question. So it depends on depends on the country and it also kind of depends on your pool of athletes, the Australians, for example, who are one of our top rivals, they have leaned pretty heavily into the, what we call it a high low line up so 235 players to 0.5 players they're really big on on running that kind of lineup.
We in the US tend to run more what we call balance lineups that would be like myself with a 2.5 player and a 2.0 player and a 0.5 player or myself with a 2.5 player and 1.5 player and a 1.0 player, we kind of, we tend to run more of the balance side of the game the way we like to play it but it really depends you know a lot of it also ends up being what sort of talent you have if you have really talented 2.0s you're going to want to find a way to get them on the court, you know if you have really talented 1.0s.
You're going to want to find a way to get them on the court, you know and so there's a lot of strategy goes involved in kind of figuring out what are we going to do and it's one of the biggest challenges the coach has, it's being the season when selecting the roster is okay what are we going to balance this with you might have six really good, let's say 1.5 players, but you're not going to be able to play six of them.
So what do you how do you balance that with people on the higher end it's a really interesting sort of issue that they have to deal with. For lack of a better term has, has there been any like unified wheelchair rugby where maybe you have, quote unquote, an able bodied athlete playing alongside other with disability and is there kind of a, it seems like that would be an easy way or this classification system seems like it would be an easy way to kind of level that playing field.
To a degree. Yeah, so there have not been yet wheelchair basketball I know has done that in Canada, for example, a Bible able bodied players play in their leagues. We've had conversations about it, you know, a big belief we have here at Michigan actually is that adaptive sports are for everyone, especially since to your point you sit in a chair.
Yes, you're going to have more function in some ways, but you're also you're still sitting, you know, you're not running around and so we have a lot of conversations about what that could look like, you know, certainly in our practices here at Michigan, for example, we have volunteers student volunteers.
Who come and they'll hop in the chair and play and some of them get pretty good over time and so we have we have never put together kind of a full truly but it's something that I have a lot of interest in you know I think it's a great way to grow parallel book sport is to basically say what this is for everybody.
You know, and to your point classification is a way to kind of balance it out.
I know they, the class providers get a little not annoyed but they work meticulously to have this nice balanced system and so you then add a let's call it a 4.0 class for everybody plays like oh well what do we do now now all the math thrown off but we could figure that out.
Yeah, and also just like just because I don't have a diagnosis ability doesn't mean I'm obviously not going to be better wheelchair rugby than you. So I shouldn't just be automatically 4.0 because I don't have a diagnosis.
So, what physical traits are most important for wheelchair rugby.
Yeah, so we'll see rugby I think there's there's there's two or three physical traits are really important especially you know particularly department high levels you've got to be very fast.
You know the game moves extremely fast that even if you're a 0.5 you've got to be incredibly fast as 0.5 you know, you obviously are not to be expected to chase down 3.0 is but you've got to be able to be extremely fast within your classification.
So, that's just one endurance is another it's a very physical sport, you know, getting hit, then having to start up again is tiring you know and doing that over the course of four eight minute quarters with a stop clock, you end up, you're on the court for
hour and a half to around the court for a very very long time and so you have to have really strong, really strong endurance to be able to do that successfully.
And then just really having that that sort of strength endurance and then the third thing that I'll say is, and this is this is not quite physical but I think it is in some ways is, you know, you have to be tough.
You have to be really okay with getting hit. It's the best way to put it you know when the way I described this is when players first show up typically we see them and you know get them in the chair and they're pushing around that call this is good cool.
The first time they get hit for real, not like a little love tap but someone really comes and hits them. You pretty much know if that person is going to be will be player, or if they're going to be something else because they get hit.
And half the time their eyes light up and they're like, oh, okay, they hit you back or they do it. And other times they get hit, and they kind of shrink down, oh, what was that like, not so sure about that.
And this is not to denigrate anyone you know not it's not for everybody, and that's okay you know it's not for not everybody likes to get hit and I replace hockey, not replace, you know American football so I don't I certainly don't.
