Canoe therapy: O.C. outrigger team christens new custom wa’a for inclusion of disabled athletes
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Janet Wu played basketball, softball and ice hockey in college, but admits she let athletics fall to the wayside as she settled into a career as a computer programmer. Yet her competitive instinct possessed her as she sat in a hospital on her 28th birthday nearly 20 years ago, shaking her out of a malaise in the wake of her transverse myelitis diagnosis.
The auto-immune disease ate away at the fatty sheath protecting her spinal cord. She couldn’t even get from her bed to a wheelchair without the aid of paramedics who took her to what she described as a “physical therapy boot camp.”
In just three months she learned how to get around with a walker. She left the facility on her own two feet.
Reclaiming her independence brought out her inner athlete. The Pasadena resident sought out more opportunities to challenge herself, connecting with a broad network of other people she could relate to in the process.
“It’s difficult at first, but once you meet one group you just kind of network from there because everybody knows everybody else,” Wu told the Daily Pilot near the dock at the Newport Aquatic Center Thursday. “It’s empowering... I’ve been able to try all of these different activities that I never would have thought of trying to do before my disability.”
One of the groups who have welcomed her is the Orange County Makapo Aquatics Project, a nonprofit offering people with physical and intellectual disabilities the chance to learn, train or compete on outrigger paddling teams. They have helped push for the inclusion of adaptive athletes in sanctioned events, and have also provided real world insight aiding the design of canoes and gear for those with special needs.
On Thursday the plucky notes of a ukelele and Hawaiian prayers accompanied the blessing of a custom double-hull canoe known in Hawaii as a wa’a, which was obtained with grant funding made possible by advocates for adaptive athletes, the Hartford and Move United, according to Makapo’s executive director, RJ De Rama. It features a variety of modifications like seats that make it easier for people with walkers or crutches to get in and out and also allows blind athletes to sit closer to a spotter or those with intellectual disabilities to stay near a coach or guardian.
“They were so generous. I’m about to cry,” De Rama said of the partner organizations supporting Makapo during Thursday’s christening ceremony. “They saw something in what we’re doing.”
Makapo’s athletes dubbed the canoe Marco Polo, and will use it to compete in the Crystal Pier Outrigger Race, organized by the Southern California Outrigger Racing Assn. on May 3 in San Diego. And for weeks, Wu has been making the roughly hour-long trek from her San Gabriel Valley home to the Newport Aquatic Center to train with her teammates.
She only joined Makapo about three months ago, but her commitment to paddling and easygoing personality quickly won the camaraderie of those she trains with. That’s why the organization and their supporters surprised her with her own one-seater outrigger canoe so she can practice solo and continue to grow as a paddler.
She gasped Thursday and could hardly believe her eyes as she wrapped her arms around her new vessel. She thanked those present Thursday for what is sure to become a well-loved tool granting Wu freedom on the water.
Canoes are regarded as more than just objects in Polynesian cultures; some believe they are imbued with spirits of their own and treat them like members of the family, De Rama said. Canoes, like the adaptive equipment those with disabilities use to navigate their daily lives, were central to the prosperity of many island communities.
“There’s so many more people that we can help now with this canoe,” De Rama said. “Last year we helped over 450 people with disabilities. This year we’re going to raise that to 700. And in terms of the impact this is going to do for the community, we’re going to take these boats all over so thousands can see what we’re doing. The ultimate goal is to get this program here at the NAC into other canoe clubs all over the world, hopefully. This is the beginning.”
Makapo Aquatics, named after the Hawaiian word for blind, originated in 2006 with an all-blind paddling team trained by Newport Aquatic Center Executive Director Billy Whitford, which competed in the 18-mile Queen Liliuokalani Outrigger Canoe race in Kona, Hawaii. They expanded their mission to welcome all adaptive athletes around 2014, De Rama said.
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