How I accidentally became a guide to a pro blind skateboarder at Exposure 2024
Accessibility
Accessibility
Blindness
Blindness
Guiding
Guiding
Adaptive skating
Adaptive skating
Communication design
Communication design
Where
Encinitas, CA
What
Skate competition
Why
Supporting friend
Role
Guide
Category
Adaptive skating
When
November 2024
Why I worked on this
While preparing for his first vert competition in Encinitas, Coco Atama invited me to come support him. What I had planned as a leisurely weekend quickly transformed into an experience guiding one of the world's top blind skateboarders.
On November 2nd 2024, my friend and pro blind skateboarder Coco Atama aka @blindthrasher was set to participate in his first vert skating competition at Exposure 2024 in Encinitas, CA. In competitive skateboarding there are two distinct categories of skating: street and vert. Street skating involves utilizing street obstacles such as stairs, rails and ledges to do tricks. Vert skating however, centers around performing aerial tricks and maneuvers on a halfpipe or vertical ramp. Unlike street skating's ground-based approach, vert skating involves riding up and down the curved transitions of the ramp, launching into the air at the ramp's crest (or 'lip'), performing tricks, and landing back on the ramp's surface. Skating bowls, or empty pools, is considered somewhere between these two practices and is considered “transition skating”.
So far, Coco has spent his life and pro career street skating, but recently realized that vert skating was much easier on his body. The curve of the ramps and seams in the ramp give Coco much more information about the area he is skating on, and immediately- whereas typically he uses a modified cane with a rolling ball at the end to feel around for obstacles while street skating. Not only does Coco find it easier to feel these ramps out, but falling is also less painful as it typically just involves sliding down the ramp on one’s knee pads.
Realizing that vert was the next logical step in his skating career, Coco went all-in on vert skating. He signed up for Exposure 2024, a global competition where he knew there would be a vert ramp and bowl. He also reached out to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk to get a lesson on vert skating around the same time. Coco thrives under pressure so he essentially was planning to get all the prep done in a few months and be locked in once it came time for him to compete.
In the weeks leading up to Exposure I reached out to Coco, curious about these social media posts of Coco working with Tony Hawk. He explained the situation much like I just did and invited me to come out to Encinitas for the competition. I was elated- as I actually had yet to see Coco skate in real life, only on Instagram where he has >100k followers. He simply wanted me there to cheer him on which I was beyond excited for.
The plans we made were fairly loose: a few days before Exposure Coco had told me he still didn't have his hotel details yet (his sponsor Etnies was setting that up) and told me to just give him a ring when I landed in San Diego. He was skating when I landed and told me to meet up with him at a hang session a bunch of skaters were having at the local skate shop. Immediately when I arrived I could feel a tension in the air. Coco's slightly stiff hug said it all; he is usually a very emotive hugger. Something was off.
I instantly recognized two obstacles Coco was navigating: a. His sponsor still had yet to give him his hotel details and b. The event organizers still had not given Coco access to the bowl he was expected to skate the next morning. This second obstacle was particularly concerning - it is typical for Coco to need to get the lay of the land of a park before being able to skate it with confidence. He does this by utilizing all of his other sensory feedback: tapping around the area with his cane, feeling surfaces with his hands and board, and listening for other skaters to hear where obstacles and lips are. Without this crucial prep time, he would essentially be skating blind in a much more literal sense than usual. After a brief exchange of pleasantries he made it clear to me that he needed to get these things done tonight.
A big challenge here was the fact that literally no one in that scene was aware of my existence other than Coco (he and I met at the 39th annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference) and one friend, Addie, who he was traveling with and had just introduced me to. Not only did they not know who I was- they also didn't know why I was there or the extent of my accessibility expertise. Most importantly, it became clear immediately that this event was not ready for a blind skater.
For context, Exposure was in its 13th year of existence and traditionally focused on elevating women and girl skaters, but this year decided to open things up for adaptive skaters- the terminology preferred by disabled skaters. Some people involved with the event knew Coco and encouraged him to participate around the time that he began exploring vert skating so he decided to bite and sign up.
So here I was, needing to track down an important Etnies representative for hotel details and figure out how to get Coco access to the bowl that night, with the sun already setting. Add to this the fact that I am disabled myself, with primarily neurological/cognitive disabilities, and had just flown from Maine to San Diego - I was utterly exhausted in every way possible. The irony wasn't lost on me: I had come to support my friend, and now found myself navigating an accessibility crisis while managing my own disabilities.