I don't I don't I don't talk bad about anyone does that but you do have to have this sort of slight, slight sort of craziness about you where you say yeah getting hit yeah sign me up for that like let me get let me get knocked around and tipped over and sent
flying and you know I think that's one of the cool things about our sport is you find that all the athletes involved, we, we had that missing in our lives you know whether they were injured midlife and we're kind of missing that thing that made them feel live or someone
like myself who's never played, you know, ice hockey or like I said football and I was like, where is that where's that real feeling of it I think that's a, that's a really important one.
I played golf so I can't even begin to relate in any way.
How do you train outside of specific sport practice like do you guys supplement with strength and conditioning and.
Yeah, yeah, I think one of the great things about paramedic sport in the last, you know, I would say, it's a 10 years maybe even longer maybe 12 years is that it's really become more professionalized in terms of training in terms of, there's a lot more sort of
training that we're willing and interested to learn about training adaptive athletes and there's really been a broad movement across the board for paramedic athletes and no we're gonna take this seriously we're not just going to show up and get our function
or we're going to be serious athletes. And so strength and conditioning is a huge part of what we do.
For myself personally it's usually lifting weights, three to four times a week and then I'm in my chair doing a lot of sprint work.
I would say also three to four times a week although I know those numbers would not go eight days a week or anything like that. But you know it's a balance of both you know I think for my sport, you know the longest I'm ever going to sprint full speed is 94 feet.
So I'm not like a you know a marathoner who they've got to go do miles and miles and miles and miles. I'm only going a short distance so most of my work is really burst intervals, a lot of power, being able to kind of work really hard that's really what I do.
And my training is sort of grind really hard at that sort of explosive work and it's really fast for short distances and then do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again.
So it's you know I say to people, you have to love to do that if you want to be successful at it because that's the unfun part right. Going to the Paralympics that's the easy part in a lot of ways. The hard part is getting up and putting yourself in the gym even when you don't want to.
Yeah even those interval sports it's definitely essential to have a good cardiovascular base as well even the even the short sprints whether it's hockey or basketball or really any of those. So definitely training a variety.
You were named as one of the two flag bearers with Melissa Stockwell for the previous Paralympic Games. What did that honor mean to you?
Yeah I mean that's a that was truly one of the best honors of my life. I think it's what people may or not realize is the flag bearers for the countries are voted on by the athletes of that country and so that really what that meant was that I was nominated by my team, the Wheeled Turoki team.
But then all of Team USA Paralympians voted for me, Melissa, to represent them and to lead the flag out. It was really special you know it was a really really incredible thing to have that sort of honor and for them to say like we want you to lead us out at the biggest event of some people's careers.
It was really cool, it was really special. For me it was really impactful for a couple reasons. Two is one you know it was in Japan, my heritage is Japanese.
But what's really interesting is that my grandparents on my dad's side and my aunts and uncles, everyone on that side kind of that older generation was actually interned in the internment camps for World War II.
You know they were essentially put in prison by the United States and for you know two generations later you know the grandson as someone who had been sort of quote unquote locked up by their own country was then leading their country out.
It was just this really kind of incredible full circle moment you know where you know things can change and obviously what happened during World War II is terrible but you know we're able to progress and move forward in our world so that I was able to do that.
So it was really really special honor something I'll really treasure forever.
Yeah that's a really cool parallel. Prior to that competition though you faced some health conditions that kind of put it in jeopardy right?
Yeah, yeah it was a tough beginning of 2021 for me certainly.
We went to our first training camp of the year, first one back from COVID.
Was there, was training, everything seemed fine, obviously kind of tired.
First after three days of training I woke up and I don't feel well, I don't feel well. I'm tired. Okay well let's just give myself a break.
You know I haven't done this in months and months and months, maybe I'm just a little worn down. So stayed in bed, ended up staying in bed all week.
