[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to Disability Empowerment now season four.
I'm your host, kid Mavi Dinsini. Today I'm talking to Eddie. Catch. Eddie, welcome to the show.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: So usually I do a bit in the intro about who you are, but I wanted to have it be heard in your own words, your own voice.
So please tell the listeners and viewers who you are and what kind of event brings you to this podcast today.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Okay.
Hello. So my name is Eddie Cash.
I am a dancer who works with the Dancing with the Blind and I do a bunch of different types of dancing routines with them, like to prepare for the event that's coming up in June 14th. So we do like a little group dance and we start to learn like different types of moves to prepare for Dancing with the Blind events where we would.
Where we will bring a bunch of enjoyment to the, to the audience and we show them even though we, even though we are blind, we can still do anything as much as possible.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Thank you. Eddie, do you know much about the history of the organization or the events?
Because Vincent's the first time I'm hearing of it and I would like to know more about the organization, the event and how you yourself got involved with Dancing for the Blind.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: So the way I joined Dancing with the Blind.
So like two years ago I had a dancing event with one of my dance teachers named Anthony Solo Harris and I had to go to a NJ Pack center in Newark, New Jersey and I ended up meeting Crystal Allen in the Quilla after I was done with my performance.
So they were telling me about how Eyes Like Mine works. And then I also ended up hearing about Dancing with the Blind.
So when I heard about the Dancing with the Blind, I was like, let me see if I could try to join into that competition to see if I can win the championship and most of those organization, organization that I have heard.
It was a very fun event to be in the Dancing with the Blind where I got to, you know, learn about different things where, where like they, they come into group with each other to welcome everybody with open arms.
And I see that it's a very good place to be in with eyes like mine, with all with also Dancing with the Blind and is a very fun organization to be in.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: So Eddie, what, what inspired your passion for dance and dancing?
I personally can answer that.
It's in watching the old movies of Gene Kelly in Frederick. Those are actors, actors your mother and father would know old time movies and I just loved the way that the actors would be able to Move with their feet, move their bodies, and get the amount of energetic energy from those performances.
So tell me Eddie, what captured your interest in dancing?
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Okay, so the reason why I love dancing is because when I was in high school two years ago, my dance teacher that I've been working with now for four years, which is Anthony Solo Harris, I met him in a, an assembly at my high school named Carney High School.
And he was showing different ways of dance moves, getting people on their feet and, you know, just making them have fun and then bringing some of the students on stage to dance with him.
And the music that he was playing was, which Jers is called Jersey Club Songs.
And the way the type of the music is, it's like a fast pace type beat music.
And when I first met, met him after the assembly, I got to talk to him for a little bit. I got to understand how he does different things with, you know, music and dancing. And I just fell in love with it to the point where it got me out of my comfort zone a little bit. So I started to work with him for, for the past four years.
And now that I've been dancing, so all I wanted to do is just, you know, keep practicing more of my dance moves on, learn all different types of ways of movement.
And I always feel very excited doing it every single time when I'm dancing with my dance teacher, as any time I go to like, let's say, different types of events that he brings me on to.
And me and my dance teacher, we always be having fun as much as possible and bringing the audience so much joy as much as we can though.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Pardon me for asking this question, but a lot of people I think would be surprised when they hear that blind people, people with low vision, like to dance or want to dance because they, they don't know how it can be done.
So take us through that process of learning how to dance in competing in a professional competition when you can't see.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: So the way I dance and prepare myself for a dancing event is by feeling the music.
And then I would try to create simple types of moves with my dance teacher. So the way he would teach me how to learn different types of moves is by where he'll, I would start to like, feel his, like his arms to see what type of moves is he's doing and then he'll try to show me how to do it.
And as soon as I do it, like let's say like five to six times, the more I do it, the more muscle memory I'm going to have to do it automatically right on the spot when I'm performing those moves in the competition.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Talk more about the training regiment that you do with your trainer leading up to the event and how much work it takes to prepare for a dance routine.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: So the way me and my dance teacher do the routine is by we talk about what moves are we going to do first.
Then we'll try to do like one of the moves one at a time, slowly, with. With no music. Try to do it at least two to three times to get it right on point.
