 Society tends to treat people with disabilities a little bit differently, and unfortunately this is also true in the world of martial arts, where any sort of hindrance or impairment can come across as scrutinized or come with some preconceived notions. Today we have a very special guest who lost his eyesight at the age of 15, and he's not only an established martial artist, but he lives his life through all sorts of adventures. And he's here with us today to break a lot of these misconceptions and share a perspective with us in a very, very important lesson that we can all learn and enhance our own lives with, whether we have any impairment or not. It is with great pleasure that today we introduce Sensei Joshua Lloyd. So I'd like to get back to the topic of how you lost your sight. But the first thing I want to talk about, too, is what are some misconceptions that people might have about not having vision and training in the martial arts? That we're all daredevil. I hate to break it to you. It's not a documentary. I mean, there is something to it, right? Like it in terms of adjusting to our senses and things like that. But a lot of times people see one blind person or one person with a visual impairment and they think that's representative of everyone. And the thing is, is just as we're all individuals, everybody does blind a little differently. So you might say, for instance, have me. You know, I lost my eyesight when I was a teenager. I mean, you might have somebody who's coming into the dojo. He's been blind their whole life. And so that's very different for me. So like I had a student once who was also blind, but he'd been blind his whole life. And I was teaching him how to draw a sword. And then we had these sheathable bokons in our dojo. And so it was perfectly safe for both he and I. To touch the blade. And, you know, me before I lost my eyesight, I used to watch all these martial arts movies, Bruce Lee and, you know, cry to kid and all that stuff. And so I had a reference point, even if I didn't actually know what a lot of the stuff exactly worked, you know, how it went, I had a frame of reference. He didn't have a frame of reference. Technically, he was doing exactly what I was asking him to do. But it wasn't what I wanted him to do. And so, you know, just a recognition that everybody does blind a little different. Another one, man, this bugs me. What do you ask? I get the utility of this, but I hate it when somebody grabs my shirt and pulls me by it. Now, sometimes if you're doing drills and you're, say, you're you're shimping across the mat and jujitsu and you need to get out of the way because somebody else is coming through, I can see the importance and, you know, the safety trumps dignity and respect. But it feels icky to me personally. And I suspect it probably would other people. The if you're going to guide somebody who's blind, letting them grab ahold of you or asking consent if there's not an urgency thing, right? If there's if you don't have time to ask consent and somebody's going to get hit with like a like a stray like, I don't know, Tanfa that they lost because they were doing a form wrong or something. Yeah, OK, grab, sure. But if there's room, ask. And if you don't know how to do something, ask more than just assume. Oh, I know, you know, and you'll learn the more time you spend with someone and the more time you have interaction with people who have a visual impairment. I say that I'm blind. Some people get into this whole person first language thing. I just say I'm blind. But either way, if you don't know, just ask. Oh, what's this for context? What arts do you practice in? So I have a background primarily in Guardian Kempo, which has some connections to Karho Kempo and Kaja Kempo. I also have a background in Tekio Jitsu, which has origins in both Tongsudo and Gracie Jiu Jitsu are the guy who started that program as a you know, significant ranked black belt within Tongsudo and also Gracie Jiu Jitsu, black belt. And then beyond that, I've gone on to absolutely fall in love with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is actually the this here is the shirt from the Jiu Jitsu, German train in Delmar, certified Jiu Jitsu. Shout out, Uncle Joel and Majid. And I've done a little bit of judo judo is really hard on the body. So I had to do it a little bit. I threw it my back a little while ago. So I building up that armor, because if you don't have your Kemi exactly perfectly, you can get slammed pretty hard. So yeah, I would say Kempo, karate, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a little bit of judo. And I've gotten into a little bit of Jiu Kendo and some other kung fu training as well, though I don't have any ranking at any of it at this particular juncture. A pretty significant mix. I mean, that's that's just as much as means that I've just been obsessed. You know, like for me, like I love the esoteric and I'm learning some Tai Chi right now, but I also am learning some of John Hacklman's program, his Hawaiian Kempo program, because I just don't want to keep learning and upleveling my ability as a martial artist. Fantastic. Now, when it comes to like the judo and the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and in arts like that, it's all about touching initiation and feeling emotion. That sense of touch has to be greatly important. And I mean, how does that impact your your