Never felt bad but never felt, never felt really bad but never felt good. Just kind of was in this weird middle ground.
And so I, and so you know I was doing that and finally decided okay you know what let's just send you home, let's get you home, let's not worry, let's stop having you here.
So the night before I was supposed to go home, woke up horribly sick, just horrendously sick at 3am. I said okay something's wrong on here, we got to take you to the hospital.
Went to the hospital in Birmingham, ended up having to stay there for a month actually because I had an incredibly bad infection in my leg that had just gotten completely out of control.
Was septic, really really sick for a long time and yeah it was just, it was tough you know it was really really hard but eventually managed to have a surgery.
They quite literally took my knee out and put cement spacers and stuff back in. Was on IV meds for eight weeks up until at this point we're running up into about April and it was sort of like you said it was, I don't know are we going to be able to do the games?
Is it going to happen? And so but was able to get healthy in time and our S&C coach at the time put me on an aggressive training plan to say the least to see how we could do and you know I was able to get back there.
I was able to do it. It was, it took a lot of effort. My time girlfriend now wife was instrumental in kind of basically being with me every day. She came down to Alabama and we were with me and you know helped me do my meds, get trained.
I really owe a lot to her that I was able to get back at all. And her family as well who we were living with at the time so it was definitely a touch and go thing there for a minute but you know I made it through on the other side and you know just now it's something that just sort of happened to me you know.
And it was it was it was unfortunate. Yeah, but I, the one the one kind of cool takeaway is the lead up in that window I had about two and a half months to train before the games I worked as hard as I ever worked and I really discovered that holy cow I can push myself really hard.
I didn't really know how to push myself. Hopefully I'll never have to push myself quite that hard again because we were trying to make up for five months of lost time, but it was kind of cool to see wow there's, there's something there's another gear in me that I can do if I need to.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Those 2021 games, where they, if I remember correctly the first ones that were televised nationally.
You know, I couldn't remember for sure what exactly they were Rio and I know London we didn't have much coverage at all.
Real there was a bit of coverage. But yeah, Tokyo I know there was really robust some of the most robust coverage we've had so far and you know obviously the time change was tricky and being covered was tough but yeah it was it was it was great.
You know we had coverage, but we watched on TV I got posts, oh watching you seeing us it was really really cool.
And the coverage is only getting better, you know we're really only seeing more and more commitment from NBC, you know as the rights holder to lean into parallel but covered and saying this is this is the next thing this is going to be big and, you know, we're
going to have really amazing coverage I know in Paris and then you know honestly not not not looking forward and I'll say but la is going to be even even more amazing I know but Paris first Paris first.
How is that landscape of Paralympic sport kind of changed because of this exposure can you kind of identify any like quantitative.
Sure, you know I think that when I when I first started, you know and I've been on I've been on the national 2009 2012 of my first Paralympic Games. We've really seen a recognition and understanding awareness, particularly from brands that parallel
and Paralympians are athletes they can leverage they've got great stories to tell the great speakers, the great athletes on and they're people they can partner with to be successful, you know and I think that when we first started there was sort of like it was the Olympics.
I don't know what that is but that thing is there too on and now it's really Olympics and Paralympics, or in some cases it's Paralympics, you know, period, they just say Paralympics and or they say, you know, so I think it's really advanced a lot we've seen so much growth on on social
we've seen athletes with absolutely massive followings who are Paralympic athletes who are, you know, that's what they're known for and but they also have the personalities, do you think so we've really, we've really seen tremendous tremendous growth and sort of
awareness and, and people saying this isn't just some sort of thing they do for fun so I know these are competitive, high level athletes who bring a lot to the table and and brands want to partner with them they want to have them on board you know I'm lucky to partner with quite a few
brands who are really, you know, high end sponsors and they're like yeah we want to support the Paralympic movement we believe in this just as strong as the Olympic movement we believe in Paralympians we believe in, in helping you tell your story and we believe in
sort of what you bring to the table so it's, it's been a sea change, you know, honestly even just in the last, honestly, even in the last six years, really, it's been an incredible change and I think we're only rolling to see even more as we move forward.