As soon as we learn the move together, we'll try it with music just to see how it feels.
And then if it doesn't work, we're still going to try again by following the lyrics of a song to.
To be in sync with the.
With the dance moves and the lyrics at the same time.
And we would practice for like at least maybe two or three hours for like let's say two days of the week up up until the performance comes around.
And that's how we get all the moves that we learn together.
By figuring out how to move a certain way with the music and following through with the lyrics by feeling the energy of the music at the same time.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: So what did it feel like for you to win last year's competition?
[00:12:10] Speaker B: And so when I found out that I won the 2024 Dancing with the Blind Champion, I was so excited because people didn't know that I can dance very well, but at the same time they only saw me that it didn't look like I was blind, but I was just. But I was actually blind.
It's just that the way I move with some of the music that I listen to, like let's say if it was hip hop music or Jersey club music, I feel the energy of the music as much as possible as I can.
And then what I do is before I start to dance, I just take one breath, relax my mind and just go with the flow of the music by.
What's the word? By just feeling.
Feeling the energy of the crowd into.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: No rush.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: So you just graduated high school in my ride a few years ago, Yes.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: I graduated high school two years ago, which is 2023.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: So what's next for you?
What do you want to do with your life?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: So right now I'm still trying to look for like a part time job around like in the summer.
So that's what I'm trying to do. And it during like the winter time. Now that I graduated from high school, I work as a DJ for for like high school basketball games at my high school.
So I do that for between December all the way up into February.
And I play like different types of music for the audience and also goes for, you know, the players.
So I do varsity boys and also varsity girls for the, for Carney High School.
And that's what I pretty much do. And I am still dancing to this day and that's what I'm doing now.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: What got you into being a dj?
[00:15:09] Speaker B: So the reason why I got, I got myself into DJ is where I seen like let's say you know, little video clips on social media of how some of the DJs were, you know, playing music, how to how they, you know, remix some of their music and just hype up the crowd a little bit where it makes them, you know, have fun, have. And they also having a good time during like let's say if it's a party or at a game. So I wanted to you know, work as a DJ for, for my high school because I know like a bunch of different musics that I keep track of and you know, some of the kids that knows me, they you know, they love listening to, you know, let's say if it was hip hop with a mix of like R B and let's say like pop music.
So I would try to find different types of artists that's in the genre of like let's say 1990s hip hop. Then you got a one with hip hop rap with mix of like R B.
And then you got Hispanic music which I also do for, for the like the high school because there's some, some of the people in the audience is Hispanic. So I would like find different types of artists that you know, that does like Spanish music and then then the other music I would do Jersey Club. So I have like let's say four playlists with different types of artists on there. And the way I do for the, the music at the basketball games. So they have like a Bluetooth system that I'm able to connect to with my iPhone and all I have to do is once I'm connected is that I use my voiceover feature and I would scroll to different playlists that I'm using and I would just select like one song and it'll start playing off the speakers and I will play it during like you know, like the warm up games through to the ending of the games. Like let's say during timeouts I play a couple songs.
Half time I will play like let's say six to seven songs until the End.
And that's pretty much how I use the little bit of the DJing skills that I have now as much as I can.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: What do you prefer doing?
Being a DJ or dancing? Or is it too hard to choose one over the other?
[00:18:22] Speaker B: To be honest, I like both.
It's just for right now I just want to like, you know, focusing more of my dance skills because I want to try to like, you know, go to other dance, other dance competitions to see if I could try to like enter one of them with my dance teacher.
And I want to try to learn more skills with the DJing, so to see if I could, you know, try to use my little bit of more experience with the DJing skills with, you know, to try to go to like, other events for people that, you know, that loves different types of music. And I could try to play some of the music that they like and I could try to do, you know, a little bit of song request that they asked me to put on and I would try to do that as much as I can as long as I, you know, take it just step by step.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Do you write your own music or do you just do dj?
[00:19:32] Speaker B: I only do djing. I don't really like, write my own music, so I just like fine off of Apple music.