training at all? It's everything, right? If because both relevant to training also for competition and also you know, what I'm thinking about self-defense concerns, right? If I go into a loud bar or club and or a loud event center, it's going to be loud. It's going to be hard, you know, as much as I'm not daredevil. I use my hearing somewhat, but there are especially when I'm tired, when I'm my heart's pumping and, you know, maybe I'm breathing hard and and all of that, my sense of of hearing is only so beneficial. And so that developing that sense of touch, that the kinesthetic touch sense of, you know, where I've reached out and maybe I've hit with a jab if we're striking, now I have a point of contact. If somebody's grabbed me, now I have a point of contact. I can follow that up. And the more I build that sensitivity, the more my lack of eyesight isn't a factor. Now, if somebody wants to do like a sneak attack, you know, there's a period of time where people doing like a knockout game where they just run up and just hit people in the side of the face. And, you know, that's not there's not a whole lot I can do about that. But once there is physical contact, that's my end. And so for me, one of the biggest things I would encourage any person who wants to be able to fight better without having to rely on their eyesight, develop that sense of touch and, you know, whether it's it's push hands, you know, from some of the Chinese martial arts, whether it's playing open guard a lot, right? Like open guard is a lot like Chisa with your feet. And so developing that that kinesthetic sense is going to be absolutely vital, regardless of what your goals are for martial arts, if you have any lack of eyesight, as compared with most people, I think. And we talked about this in our pre-conversation because there's a big difference between like you talk about the arts where you're already making contact and just graphing. But when it comes to something that's a striking art, boxing or karate, there is that disconnect when you're not making that contact. And you had mentioned about using using your jab as an antenna. Could you talk about how your little strategy with that? Yeah, I mean, it depends on the type of engagement, but for sure. Like if I'm I don't have any like real deep training in my time, but I've had a chance to do a little bit of white side. I learned this from Tiffany, the time bomb. I was so crazy. I got a chance to do like multi-training with like the glory kickboxing world champion, which is nuts. But she would she actually kind of helped me work on that a little bit where, you know, you kind of keep your hands moving. So you kind of give somebody a little bit of a barrier. They can't just walk right through it. But once I have the connection, oh, OK, I can kind of throw it out there a little bit because it's it's it's one of those punches, one of those types of things that if you can kind of toss it out and it's you're not overcommitting, you're not breaking your structure. You can toss it out from different angles and from different points while still keeping a good guard. And even, you know, so I'm going by my my my sense of of sound, my whatever pressure I feel in the mat, right? If you're on a jiu-jitsu mat, if you're even if you're doing striking class, sometimes you can feel the pressure the way the ground changes. And so I can have a good gauge. But once I have that connection, and this is why I talk about the importance of gaining that sensitivity, you know, I may only have, you know, a little bit of connection. And I'm wearing, you know, 12 ounce gloves or 16 ounce gloves or whatever is I'm doing, you know, I that's my point of connection. Now, if I can learn all the things that can be learned from that point of connection, then I'm not just throwing Hail Mary kicks, which is a really dangerous thing to do anyway. And I'm not perfect at it like there are times where I've totally run my ass kicked, you know, but at the same time, there are times when I'm able to do something. And and really, I don't do martial arts because I'm good at fighting. I think I'm all right, you know, a few few instructors seem to think so, you know, a few black belts under your belt or whatever. But and by the way, I just want to be clear, I'm not a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, still only a purple belt. I have a few black belts. I don't want to take any credit there that's not earned. But martial arts is about, I think, one of the values of martial arts is the intentional struggle, right? I love judo because it's really hard. I like things that are difficult that I can throw myself into. You know, I think that if somebody wants to get into martial arts because they think it's going to be easy. Well, you know, Rob from Macdogeal Life has a whole bunch of people who you can recommend who will teach you. And I like that you're talking about unchallenges and making things that are hard or you like accepting these challenges. So kind of a two-part question about that, to follow that up with. The first part is you mentioned about losing your sight when you were 15. Can you share with us a little bit about what happened and how you lost your vision? Yeah, for sure. So I was born with folds down the center of my retina, right? In my maculatus, if anybody knows the anatomy of the eye, essentially right down the focal point where I