Absolutely for those who don't know, and correct me if I, if I say incorrectly but the Paralympics started about two to three weeks after the Olympics wrap up. And I wonder why there has to be that gap and whether like it kind of loses a little bit of its luster
because of that hiatus and I can't pretend to know the first thing about logistics of organizing an event on that scale but I wonder why it can't just all happen at the same time.
I think it's a great question. Um, I think there's a couple, a couple things I can say one. The same time would be very challenging logistically because we stay where the Olympians stay.
So, the housing would essentially, it wouldn't have to quite double, but it would have to increase the number.
And then it would also require and then we also use the same venues. And so the logistics and challenge you you would essentially have a much much longer event, which is kind of what you're getting at is why is there a gap you know essentially the the Olympics
would go to like instead of being like what is it like two and a half weeks it would go to being like a month or maybe a month or a few weeks it would just have to be so much longer for the sake of other working and so you know you raise a good question though
you know there is this kind of unfortunate and there are there are there are logistic reasons for it you know one is that all of the branding changes they go from having the rings everywhere to having the Agenos which is the Paralympic symbol.
And so there's, so there's that there's some practical things like that I know one thing is that you know the Olympics are apparently looks are staffed by volunteers.
So they give the volunteers essentially a break rather than sort of throwing them back to work immediately following it and, and the other part is that, you know, it's worth remembering we will, our first game will be the day after opening ceremony so right away and so we'll
actually get in country, anywhere from seven to 10 days prior to it and so kind of that same point, were they to back up just against the Olympics, we would be arriving, sort of in that last week at the Olympics, which would be very cool.
I don't know if the Olympics don't get me wrong, but it was sort of getting that logistic challenge but no you know you raise a good point it's like having that separation can sometimes lead to sort of a gap and lead to a sort of a loss of energy and so I think that's
something I know I think about a lot and I know a lot of the media folks think of a lot too is how can we keep how can we either keep that energy going or how can we really just say okay Olympics, great, awesome.
So here comes the Paralympics kind of give people to reset and I know there's a lot of really smart people in marketing, working on this really thinking about how can we leverage these things and you know I think it's one of those two for me.
It's a if you build it they will come Americans love sports right we love to watch sports and if you if you provide the coverage if you give it the treatment it deserves which I think we're going to see people will watch it people love swing
and they love track and field they hopefully love wheelchair rugby you know they want to see these sports and so you know I think all your points are fair. I think it's something that it would be amazing to have this one massive month long event, but for right now I think we can really,
I think we can make them each into their amazing unique opportunities and you could really look at the Olympics is this sort of on ramp into the Paralympic Games that we can we can leverage all those eyeballs to say hey in two and a half weeks, come right back here you're going
to see Team USA's best getting after it and so I think there's I think there's a lot of cool things that can be done with that.
Yeah, I really look forward to the start of that.
You were on the cover of sports illustrated with the with the title achieve and inspire.
What are your thoughts on being considered an inspiration and something that we've had, or it's a conversation that we've had with some guests kind of that inspiration narrative that perpetuates disability.
What's your commentary on kind of that topic. Yeah, you know I think it's a it's a it's an interesting conversation I think you know I think you'd ask 1010 people disabilities about it you get 10 answers so this is only my perspective I think for me.