Different types of artists, like let's say that I listen to or let's say what people also listen to and I try to keep up with some of the artists album like brand new albums that come out like let's say every Friday of the week.
And I would try to add the brand new songs on the playlists that I have so that way some of the audience can hear, you know, new music instead of the, the old music that I already have. So I try my bestest to keep up with different types of new albums that are coming out every Friday.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: What do you wish that people knew about not only you, but your competitors in general?
Ads. You are dancing.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: So for me, I just want people to, you know, to know that like, like I said, even though you're blind, you can still keep, you can still keep dancing however you want as long as you have fun with the music, feeling the energy.
And if people want to, you know, like, ask questions about, like, how do I lose my vision?
I don't mind them, you know, asking me those type of questions because, you know, sometimes people don't really understand how it happened, but I try to put it into a little bit of details of how I lost my vision and when there, when there will be times where I Am, you know, dancing it. Look, people be saying that it doesn't.
It doesn't look like that I'm blind, but I'm actually blind. It's just that once you, like, let's say once they see my king that I use every day, that's how they know that. That I'm mine. But the way I move is like.
Like I'm just, like, having fun with, you know, with the music and just. And then having a blast as much as I can and just, you know, block out, you know, some of the negative energy that, like, let's say that people wanna like. Like, let's say, like they try to.
Like, let's say, like they try to bring me down just because, you know, I'm trying to.
Because I'm always like, you know, positive with the heart of gold. At the same time.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Since you brought it up, how did you lose your vision and was the adaptation period for you?
What would that like?
[00:22:55] Speaker B: So the way I lost my vision, so this was during middle school, and I lost my vision at the age of 15.
So the way it started. So it was those days where, like, every time I would, you know, wake up from sleeping, there will be at times like both of my eyes will be. It will be blurry. And I'm like, telling my mom that I'm like, ma, what's. Like, I can't see.
So then at one point it would. My vision will go back the way it was. But then it got to a point where it started on my left eye, then it started to go blurry. Then it states, did it stay stuck like that? Then it started transferring to the right eye a little bit. And then it got to the point where I had to go to the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City to see. To see what's going on. I had to go to the eye doctor. And then after. After the. The eye doctor started to see what was going on, I ended up being admitted to the hospital for a while.
Then I had to do these, you know, a bunch of surgeries to. To figure out what's going on with my vision. And then they ended up telling me and my mom that.
That my skull crushed my nerves to the point where that's how I lost my vision. So they had to start doing surgery from the left eye to see if they could try to, you know, shave some of the. The skull, some. Some of the bone in my skull down to see if. If, like, the nerves will be, you know, relieved. And they had to do it on the same thing on the right Eye and I was in the hospital for like two and a half months for, you know, to, for them to do all different types of tests, like let's say if it was CT scan then a bunch of just different things that they had to do to see what was going on with my nerves at that point.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: How did your skull touch your nerves to your eyes?
That sounds incredibly painful.
Did they tell you how it happened to you when you were 15?
Keen.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: And so apparently what they told me and my mom, it was, it was a bone overgrowth that, that I had where they told me and my mom that, that my skull was like 11 centimeters. So that's where it ended up leading to crushing my nerves in my eyes.
And they said it was supposed to be 2-3 cm of my skull. So that's how it ended up crushing my nerves to the point where they had to do so many tests on me just to figure out how that happened.
And I didn't really like feel no like pain from it.
It's just that like as I was like 15 and all this stuff started happening to me like so quickly. I didn't really note like feel it like happening. The only thing I noticed that, that my nerves was changing by my vision starting to like deteriorate little by little by me not seeing, you know, much as like a lot of things that I used to see like back then.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: So if you don't mind talk about what the Adapt Pod sets was.
Once you found out from the doctors what had happened, how was it learning how to function again?
[00:28:04] Speaker B: So the way I had to, you know, let myself know like that these doctors had to do what they had to do. So I told myself that even though, you know, I started to notice that I wasn't going to be able to, you know, like play basketball anymore or do some of the things that I, you know, that I normally do as, as a 15 year old.