The good news is my body seems to shift into crisis mode under such circumstances. After maybe 10 minutes of waiting for the Etnies rep to come back with hotel details, I realized we were running short on time and needed to get moving. I tried calling out the rep's name and subtly gesturing towards Coco, which he wasn't receptive to, perhaps because I was still just some random person to him. Then I suggested, "Hey guys, I see him talking to some people over there - why don't we just get within his sight? Maybe he'll come over." This worked perfectly, and he walked over to us within seconds to share that crucial information.
Next goal: get to the bowl so Coco could get oriented. We even opted to try reaching the bowl before checking into the hotel. The issue was that the competition area was still a construction zone when we arrived - they were still building the halfpipe. We were met with noticeable frustration from the crew working the event, as we had become a safety concern. They basically just said, "This is a construction zone, you can't be here, and the bowl is wet right now anyway." Coco immediately expressed intense anxiety about how he was possibly supposed to skate the bowl the next morning.
I grabbed his shoulder and said, "Listen man, I'm usually up before the sun - we will get you here early, and I will do whatever I need to do." He quickly relaxed a bit, and we shifted focus to dropping our stuff at the hotel and getting some food, as well as getting into a competition preparation mindset that was less occupied by anxiety. Thankfully Coco, Addie, and I managed to all calm down after eating at a particularly accommodating restaurant. This place, like all of Encinitas, was beyond busy, but we were immediately met with kindness and offered a booth by the window.
It's important to picture the scene: Addie has a disability similar to Cerebral Palsy and walks with canes. Coco had put his cane away due to how busy downtown Encinitas was, so he had his hand on my shoulder following me, with Addie behind us. There I was, the apparently abled person, asking for a table at a busy restaurant. We must have looked like a very short cha cha line of varying types of disability. By this point I had dark circles under my eyes. The hostess was incredibly sweet, clearly seeing we were dealing with a lot, and I'm not sure I've ever experienced such hospitality at a restaurant before.
Invigorated after a drink and some food, we headed to my hotel to hang out for a bit and help Coco apply his sponsors' stickers leading up to the event...
We spent the next half hour determining which brands to give the most prominence and describing the design of each sticker to Coco. I then meticulously placed and applied each sticker to the best of my ability- as I ironically have a fine motor disability but was the most capable person in the room for the task. This was one of the more fun moments of the weekend. We all went to bed early- knowing it was going to be an early day. Coco asked me to give him a 6 AM wakeup call.
After giving the wake up call I promised, I grabbed a Lyft to Coco’s hotel and we ate an early breakfast as Addie caught some extra sleep. The whole reason we were up so early was so we could get to the skate park earlier than everyone else in order for coco to assess the bowl. He was slated to compete in the bowl heat at 9am. To our surprise, many of the other competitors were also anxious to practice in the bowl before the heat- to the extent that there was really no way for Coco to get into the bowl and tap around- it was far too busy.
Here is where I had to jump into advocate mode again. Coco needed to talk with event organizers about having a way to get in this bowl before his heat; he was at serious risk of injury dropping in on that bowl totally blind with no preparation. This is where things got complicated; Coco knew the names of the people he needed to talk to but he couldn’t describe them to me and he also didn’t know where to find them. After asking if he wanted me to go out and try to find people he gave me an emphatic “Yes”.
In my digital accessibility work, I frequently emphasize the importance of providing users multiple ways to perceive information. A webpage needs proper heading structure, descriptive alt text, and properly used ARIA labels to be fully accessible to screen reader users. Similarly, Coco needed multiple channels of information to fully understand the skating environment: tactile feedback from his cane and board, echo location from the sounds of other skaters, and physical contact with surfaces. When the loud music interfered with his ability to hear spatial cues, it was like removing all alt-tags from an image-heavy website – it eliminated a crucial channel of information he needed to navigate successfully.
At this point there are maybe 30 minutes before his heat is set to begin. I start running around asking to talk to someone in charge and mentioning different names Coco had dropped. Eventually was directed to an incredibly nice man named Dave. I tried to calmly explain to him that for the sake of safety, Coco needed to assess the bowl prior to his heat if he wanted to compete. Dave was very receptive to the request, did his own running around to figure out how to manage this- as bowl competition had already started for the day.
The end solution? Fred managed to shut the competition down for 5 minutes and shift all event scheduling accordingly in order to give Coco a little bit of time to check out the bowl directly before his heat. Here was the result...