would your retina is kind of like the film, if your eye is a camera. And my right retina was detached when I was about two or three. That fold there makes me more susceptible to retinal detachments and injuries. They found out too late to do anything about it, but they were able to keep the vision in my left eye. We were kind of pay attention to that for a while. And one hundred was what I was technically, you know, the actual numbers if I wore glasses. So still super near-sighted growing up. I was exempt from Fized. So, you know, I karate, judo, all that stuff was completely out of the question. At least I was supposed to be. My friends showed me stuff. But in any case, fast forward to my sophomore year of high school, I had had quite a number of eye surgeries already. So no running, no lifting weights, no swimming because I hit my head in the pool. They didn't even want me straining, lifting just normal everyday objects. You know, it's real, real fragile. And so what do I do? I grab a pair of nunchucks and crank up Pantera's Furby Undriven album as loud as it would possibly go and promptly hit myself in my good eye, because I didn't know what I was doing. Last thing I saw is the vague outline of the telephone because I was trying to call the ambulance. I was home alone at the time and it was don't get me wrong. It was scary, as scary gets. But yeah, there was I tried a couple more surgeries after that. And OK, well, this next one, you can keep going. This next one's going to have about a 50, 50 chance of working. You'll see less than you did before, because by this time I was still blind as a result of the nunchucks. And they said, well, yeah, and you'll have to be even more careful than you were before. And I was kind of going, but this is exactly the opposite of the type of life I want to have. Like I even when I was a kid before, when I was still exempt from the visit, you know, like I loved. Like I loved watching X games on TV. And I used to like I used to like watching the surfers and all the skaters and everything, and I couldn't do any of it. So when I lost my eyesight, then I was able to do more. And essentially, I told the doctors, you know, I appreciate this. I think I'm going to go ahead and call it. You know, my mother is also blind and she was blind before I was ever born. And she raised me mostly herself, with the exception of a few years here and there. And I saw the quality of life she had. And I was like, OK, well, that's going to suck. But, you know, this part's going to suck. But being able to not have to worry about losing it, I think that's going to give me a better quality of life. And that's what I went with. And, you know, again, it wasn't easy. Still isn't easy after, you know, what, 27 plus years now. But oh, my God, I don't know how well I would have been able to manage if I had to still be this unwilling indoor kid. Six months after I lost my eyesight, it was water skiing and trying stuff. And I was able to actually eventually get into martial arts and learn how to use dunchucks. It was a bad thing, but a lot of really good things came as a result of me losing my eyesight and kind of happened to be careful. It was no longer something I had to deal with. And that was at least a partial silver lining if there is one. So that's what I really find fascinating is it's not just the martial arts that you do, but you're also, you know, really into surfing. And you also use the term professional adventurer. So actually losing your vision in a way opened up your open up door to freedom to these activities. How did you once you made that decision? How did you actually approach to approach learning surfing and and being eventually like, how did you step outside that shell? When I was a kid, I struggled with fear a lot. Like I had nightmares all the time. And, you know, maybe it was because I couldn't see far off into the distance and things would surprise me or whatever. I quit my job in 2016. I was a computer trainer and I had an opportunity to train judo with Justin Flores, who's, you know, people who know judo know Justin Flores, his brother Jacob, their father, big judo family. Justin worked a lot with Rhonda Rousey to help her apply her judo to her MMA. And I was like, you know what, I got a chance. I had a free ride at this gym where he was teaching. I was like, well, let me go do this. Let me take a crack at this whole like Paralympic judo thing. Because, you know, Tokyo was a few years down the road. I thought maybe my Kempo training could really help. I decided to do that. And I was like, well, I can't really do judo all the time. I can't do jujitsu all the time. Let me let me find something. And there was a local surf event that was kind of handholdy, but especially designed for people who are blind like myself. And I liked it and I wanted to do more of it. And but I didn't really know how to do it, you know, for real. And as far as not having somebody help me paddle and all the different things. And when I started getting into some of the more challenging surfing, not like big, crazy 100 foot waves like Laird Hamilton or anything like that, but just where there was a consequence, you know, to be honest, I was afraid of the ocean. I was afraid of the ocean and I've realized that I didn't want to be bound by my fear. It's the same reason I did judo is afraid of being thrown and hitting the ground and not knowing