Matt Stutzman has always wanted to be a professional athlete and is aiming for a gold medal in the Tokyo Para-Olympics this year.
Matt was born without arms and he says for him it’s not a disability, it’s just life. He says people ask him how he taught himself to eat, and he explains that he just remembers at 2 years old that he was holding his fork with his foot so his brain just knew that was how he had to do stuff before he realised that he had no arms.
When Matt was younger he wanted to be the best basketball player in the world and he spent years practising. He got very good at it and although he knew he was never going to be a NBA basketball player, he says, “I needed to do it just to prove that I could.”
Matt saw archery on TV and wanted to try it out. He says probably within 2 weeks of getting a bow he knew what he wanted to do with his life; “and from that point on, eight hours a day sitting in a chair trying to make the Paralympic Games.” In 2012 he won a silver medal for the US.In his spare time, Matt fixes and drives racing cars. He says, “Cars and archery are very similar as in, a car just wants to be driven and doesn’t care how it’s drove. A bow just wants to be shot and doesn’t care how it’s shot.”
In 2015 Matt
broke the world record for the longest accurate shot at 283.47m (previously
held by an able-bodied person).
In 2016 Matt
missed out on a medal because of a cracked arrow. He says he learned from that
experience; “When things go well you think you have figured it out. It’s when
things go wrong is when you learn your lessons to make you better.”
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What
is different about Matt?
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Why
do you think he picked up a fork using his feet aged two, why didn’t he realise
he had no arms?
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“it’s
not a disability, it’s just life.” What does Matt mean? How does he see his
difference?
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Are
you different? Do we all have differences? How are you different?
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Matt
learned to be a fantastic basketball player; “I needed to do it just to prove
that I could.” – why?
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How
does Matt explain that cars and archery are similar? Can this reasoning be
applied to other things?
- The
article above uses the term, “Able-bodied person” to describe the person who
held the world record for the long accurate shot before Matt. What do you think
of that term? Is Matt not able? (despite breaking the record?). Is language important? Think about the word,
“disability” for example; what does the prefix suggest about a person? Some businesses have changed the wording on their "disabled toilet" to "accessible toilet" - why?
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“It’s
when things go wrong is when you learn your lessons to make you better.” What
dos this mean?
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What
can we learn from Matt and this story?
Why is this about No Outsiders?
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