What I always say is that you know inspiring someone is really about that person, right something that they feel inside them and so you know a big part of high level athletics is, I'm going to control and I can control my training, my feeling my whatever I'm
going to do, I can't control necessarily how someone else is going to react to something and so part of me always is like if someone's going to feel away. There's always, I can't stop them from feeling that you know so I think there's that but I think the other part is that, you know, I
what I think is important is that people with disabilities are not seen as inspiring, literally just for existing going to the grocery store driving their car, these are these are just things you do to live your life you wouldn't be inspired by seeing someone just sort of do
what they want to do, but you know when I look back at what I've been able to achieve in my life which is you know at this point, you know significant, and if someone wants to look at it and say wow, that's really amazing you've done that that's going to motivate me inspire
me to do whatever you know who am I to take that away from the person, why would I take that away if I can inspire the next generation particularly of panel and big athletes. Why wouldn't I want to do that, you know why wouldn't I want to be someone
who they could look up to it, you know, if they do so I think it's a nuanced conversation for sure, you know I think again that some folks would probably say well it's not good to feel that way and they're only feeling that way because you have a disability and that might be true,
you know, don't get me wrong.
I think it's a, it's a it's an interesting conversation and one will continue to have but I think the only thing that I really do feel, you know, really strongly about is this idea that you know someone should you really should avoid just feeling quote unquote inspired by someone just because they're, they're out there, just living a normal life
life, right, that's not that's nothing to be. That's just that's just that's just someone doing their daily tasks you know that doesn't need to inspire you. But you know if someone has achieved a lot and you're that can be something inspired you know so I think it's a, like I said it's a nuanced conversation
people have different opinions.
And I said I always come back to as well with me as I can't control how someone else is going to feel or react to something I can have a conversation. But I think if someone feels away and you tell them hey you shouldn't feel that way that often can be, you know, taken taken poorly as well so it's
something I try to be careful with.
I think you moved a lot of context of this conversation if we didn't talk about your diagnosis, if we just talked about you being a national level USA athlete, then it would sound basically the same you very accomplished in the classroom very accomplished on the court
like, it would just sound like a professional athlete and I think a lot of people are inspired by professional athletes so whether you look up to someone in the Paralympics or the Olympics.
And then we kind of mentioned it really briefly at the beginning. I'm sure is really important for a lot of wheelchair users that want to see people like themselves competing in the highest level and seeing themselves on TV.
I think that representation is big.
Who's going to be your biggest competition at the Paralympics. Yeah, I, it's, it's gonna be a lot. Actually, wheelchair rugby is lucky that we're growing with depth of talent it makes my job harder.
I've been saying to people is that I think you know there will be eight teams there altogether. Seven can win a medal, and that's no, no slouch to the 18 the 18, whoever it is you can be just probably a step below, but seven teams can win a medal.
And so it's gonna be the deepest Paralympics ever to me incredibly talented.
I think that our top competition at the moment, Australia is the reigning world champions.
They're probably good. They're very hard to beat. I think the Japanese are very very strong as well. France has recently come on as a very talented squad and they'll have that sort of home home atmosphere behind them we're in Paris late last year for a competition
and it was truly definitely in the arena.
When we play the French team so they're, they're very, they're very talented. They've got some really good players and so they're doing and the classic classic Canadians we just recently beat them on to qualify but they're always a dangerous team and, you know, I'm
not listing all these squads but the reality is they're all good you know they're all really good but you know Australia remains one of our sort of perennial rivals. Again, they're already world champions they beat us the world championship final in 2022 and so that's a team that you know I think I think whoever
wins we'll have to go through them to do it.
What will the next six months look like for you, do you guys meet training camps, do you train individually.
We're training on our own of course you know kind of doing that grind that's where the, the quote unquote real work is done. Lots of that and then we will, we do training camp once a month as well, and we'll have some competition so after training camp, we go to Denmark in late, late March, we'll go to
Wales in mid April, after competitions and then we'll have just like I said training camps, kind of working on some things to get out what lineups we want to run, kind of fine tuning stuff all the way up until our final camp before the game and then it's, then it's showtime.
Awesome. It's a question that we've asked all the guests in the episode, since our stuff is kind of centered around fitness. What do you think needs to be done to make fitness environments, more accessible for individuals with disabilities.