As you can see, after feeling the bowl out Coco exclaimed “this is not for me, I’m sorry”. The bowl was quite deep, small, pretty slick, and had a huge lip. This is all to say it’s probably a 9/10 bowl in terms of difficulty. Watching the pros skate this bowl was giving me anxiety honestly- and I was relieved to find out that Coco was not going to push himself too far here. One of the largest obstacles I had to navigate over this weekend was effectively being Coco’s eyes to some extent. He would occasionally look for advice on whether or not to skate different obstacles and the absolute last thing I wanted to do was discourage someone whose entire life is about pushing boundaries. Through the weekend there was a lot of talk between me, Coco, and Addie about the inevitability of injuries as adaptive skaters and how they largely end up being worth it. The act of not letting one’s disability dictate their activity is paramount in this community. They, after all, are doing what most people don’t even realize is possible. Most people aren't aware that pro blind skateboarders exist.
This is precisely why I love the world of adaptive skating. It gives people the opportunity to think of disability in new ways very quickly. Although Coco felt discouraged when he wasn’t able to skate in the bowl heat, he quickly shifted focus to his street skating heat the next day. We immediately went from the bowl to the street section so Coco could begin practicing. His determination was honestly unreal. This was my first time spending ample time with an athlete at this level, was a bit like keeping up with Michael Jordan- and fatigue and pain are primary components of my disability.
Coco probably spent 5-6 hours straight practicing the street park. I spent the first hour with him helping him get situated, filming, and waiting for him to get in a good rhythm with his skating. I was escorting him around the event grounds quite a bit early on as he was still learning the layout and the event did not have an official human guide or guided map with audio descriptions like you see at some conferences. When there is ample space, Coco does fine navigating using a cane; but in a busy crowd he really needs a sighted shoulder or arm to grab onto, and Addie couldn’t do this for him due to her canes.
It was brilliant watching Coco progress over that hour from half-landed tricks to total fluidity. Again, this was the first time i saw him in action in person. Here’s one of my favorite moments from watching him practice Saturday...
Once i could see that he was locked in and feeling confident, I asked if it would be cool if I left to go sit down for some lunch. He said he would be alright and I just let him know to call me if he needed anything. I ate a long lunch and tried to unwind a bit while I didn’t have to be as responsible/on alert. On my way back to the park I grabbed Coco some food and when I saw him he was clearly back in his element which was nice to see. I hung out at the event for another hour or two and made sure Coco was all set, and once I found Addie I asked them both if it would be alright I went back to my hotel to lay down for a while. They said they were all set so we set up another 6am wakeup call for Coco and as usual told both of them to just ring me if they need me.
Fortunately they were as tired as I was and I was not needed for the rest of the night; which gave me a solid 6 hours to do the most mindless activities I could think of. Unfortunately it was tough not to worry about Coco the whole time and what tomorrow might bring. He was set to compete in one of the first heats the next morning so I was fairly preoccupied with potential accessibility concerns. So far Murphy’s law seems to be at play: everything big that could go wrong seemed to go wrong, we were just taking it in great stride so far. Coco was incredibly disappointed about not skating the bowl, and also getting locked out of the vert skating competition due to overbooking competitors. It all came down to the street skating heat for him- this was where he was going to show people what he’s capable of.
The next morning started out very smoothly. I call him early and scooped him up to grab some breakfast. Vibes were great, we both were feeling very positively about the morning ahead of us. The breakfast burritos we ate were life-bringing. We were 100% ready to go.
When we got to the park however, there was a clear shift in energy. What began with unbridled enthusiasm and excitement; blasting power metal while driving to the park quickly developed into a very contained but clear anxiety leading into Coco’s heat. He had about 45 minutes to skate the street section and his demeanor changed immediately once we got to the park.
He gets into his usual process, is feeling around the park again to get reacquainted with all of the obstacles on a finite level and considering what tricks he wants to attempt in what places. The thing is, Coco can only do so much with his cane alone; he also heavily relies about sound to not just hear where the other skaters are but also in order to further assess where obstacles are. It’s absolutely imperative for him to get that auditory feedback, otherwise it’s hard for him to have all the info he needs not only to succeed in a competition, but to be safe while doing so.
