Breaking through barriers
Wheelchair athlete dazzles audience at national competition

By David Pan
Enterprise sports editor

SHORELINE -- People have underestimated Jeremy Gregory for most of his life.

Born with spina bifada, doctors told Gregory's parents that they didn't think he would ever walk.

Gregory proved them wrong.

At 2 and a 1/2 years of age, Gregory started walking. For the next 13 years, he was so active that he ended up breaking or wearing out many of his crutches and leg braces.

"When I was a kid I used to run everywhere," Gregory said. "I didn't walk. I ran."

Gregory later underwent back surgery to straighten out his spine in 1995. As a result, he became largely confined to a wheelchair.

Spina bifida is a birth defect in which the spinal cord protrudes out of the child's back. Surgery is required to treat the condition and the location of the opening determines the extent of an individual's paralysis.

Following his surgery, Gregory decided it was as good a time as any for him to pursue a lifelong dream of studying the martial arts.

"I've always wanted to do it ever since I was a little kid growing up and watching the Ninja Turtles," Gregory said. "I researched schools and called them to see 'Can you take me? Do you want to take me?'"

Most of the schools Gregory contacted didn't know if they would be able to work with a student who was handicapped. Gregory eventually found one school that was willing to take him on as a student.

Gregory also had a practical reason for wanting to study karate. The physical therapy he was undergoing after the surgery wasn't taking him as far as he wanted to go.

"I just said I'm going to put myself in my chair and go from there and see what happens," Gregory said.

Cheryl Wieser, the instructor Gregory eventually hooked up with, was intrigued by the challenge of working with a student in a wheelchair.

"They pretty much gave him to me to see what we could do," Wieser said.

The school evaluated Gregory's flexibility and mobility and determined what he could do in his wheelchair and what he could do out of it.

"We started developing a program to teach him as close to everything we teach everybody else with some minor adaptations," Wieser said.

Six years later, Gregory remains an ardent student of the martial arts and recently experienced success at the national level, winning three medals at last month's USA National Karate-Do Federation National Championships in San Jose, Calif.

Gregory, who was competing in only the fourth tournament of his career, won a gold medal in kata (forms), a silver medal in short weapons (Nunchaku) and a bronze medal in long weapons (bo or wooden staff). At last May's Washington State Championships, Gregory captured three gold medals. The 2000 Shorecrest High School graduate also has traveled to California to compete in the Ability First International Specially Challenged Championships, where he has won a total of six gold medals in two tournaments.

Nationals was a daunting experience for the 23-year-old Shoreline resident, whose previous competitions were on a much smaller scale in gymnasiums with only a few hundred people.

More than 2,500 athletes competed at nationals before thousands of spectators at a large convention center.

The enthusiastic crowds had even more to cheer about after seeing Gregory on the mat for the first time. He performed some moves that had never been seen before and left a few observers speechless with amazement.

Most of the handicapped athletes use motorized wheelchairs and focus their efforts on upper body movements.

Gregory uses a manual wheelchair and is able to do various kicks and turns in his wheelchair.

"We make him use the chair," Wieser said. "It's a big part of who he is. If there's something that we do that normally involves a kick for any other student, he kicks. We find ways to make sure he uses the chair as his feet as much as anybody else would because they are his feet."

Spectators weren't expecting to see Gregory kick and were even more surprised when he kicked at a 45-degree angle and turned as part of his routine.

Hearing the applause from the crowd was an emotional moment for Gregory.

"It's exciting. It's invigorating," he said. "I'm proud that I do what I do."

Gregory has a strong upper body because he uses a manual chair, but he also spends a lot of time working his lower body.

"With his legs, it's keeping the muscles that he already has there and not having it atrophy anymore than it has," Wieser said.

The martial arts has transformed Gregory in many ways.

His posture has improved and he sits up in his chair better, said Wieser, who added that Gregory is more confident and outgoing.

"He has had to address those fears of getting in front of people he doesn't know and performing and performing at a high level," Wieser said.

Gregory uses the martial arts to master his everyday life. He has a rod in his back and falling out of his wheelchair is extremely dangerous.

When he first started, Gregory spent a lot of time working out of his chair.

"We were teaching him how to fall out of the chair," Wieser said. "We found ... the normal falls that we teach karate students don't really work for him because of the chair, so we taught him how to protect himself.

"We were teaching him to stabilize his neck and stay with the chair (as it) went down."

Gregory, who is employed as a clerk at the Treasury Department in Seattle, faces the possibility that at any moment he might fall out of his wheelchair.

"It's defense for different daily stuff," Gregory said of the practical uses of the martial arts. "If I hit a curb wrong and go flying out of my chair, I can land without hurting myself."

Gregory's high school senior project delved into how the martial arts changed his life. Gregory demonstrated how he was able to safely fall out of his wheelchair.

The teachers were aghast when Wieser dumped Gregory out of his wheelchair onto the floor. But he immediately righted the chair and got back into it within a matter of seconds.

Working with Wieser for the last six years has made a tremendous difference in Gregory's life, but he isn't the only one to have profited from the experience. Wieser has benefited in ways she never anticipated.

"I've actually learned more about the martial arts working with him," Wieser said.

One of the tenets of the martial arts is that every movement or technique has a multiple set of applications. When Wieser is teaching regular students she really doesn't have to do much thinking in terms of her lessons.

But because Gregory couldn't do certain things, Wieser was challenged to figure out how to best teach him certain moves.

"With Jeremy, it's made me have to go 'This technique will do this. What else will it do and how can he apply that?'" Wieser said. "It's made me look deeper into the arts, which has made me a better martial artist."

Teaching someone to do something new is a big part of why Wieser enjoys her work.

"I have to think about it and find a way that works," she said. "Then when it works, it's a feeling that you just can't explain."

Wieser recently founded Ability Unlimited of Washington, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to teaching the martial arts to students with special challenges.

The organization, in conjunction with the Shoreline/South County YMCA, will be offering a new martial arts program for specially challenged students in September.

For Gregory, the next item on his agenda is testing for his black belt, most likely in September. He already holds a brown belt.

Then, like many students of the martial arts, Gregory wants to give back to the sport that has meant so much to him.

He wants to teach.

"I like helping others," Gregory said. "When I was in class I always found myself helping others that needed help, although I didn't always get approval for that. I just did it to be nice."

Much like he dispelled people's preconceived notions of what a handicapped athlete could accomplish, Wieser sees Gregory breaking the same ground as a martial arts instructor.

"It's a good thing for other kids in the class to see him not as disabled but as capable," Wieser said.

As a participant in classes, other students soon found out that they could spar with Gregory the same as any other student.

"The big picture is that it's nice to offer up a barrier-breaking 'Look at me as a person and not at my disability,'" Wieser said. "Jeremy is certainly that. You put up a barrier and challenge him and he's going to go through it."