by Judy Dixon
On New Year's Day, 1999, Nancy McKinney, Jeff Pagels and I departed our respective homes for Tokyo, Japan--our purpose, to attend the fourth Annual Ski for Light-Japan event. The flights were very long--14 hours nonstop for me--but we all arrived, within an hour of one another, wide awake and ready to go.
We spent the first night in a modern Tokyo hotel and departed early Sunday morning for Urabandai, a resort community about four hours north of Tokyo.
SFL Japan was held Sunday, January 3-Wednesday, January 6, 1999. The first day, guides arrived and guide training took place that afternoon and the next morning. all guides were given instruction in communication with blind persons both on and off the ski trails. SFL-Japan uses the guiding system developed by Ski for Light in the U.S. and it seemed to work well.
On Monday, the 20 or so blind participants arrived about noon and skiing began right after lunch. Skiing took place on Tuesday morning and afternoon and a 5-kilometer rally was held on the final morning. Awards for the top finishers were presented in an informal ceremony which was a combination of awards ceremony and farewell gathering.
The arrangements for transportation, accommodations, and meals were outstanding. The facility at Urabandai is a "traditional" Japanese hotel which means sleeping on futons that were rolled up each morning and put away for the day; eating traditional Japanese food that was presented in an array of 15-20 variously-shaped dishes for each person with small servings of seafood, rice, and vegetable combinations; and bathing in a communal bath that consisted of knee-high faucets on the walls of a large room for washing with a hot-tub in the middle of the room for soaking after you are clean. Program materials were provided in accessible formats and room numbers at the hotel were in braille making it possible for blind persons to move and function independently. Announcements were made at every meal so that everyone was kept up-to-date on program arrangements and an English translation was provided for those who did not know Japanese.
I found trail conditions to be similar to what we might find in the U.S. at a regional SFL program. Trails were suitable for beginning skiers. SFL-Japan organized activities in the evening such as group games that were very enjoyable and suitable for participation by all. We had many opportunities to interact with Japanese participants. Even though we didn't speak the language, we found that many people could communicate with some English and the language barrier was not a major problem.
In all, SFL-J was attended by more than 50 persons including blind skiers, guides, and family members. One unique activity at SFL-Japan is skier and guide introductions. Everyone is encouraged to get to know their partner the first day so they will be able to introduce their skiing partner during introductions. While the group overall was somewhat younger than a typical event in the U.S., there were older people as well and several of the guides and skiers brought their children. The inclusion of children was another unique part of the SFL-J experience and contributed greatly to the family atmosphere.
The participants from the United States are very grateful to Ski for light Japan for giving us this opportunity to participate in their event. We are studying the arrangements of SFL-Japan very carefully so that we may incorporate ideas from that program into the program of Ski for Light in the U.S. We thank Thoshiaki Aomatsu, the SFL-J President, and everyone involved for this truly outstanding opportunity.