Unfortunately for us, the competition had a pretty big PA system and they were blasting music about 20 minutes prior to Coco’s heat while he was still practicing. This whole time i’m watching him like a hawk trying to figure out if he needed anything and also holding my breath wanting to see him succeed. He wasn’t landing tricks anywhere near how he was in practice yesterday and was clearly frustrated. I run up to him grab his shoulder and say “what’s up man?”. “The music is too loud!” he exclaims. I ask, “Want me to go talk to someone?” to which he immediately responds “Yes!”.
I sprint towards what looked like the DJ booth area and blurt out “Is there anyone here in charge?”. Here’s another one of those tricky moments; I had to basically make demands with absolutely zero clout in that community and I also had to make the demands in a way that they would be received well. I had to properly explain Coco’s obstacles. The first guy I spoke with was not the DJ but had some involvement in the event- he knew who Coco was and listened to me closely while I explained that Coco could not properly assess the space with loud music present and asked if music could be turned down a bit. He clearly cared and said he would speak to the DJ. This was not a productive game of telephone though as the DJ didn’t noticeably change the volume.
Unfortunately, despite my efforts, Coco was still shaken by the whole experience and it really showed in his heat. Despite the fact that he spent hours landing trick after trick the day prior, he had trouble landing a single trick during his brief 3-minute heat. I sense that this was all a culmination of numerous stressful events navigating this competition, and that it all washed over Coco during this heat. I believe he felt far more disabled in this moment which led to intense frustration.
He was terribly disappointed in himself following the heat, I spent the next hour talking him down, explaining that 3 minutes of poor performance are bound to happen, even for athletes at a high level like himself. Reminded him that people saw him killing it during practice for many hours yesterday and encouraged him not to let those 3 minutes define his narrative. At the end of the day we were all still proud of Coco; we know he does things that most sighted people couldn’t do with years of preparation. Let alone if you put a blindfold on them.
This experience reinforced a crucial aspect of accessibility: whether in digital or physical spaces, the principles remain remarkably consistent. Just as digital interfaces need clear navigation paths, proper feedback, and multiple ways to access information, physical spaces require the same considerations. My background in digital accessibility gave me a framework for understanding Coco's needs - the way he utilizes sound out in the real world is not unlike how screen reader users navigate websites, and the importance of proper signals, the need for organizational hierarchy, and user control in digital interfaces. These parallels helped me advocate effectively, even in an unfamiliar context.
How I accidentally became a guide to a pro blind skateboarder at Exposure 2024
Accessibility
Blindness
Guiding
Adaptive skating
Communication design
Where
Encinitas, CA
What
Skate competition
Why
Supporting friend
Role
Guide
Category
Adaptive skating
When
November 2024
Why I worked on this
While preparing for his first vert competition in Encinitas, Coco Atama invited me to come support him. What I had planned as a leisurely weekend quickly transformed into an experience guiding one of the world's top blind skateboarders.
On November 2nd 2024, my friend and pro blind skateboarder Coco Atama aka @blindthrasher was set to participate in his first vert skating competition at Exposure 2024 in Encinitas, CA. In competitive skateboarding there are two distinct categories of skating: street and vert. Street skating involves utilizing street obstacles such as stairs, rails and ledges to do tricks. Vert skating however, centers around performing aerial tricks and maneuvers on a halfpipe or vertical ramp. Unlike street skating's ground-based approach, vert skating involves riding up and down the curved transitions of the ramp, launching into the air at the ramp's crest (or 'lip'), performing tricks, and landing back on the ramp's surface. Skating bowls, or empty pools, is considered somewhere between these two practices and is considered “transition skating”.
So far, Coco has spent his life and pro career street skating, but recently realized that vert skating was much easier on his body. The curve of the ramps and seams in the ramp give Coco much more information about the area he is skating on, and immediately- whereas typically he uses a modified cane with a rolling ball at the end to feel around for obstacles while street skating. Not only does Coco find it easier to feel these ramps out, but falling is also less painful as it typically just involves sliding down the ramp on one’s knee pads.
Realizing that vert was the next logical step in his skating career, Coco went all-in on vert skating. He signed up for Exposure 2024, a global competition where he knew there would be a vert ramp and bowl. He also reached out to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk to get a lesson on vert skating around the same time. Coco thrives under pressure so he essentially was planning to get all the prep done in a few months and be locked in once it came time for him to compete.
In the weeks leading up to Exposure I reached out to Coco, curious about these social media posts of Coco working with Tony Hawk. He explained the situation much like I just did and invited me to come out to Encinitas for the competition. I was elated- as I actually had yet to see Coco skate in real life, only on Instagram where he has >100k followers. He simply wanted me there to cheer him on which I was beyond excited for.