when it was coming. And I let my fear inform the path I ran to to develop my courage. Because, you know, courage isn't the absence of fear. I don't know what the actual origin of the quote is, but something like courage isn't the absence of fear. It's being afraid and doing it anyway. And I resolved and have dug in even deeper as the years have gone on, that my fear is what I run to with, you know, the caveat of still being smart. I'm not going to run in front of a truck because I am afraid I'm going to get hit and I'm right. But when it comes to I'm afraid of the ocean, well, let me find a way to make peace with the ocean. And I got to tell you, I never have a bad day surfing. For me, surfing is forced meditation, right? You're basically going to either live in the now, right, in this present moment, or you're going to fall off your board and you're going to have to hold your breath. And if I'm thinking about the wave that I caught, you know, 20 minutes ago, I'm not thinking about the wave that I'm on now. And if I'm not thinking about the wave I'm on now, I'm not going to ride that. And if I'm thinking about all these other things, you know, the only way to do it right is to focus on here and now. And I think that that is a mindset experiencing, you know, the thing they call a flow state. The more you can tap into that, I think that will help as we grow and expand and challenge ourselves, whether it's martial arts or anything else, finding a way to tap into that is really key. And for me that that fear was the initial spark. And then realizing I didn't want to be bound by that fear. Now, as you started to tackle on these sports and these activities, a lot of people have, you know, they've got these preconceptions about, oh, well, if you don't have your vision and, of course, your hearing gets better and all that. And you've already kind of explained some of the challenges with that. But what I find interesting is there's actually a lot more than just five senses to the body. There's there's a whole bunch of subcategories. And the two I'd like to ask you about is one, the sense of balance. And two, the sense of the human body and space or proprioception. Did you have any struggle with those once you lost your vision completely? Or did you find those actually became more attuned? Or how did that work out? I had a little bit of invulnerability mindset for like least, especially the first six months to a year. Even though I struggled. I figured, okay, eventually I'll figure out how to do it. Eventually I figure out how to be daredevil. You know, not really, but with the teenage mind, you know, I was a big fan of the comics when I was younger. So of course, but I absolutely found a big difficulty in knowing where I was being able to walk a straight line even. I once overheard before I got into martial arts more consistently. It's only dabbled until I was my mid 20s really. I had overheard some people going, oh, there it goes. Walk by Braille because I couldn't walk down the sidewalk straight. And then eventually, once I get into martial arts more consistently, you know, a lot of people poo poo kata. But one of the things I love about kata is that it helped me to understand my relationship to myself, my relationship to the room that I was in, to the space that I was in, without having to worry about the obstacles. So I didn't have to worry about somebody punching me while I was learning, say for instance, to do a low block and a reverse punch, right, or whatever the particular combination from the, even the most basic katas, learning how to, like if you go into the H forms, the I forms, depending on how you want to call them, right? You have your 90 degree turns, your 180 degree turns, maybe even your 270 degree turns. That in and of itself is a real challenge. So that helps my body's awareness and space. And then absolutely, both proprioception and balance, I don't have the benefit of looking at a spot in front of me as a cheat. You know, what's one of the things they say when you're first learning how to balance, especially you're doing multiple kicks on one single leg, maybe they might say, oh, look at that spot over there, use that to help you. Sorry, that doesn't work for me. So it's on the one hand, it's a challenge. But the good thing is, is that both of those things are trainable. One of the things I've been working with, there's another friend of mine who is a, another blind guy who does martial arts. He's like a Wu Dong Kung Fu guy. He was telling me about how he uses a wobble board. And if you've ever, you've seen him in like physical therapy offices. It's like a little round kind of thing. And it's flat on one side and it's round on the bottom. And you're constantly engaging those little muscles. And I think just with balance, as with martial arts, the way you get good is by training. You know, if you don't have a lot of core strength, you know, past a certain level of safety, of course, you know, Jiu Jitsu will help you develop the core. You know, so a lot of times we think we have to be good before we start. And so, yeah, balance and proprioception and some of those types of things really become a challenge, but they're trainable. And there's a certain reward that comes from doing something that I didn't think I could do. So when I first started surfing, you know, I struggled. I wasn't good at first. I was horrible at Judo when I first started. And it goes back to do something because it's good for you, not because you're good at it. I love that. And I also love the fact that not only are you embarking on your own adventures and you're becoming more active, but you, as I understand it, you have a nonprofit organization that you run that to help other people have these experiences? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. It's still kind of in process. I haven't really been promoting it too much because, you know, IRS has taken its sweet time in terms of approving it. I kind of want to get all my financial ducks in a row before I really start pushing it forward too much. But I call it Adventure Mind, or Adventure Mind Inc., I guess is the official title that I had to come up with that incorporated there. But the idea is that an Adventure Mindset is a valuable thing. It's something that, you know, life is difficult. When I talked about before about doing difficult and scary things, my goal with Adventure Mind, and primarily, at least initially, through martial arts and through my experience surfing and expanding that out as we go, but the whole point behind it, the whole philosophy behind it, is providing the means for people to cultivate resilience, primarily through adventure pursuits. So that'd be martial arts surfing, you know, done a little bit of stand-up and some other things too. So, you know, there might be some room as we move forward to do some performing arts things. So I don't actually have an action item for that. You know, certainly we can give like a link. I think I have a link tree. If you go to joshwithageti.com slash link tree, I'm still building the website right now, but there's a way to get in touch with me through there. You don't gain courage by only doing things that don't scare you. Right? You have to do difficult things to get stronger. You have to do scary things to develop courage. And I think we're going to need that. It's a weird, weird world the last three years, but absolutely nutty. And people are trying to find their equilibrium again. And I want to be able to be a part of that. Right. And I like to just finish this off with, is there a question that you would like to be asked and nobody ever asks you? Will you please start in my martial arts movie and do your own stunts? We need a blind guy to play stick when we bring him back for the Marvel movies. So I'm speaking that into existence right now. They're going to have to bring stick eventually back to the MCU. I'm getting older and hopefully by the time they're ready they can have me come back and play stick. If you're listening, Kevin Feige, you will be the person whose question I would love to be, will you please start a Marvel property as stick? So that's the question I want to be asked. Absolutely love it. Well, hopefully we'll put that out there and let's see what happens. So if anybody knows him for that message to him, put Josh's contact information on screen, but that'd be great. And if anybody wants to get in touch, fastest way of Josh with the Jedi.com slash Linktree and there's a whole bunch of different ways. Absolutely. Since I would love to thank you so much for your time today. And I'd also like to thank our mutual friend William Ford for putting some contact with each other. This was an absolute privilege. And it's actually nice to actually have this kind of conversation where we can actually get into a little bit more of the meat. Because people think of blind martial arts or people with a disability and they have immediate assumptions, but it's worth really sitting down and taking a look at what kind of impact it has on lifestyle changes. And I just love the fact and I find it incredibly inspiring that you did more than just accept the fact that you lost your vision. You charged forward to a point like further than most people even go with the vision. So I love that. And I think that's incredibly inspiring. And I just want to thank you so much for sharing that with us today. And actually hopefully people watching get that whole concept of, you know, I need to go front towards my fears. And I'm hoping that this message gets out there to inspire everyone watching. And I just think it's a wonderful story. And thank you so much for sharing that with us today. Thank you. So today's conversation left a major impression on me. And I think it lays out a very, very important concept. And that is the concept of racing towards your fears and confronting them. And that applies to whether you're in the martial arts or not or whether you have any sort of impairment or not. So I would really like to thank Joshua today for spending his time with us and giving him, giving us some incredible insight and a lot to think about in just life in general. And I commend him on his spirit and his fight forward. And I think a lot of us can draw inspiration from that. So thank you again so much, sir, for coming on the show with us today. You've given me a lot to think about. And if you like inspirational stories, especially from those individuals who use the martial arts to overcome what seemed to be insurmountable odds, then I highly recommend our episode and interview with Ian McLeod, who used the martial arts to overcome a series of traumatic brain injuries. And there's a lot to learn. And sometimes we can learn the most from the people who have had the face the worst.