Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Why I Turned to Chess

Up until about six years ago, chess had just been a dream of mine; that is, all I wanted to do was just learn to play.  I had bought a slim Braille booklet on the basics and rudiments of chess back in the early 90s along with an adaptable chessboard but truth be told, I never really paid much attention to it until I lost most of my vision about six years ago.

 

Before turning to chess, I was very much of an outdoors sports person.  I was heavily involved with such things as ice skating, swimming, and skiing but upon losing my vision, I became very nervous about navigating outdoors and I had to really push myself to keep up with my ice skating.  However, I persevered and I am glad that I did but something was missing.  Something I wanted to add to my repertoire of hobbies to compensate for my vision loss.

 

I was born with very little vision but when I was a teen I received a cornea transplant that enabled me to gain a fair amount of sight but I was still considered to be legally blind.  With my new found sight I took the opportunity to explore and learn much and this included exploring possibilities to learn board games.  After buying my adapted chessboard I spent a wee bit of time with it but it was not until 2002 just before losing my vision that I really decided to get serious about entering the world of chess.  In that year I happened to meet a wonderful lady named Nadia Shishkina, a Russian lady, and a chess teacher.

 

It did not take much for Nadia to encourage me to start learning and just before losing my vision I managed to learn enough from her to get started with the basics.  I stayed in touch with Nadia and upon losing my vision it was she who encouraged me to get serious about my chess.  It took about three years after losing my vision for me to really get going and when I did I did not stop.  My first stop along the way was in Ottawa Canada with my friend Ray Barfitt.  He patiently started to coach me and mentor me and he encouraged me to buy some Braille chess books from the RNIB in order to improve my skills.

 

I also took the plunge to expand my circle of chess friends at a local chess club but this did not work very well for me as I ran into some chess instructors who felt that I should be playing with blind players instead of sighted ones.  Nadia and Ray continued to push me to keep on going and last year I took one big step forward when I signed up for the Hadley School's chess program.  This all came about when an acquaintance put me in touch with Alan Dicey, a truly wonderful man and a true motivator.  I completed the Hadley program in September and since then I have been playing in the Swiss division tournament as well as with others on the USBCA list.

 

Chess has opened up many doors for me.  I have and continue to make many new friends.  I am using chess to help me cultivate more patience, become more disciplined in my job as well as in my personal life, and most of all I am using it to help others.  I hope that I can find opportunities to travel to other countries in order to promote chess among blind persons.

 

I'd like to thank Nadia, Ray, and Alan for having been a part of my chess adventures and I look forward to meeting many others like them.

 

I'm Donna J. Jodhan your friendly accessibility advocate wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and share my blogs with the rest of the world.  Visit www.hadley.edu to learn more.

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