The plans we made were fairly loose: a few days before Exposure Coco had told me he still didn't have his hotel details yet (his sponsor Etnies was setting that up) and told me to just give him a ring when I landed in San Diego. He was skating when I landed and told me to meet up with him at a hang session a bunch of skaters were having at the local skate shop. Immediately when I arrived I could feel a tension in the air. Coco's slightly stiff hug said it all; he is usually a very emotive hugger. Something was off.
I instantly recognized two obstacles Coco was navigating: a. His sponsor still had yet to give him his hotel details and b. The event organizers still had not given Coco access to the bowl he was expected to skate the next morning. This second obstacle was particularly concerning - it is typical for Coco to need to get the lay of the land of a park before being able to skate it with confidence. He does this by utilizing all of his other sensory feedback: tapping around the area with his cane, feeling surfaces with his hands and board, and listening for other skaters to hear where obstacles and lips are. Without this crucial prep time, he would essentially be skating blind in a much more literal sense than usual. After a brief exchange of pleasantries he made it clear to me that he needed to get these things done tonight.
A big challenge here was the fact that literally no one in that scene was aware of my existence other than Coco (he and I met at the 39th annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference) and one friend, Addie, who he was traveling with and had just introduced me to. Not only did they not know who I was- they also didn't know why I was there or the extent of my accessibility expertise. Most importantly, it became clear immediately that this event was not ready for a blind skater.
For context, Exposure was in its 13th year of existence and traditionally focused on elevating women and girl skaters, but this year decided to open things up for adaptive skaters- the terminology preferred by disabled skaters. Some people involved with the event knew Coco and encouraged him to participate around the time that he began exploring vert skating so he decided to bite and sign up.
So here I was, needing to track down an important Etnies representative for hotel details and figure out how to get Coco access to the bowl that night, with the sun already setting. Add to this the fact that I am disabled myself, with primarily neurological/cognitive disabilities, and had just flown from Maine to San Diego - I was utterly exhausted in every way possible. The irony wasn't lost on me: I had come to support my friend, and now found myself navigating an accessibility crisis while managing my own disabilities.
The good news is my body seems to shift into crisis mode under such circumstances. After maybe 10 minutes of waiting for the Etnies rep to come back with hotel details, I realized we were running short on time and needed to get moving. I tried calling out the rep's name and subtly gesturing towards Coco, which he wasn't receptive to, perhaps because I was still just some random person to him. Then I suggested, "Hey guys, I see him talking to some people over there - why don't we just get within his sight? Maybe he'll come over." This worked perfectly, and he walked over to us within seconds to share that crucial information.
Next goal: get to the bowl so Coco could get oriented. We even opted to try reaching the bowl before checking into the hotel. The issue was that the competition area was still a construction zone when we arrived - they were still building the halfpipe. We were met with noticeable frustration from the crew working the event, as we had become a safety concern. They basically just said, "This is a construction zone, you can't be here, and the bowl is wet right now anyway." Coco immediately expressed intense anxiety about how he was possibly supposed to skate the bowl the next morning.
I grabbed his shoulder and said, "Listen man, I'm usually up before the sun - we will get you here early, and I will do whatever I need to do." He quickly relaxed a bit, and we shifted focus to dropping our stuff at the hotel and getting some food, as well as getting into a competition preparation mindset that was less occupied by anxiety. Thankfully Coco, Addie, and I managed to all calm down after eating at a particularly accommodating restaurant. This place, like all of Encinitas, was beyond busy, but we were immediately met with kindness and offered a booth by the window.
It's important to picture the scene: Addie has a disability similar to Cerebral Palsy and walks with canes. Coco had put his cane away due to how busy downtown Encinitas was, so he had his hand on my shoulder following me, with Addie behind us. There I was, the apparently abled person, asking for a table at a busy restaurant. We must have looked like a very short cha cha line of varying types of disability. By this point I had dark circles under my eyes. The hostess was incredibly sweet, clearly seeing we were dealing with a lot, and I'm not sure I've ever experienced such hospitality at a restaurant before.
Invigorated after a drink and some food, we headed to my hotel to hang out for a bit and help Coco apply his sponsors' stickers leading up to the event...