So when I started hearing them, you know, talk about me with different things, what they had to do, I was like, I was like, I was like, screw it. Let them do, do what they got to do. I'm gonna just leave it in God's hands by, you know, let, by letting them walk or walk me through what's going on with my vision and, and also God telling me that he's gonna, you know, help me take it step by step and walk me through a hard, a hard path by me, you know, losing my vision now. And as long as I, you know, keep my head up with the heart of gold and staying positive I'm not gonna let nothing, you know, phase me. But at the same time, it did take some time, you know, just to try to get over it. But at the same time, there will be days, you know, that I'm not feeling myself because of me losing my vision, but, but like the next day I'll like bounce back up to, to stay positive and you know, I just show different people. Like, you know, even though that you, that you're blind, you can still keep going as much as possible by just taking step by step and walking with God as much as possible.
And, and to just be like grateful of what you're doing now.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Do you meant your vision?
[00:30:28] Speaker B: To be honest, I really do miss having my vision.
But at the same time I'm like, I told myself that maybe one day I'll get my vision back, but I also told myself again that I'm just gonna do different things that I'm gonna be learning now, now that I lost my vision, like let's say, you know, learning how to use braille, learning how to use technology more often and learning how to use my cane skills. And so until there's some type of research to see if I can ever get my vision back. So all I do is, you know, take my time and take, take it step by step by, by, by staying positive as much as I can.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Thank you for your authenticity.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: You're welcome.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: What do you hope or what do you wish that neurotypicals would understand and would learn about people who are blind and about professional adapt adaptive athletics like dancing with the blind? What do you hope that people take away from this interview that we're doing today?
[00:32:31] Speaker B: So I would say, so I would say that if pe, you know, if some of these people will try to, you know, or to join the dancing with the blind and they want to learn how things work is by, you know, listening to some of, some of the informations that we do as a group with all that we do as a group.
And some of the things that we do is we do like let's say a bunch of flyers or let's say there we, we would have like different videos of how some of us that are blind the way we do different things. Like let's say like we would do a group dance and one of the other dance teachers that are there, they would, that that's also like, that has vision. They will teach us a move that they already like created and they don't. They will put that onto us by learning the moves slowly and carefully, by putting us all all in a line to, to learn the moves slowly so that way the pe, the people that are blind, they can try to get it on point and try to do, learn, try to learn those moves by trying it so many times as much as they can.
Always stay strong, always keep your head up as much as you can with the heart of gold and, and never let nobody tell you what you love to do by let's see if it was dancing or doing some type of fun hobby that you love to do.
And for me that that's the way my type of motive is by me just keep going forward and stronger.
And as long as you have the heart of gold, you would make it in life and be happy with positive energy.
Don't let nobody try to bring you down with negative energy just because they see you having a good time and having a good life every single day.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: So the 2025 dancing competition, dancing with the Blind, it's coming up very soon.
Can you tell us more about that upcoming event?
[00:35:49] Speaker B: So on June 14, which is in a week or so, I'm going to be passing on the baton to the next winner of Dancing with the blind 2025 champion, where I will be doing a my champion performance dance that I'm doing with two other dancers and and then that competition is going to be with five people. So let's see who which teams are going to be winning and it's gonna be a lot of people there. You're gonna have a great time and we're gonna show people what we do as a blind community which is Eyes Like Mine and Dancing with Divine and we're gonna show them that how the way we run run things.
And.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: So where will the event be exactly and what time will it take place on June 14th?
Do you know?
[00:37:21] Speaker B: So on June 14th it's going to be between 4pm to 8pm and it's going to be at Jersey City.
Oh Rutgers New Rutgers University Paul Robinson Campus Center Newark, New Jersey Eddie, any.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: Final thoughts as we wrap up the this interview? And I want to thank you and your mother, Virginia coming on.
Any final thoughts?
[00:38:03] Speaker B: To be honest, I really love the podcast that we did.
It was very interesting. It's my first time being on here.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm very happy to have you and I wish you and Dancing with the Blind in ey like mine, I believe you'd said all the bads in your future endeavors.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Take care of yourself.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: You too.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: You have been listening to disability Empowerment. Now I would like to thank my guests.
You are listener and the Disability Empowerment Team that made this episode possible.
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