Yeah, that's a great question. I think fitness, to me, the biggest thing that I think would be helpful for fitness to make it more accessible is if commercial gyms in particular I would say, really, and this is my main focus, commercial gyms, your plan of fitness is, your lifetime fitness is,
we're, we're, we went beyond just, oh well, you know, we have no steps to get in, we've got this, we got this, but really had an active goal of being, of being a place where people with disabilities can train and can be adapted and we can figure things out for them, whether that's hiring more trainers,
whether that's really be, you know, in marketing saying we want to do this, I think that is really to me, what can be most helpful is really saying out loud, hey, we're here for you, you can do it, because, you know, specialized centers are great, but don't get me wrong,
the place we train, Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama is fully accessible, amazing, there's a Marriott Freebed YMCA up in Grand Rapids here in Michigan that is fully accessible, phenomenal, you know, but the reality is we're not going to have those every single place in the country,
and so it's like how can we make these widely available commercial gyms as welcoming and accessible to people as possible, you know, and how can, how can a person with a disability enter that space, and either A, feel welcomed, and have someone who said if they're not sure how to do something,
someone will step in and be able to kind of work with them and figure it out, and they don't even have to be, in my opinion, they don't have to be an expert in disability necessarily, but what they do have to be is, is compassionate and adaptable, willing to say, hey, you know, I'm not quite sure, but let's work on this, let's talk together and figure this out, you know, I think to me, that is the biggest thing, it's just sort of an overall attitude shift of, we're going to be an open and welcoming place for folks with disabilities, and we're going to have staff that is sort of prepared to assist them in any way, shape, or form.
I think to me that's, that's a really, really big and important thing because, you know, let's, let's be honest, some people also can't afford to go to these bigger places, they can only afford to go to the place right down the street, and you know, I think you, and you can get a great workout in, at any gym, any of these gyms, you know, I go to Planet Fitness, you can get a great workout there, you know, and so I think it's really helping people get the, feel comfortable when they get in there, and then having the tools themselves and then go out and say, okay, I got this, I can just show up and go to work, so to speak.
Yeah, absolutely, I like that. Yeah, the barometer that I use when hiring coaches at my gym is more so empathy, communication, how they treat people. It's easy enough to teach them the modifications and the adaptations that you can make to equipment and exercises.
I think one of the tough things about commercial gyms is they try to pack a lot of equipment into their floor space, and then also the, also the price point being so low, it's sometimes hard to leverage the individualized, like, personal training sort of thing that some people with disabilities might benefit from, but it's definitely something that I'm interested in tackling.
I've been working with some YMCAs that seem to be committed and they have a really good model to be accessible price point wise, environment wise, so yeah, I'm hoping, it's definitely adaptive fitness is definitely becoming more common.
Hopefully it becomes the norm rather than the exception over the next five or ten years.
For sure. Why I couldn't agree more and it's great to hear all that and I think it's so important because, you know, I tell people this, especially with disabilities, it's like, you don't have to be a parallel athlete, you don't have to play a sport, but it really is important you find a way to be active, whether it's through fitness, whether it's weightlifting, cardio, whatever it may be.
I agree, I think it is getting better, I think you're seeing more sort of awareness and recognition, this is something we need to sort of be able to provide.
But yeah, it just takes time, right?
Well Chuck, it was an honor to talk to you.
For people who are interested in following along both with the Paralympics or with yourself individually, we can include it in the show notes, but where would you suggest that people go?
Yeah, awesome. No, I've really had a good time talking. I think the best to really follow all the stuff I'm up to is on social media.
Chuck Aoki on pretty much every platform you can find me, also USA Wheelchair Rugby, we're on pretty much all the platforms, so yeah, go ahead and hit follow, come along, it's a lot of good stuff.
And then of course, that's where we post usually the links to watch games and YouTube and stuff like that.
And then of course this summer NBC and Peacock are going to be your home for all Paralympic sports and so we hope to have lots and lots of folks watch on there so we can really show the quote unquote powers that be that, hey, this is awesome, people want to see this, there's a demand for it.
So there will only be more and more going forward.