We spent the next half hour determining which brands to give the most prominence and describing the design of each sticker to Coco. I then meticulously placed and applied each sticker to the best of my ability- as I ironically have a fine motor disability but was the most capable person in the room for the task. This was one of the more fun moments of the weekend. We all went to bed early- knowing it was going to be an early day. Coco asked me to give him a 6 AM wakeup call.
After giving the wake up call I promised, I grabbed a Lyft to Coco’s hotel and we ate an early breakfast as Addie caught some extra sleep. The whole reason we were up so early was so we could get to the skate park earlier than everyone else in order for coco to assess the bowl. He was slated to compete in the bowl heat at 9am. To our surprise, many of the other competitors were also anxious to practice in the bowl before the heat- to the extent that there was really no way for Coco to get into the bowl and tap around- it was far too busy.
Here is where I had to jump into advocate mode again. Coco needed to talk with event organizers about having a way to get in this bowl before his heat; he was at serious risk of injury dropping in on that bowl totally blind with no preparation. This is where things got complicated; Coco knew the names of the people he needed to talk to but he couldn’t describe them to me and he also didn’t know where to find them. After asking if he wanted me to go out and try to find people he gave me an emphatic “Yes”.
In my digital accessibility work, I frequently emphasize the importance of providing users multiple ways to perceive information. A webpage needs proper heading structure, descriptive alt text, and properly used ARIA labels to be fully accessible to screen reader users. Similarly, Coco needed multiple channels of information to fully understand the skating environment: tactile feedback from his cane and board, echo location from the sounds of other skaters, and physical contact with surfaces. When the loud music interfered with his ability to hear spatial cues, it was like removing all alt-tags from an image-heavy website – it eliminated a crucial channel of information he needed to navigate successfully.
At this point there are maybe 30 minutes before his heat is set to begin. I start running around asking to talk to someone in charge and mentioning different names Coco had dropped. Eventually was directed to an incredibly nice man named Dave. I tried to calmly explain to him that for the sake of safety, Coco needed to assess the bowl prior to his heat if he wanted to compete. Dave was very receptive to the request, did his own running around to figure out how to manage this- as bowl competition had already started for the day.
The end solution? Fred managed to shut the competition down for 5 minutes and shift all event scheduling accordingly in order to give Coco a little bit of time to check out the bowl directly before his heat. Here was the result...
As you can see, after feeling the bowl out Coco exclaimed “this is not for me, I’m sorry”. The bowl was quite deep, small, pretty slick, and had a huge lip. This is all to say it’s probably a 9/10 bowl in terms of difficulty. Watching the pros skate this bowl was giving me anxiety honestly- and I was relieved to find out that Coco was not going to push himself too far here. One of the largest obstacles I had to navigate over this weekend was effectively being Coco’s eyes to some extent. He would occasionally look for advice on whether or not to skate different obstacles and the absolute last thing I wanted to do was discourage someone whose entire life is about pushing boundaries. Through the weekend there was a lot of talk between me, Coco, and Addie about the inevitability of injuries as adaptive skaters and how they largely end up being worth it. The act of not letting one’s disability dictate their activity is paramount in this community. They, after all, are doing what most people don’t even realize is possible. Most people aren't aware that pro blind skateboarders exist.
This is precisely why I love the world of adaptive skating. It gives people the opportunity to think of disability in new ways very quickly. Although Coco felt discouraged when he wasn’t able to skate in the bowl heat, he quickly shifted focus to his street skating heat the next day. We immediately went from the bowl to the street section so Coco could begin practicing. His determination was honestly unreal. This was my first time spending ample time with an athlete at this level, was a bit like keeping up with Michael Jordan- and fatigue and pain are primary components of my disability.
Coco probably spent 5-6 hours straight practicing the street park. I spent the first hour with him helping him get situated, filming, and waiting for him to get in a good rhythm with his skating. I was escorting him around the event grounds quite a bit early on as he was still learning the layout and the event did not have an official human guide or guided map with audio descriptions like you see at some conferences. When there is ample space, Coco does fine navigating using a cane; but in a busy crowd he really needs a sighted shoulder or arm to grab onto, and Addie couldn’t do this for him due to her canes.
It was brilliant watching Coco progress over that hour from half-landed tricks to total fluidity. Again, this was the first time i saw him in action in person. Here’s one of my favorite moments from watching him practice Saturday...
Once i could see that he was locked in and feeling confident, I asked if it would be cool if I left to go sit down for some lunch. He said he would be alright and I just let him know to call me if he needed anything. I ate a long lunch and tried to unwind a bit while I didn’t have to be as responsible/on alert. On my way back to the park I grabbed Coco some food and when I saw him he was clearly back in his element which was nice to see. I hung out at the event for another hour or two and made sure Coco was all set, and once I found Addie I asked them both if it would be alright I went back to my hotel to lay down for a while. They said they were all set so we set up another 6am wakeup call for Coco and as usual told both of them to just ring me if they need me.
Fortunately they were as tired as I was and I was not needed for the rest of the night; which gave me a solid 6 hours to do the most mindless activities I could think of. Unfortunately it was tough not to worry about Coco the whole time and what tomorrow might bring. He was set to compete in one of the first heats the next morning so I was fairly preoccupied with potential accessibility concerns. So far Murphy’s law seems to be at play: everything big that could go wrong seemed to go wrong, we were just taking it in great stride so far. Coco was incredibly disappointed about not skating the bowl, and also getting locked out of the vert skating competition due to overbooking competitors. It all came down to the street skating heat for him- this was where he was going to show people what he’s capable of.
The next morning started out very smoothly. I call him early and scooped him up to grab some breakfast. Vibes were great, we both were feeling very positively about the morning ahead of us. The breakfast burritos we ate were life-bringing. We were 100% ready to go.
When we got to the park however, there was a clear shift in energy. What began with unbridled enthusiasm and excitement; blasting power metal while driving to the park quickly developed into a very contained but clear anxiety leading into Coco’s heat. He had about 45 minutes to skate the street section and his demeanor changed immediately once we got to the park.
He gets into his usual process, is feeling around the park again to get reacquainted with all of the obstacles on a finite level and considering what tricks he wants to attempt in what places. The thing is, Coco can only do so much with his cane alone; he also heavily relies about sound to not just hear where the other skaters are but also in order to further assess where obstacles are. It’s absolutely imperative for him to get that auditory feedback, otherwise it’s hard for him to have all the info he needs not only to succeed in a competition, but to be safe while doing so.
Unfortunately for us, the competition had a pretty big PA system and they were blasting music about 20 minutes prior to Coco’s heat while he was still practicing. This whole time i’m watching him like a hawk trying to figure out if he needed anything and also holding my breath wanting to see him succeed. He wasn’t landing tricks anywhere near how he was in practice yesterday and was clearly frustrated. I run up to him grab his shoulder and say “what’s up man?”. “The music is too loud!” he exclaims. I ask, “Want me to go talk to someone?” to which he immediately responds “Yes!”.
I sprint towards what looked like the DJ booth area and blurt out “Is there anyone here in charge?”. Here’s another one of those tricky moments; I had to basically make demands with absolutely zero clout in that community and I also had to make the demands in a way that they would be received well. I had to properly explain Coco’s obstacles. The first guy I spoke with was not the DJ but had some involvement in the event- he knew who Coco was and listened to me closely while I explained that Coco could not properly assess the space with loud music present and asked if music could be turned down a bit. He clearly cared and said he would speak to the DJ. This was not a productive game of telephone though as the DJ didn’t noticeably change the volume.
Unfortunately, despite my efforts, Coco was still shaken by the whole experience and it really showed in his heat. Despite the fact that he spent hours landing trick after trick the day prior, he had trouble landing a single trick during his brief 3-minute heat. I sense that this was all a culmination of numerous stressful events navigating this competition, and that it all washed over Coco during this heat. I believe he felt far more disabled in this moment which led to intense frustration.
He was terribly disappointed in himself following the heat, I spent the next hour talking him down, explaining that 3 minutes of poor performance are bound to happen, even for athletes at a high level like himself. Reminded him that people saw him killing it during practice for many hours yesterday and encouraged him not to let those 3 minutes define his narrative. At the end of the day we were all still proud of Coco; we know he does things that most sighted people couldn’t do with years of preparation. Let alone if you put a blindfold on them.
This experience reinforced a crucial aspect of accessibility: whether in digital or physical spaces, the principles remain remarkably consistent. Just as digital interfaces need clear navigation paths, proper feedback, and multiple ways to access information, physical spaces require the same considerations. My background in digital accessibility gave me a framework for understanding Coco's needs - the way he utilizes sound out in the real world is not unlike how screen reader users navigate websites, and the importance of proper signals, the need for organizational hierarchy, and user control in digital interfaces. These parallels helped me advocate effectively, even in an unfamiliar context.