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English version of
Accrochez les wagons Technique of guiding
Hello, my name is Joël and I am very visually impaired.
And we are going to present to you the technique for guiding.
So, let me introduce Grégoire who is an eminent professional.
He is a locomotion instructor.
A locomotion instructor is a person who teaches
the visually impaired and the blind how to get around safely in the street.
This technique may be used by everybody.
You may find yourself in a situation where you could use it.
You may meet a visually impaired or blind person
in the street, in the subway or in fact anywhere at all.
And this person may need your help.
So, the very first thing you must do,
is to begin by asking if the person needs help.
Just because a visually impaired person
is waiting on the sidewalk, does not necessarily mean that he or she needs help.
He or she may simply be waiting for the right moment to cross the road.
So, the first thing to do is to ask the person if he or she needs help.
Too often, when we help a visually impaired person,
we come up from behind, we take his elbow and we push.
And in this precise case, the person finds himself faced with unknown obstacles
and is not very reassured, in spite of our best intentions to help.
You see, Joël took up this position naturally
because he knows very well that when he is just behind me,
he is safe.
That is to say that the person who is just behind, I mean the person who is being guided,
knows that he is always one step behind with respect to the guide.
This gives an enormous feeling of security
because if we are moving towards something which threatens him,
he knows very well that he’s not going to fall immediately.
Yes, I’m going to fall later !
(laughter)
So, once the person understands
and when everyone is in the right position, we may now move forward.
As you may have noticed,
when you guide a person you must maintain a certain pace.
You must neither go too quickly nor too slowly.
And to know what the right pace is, you should regularly ask the person
if the pace is alright.
The pace is important for another reason,
because it will allow the person to use his awareness.
That is to say, if you walk at normal speed,
at an average pace,
and suddenly you slow down.
For the person who is behind you, this will alert him
and he will know that there is an obstacle ahead.
So, we maintain a certain pace.
We slow down a bit. This makes the person aware.
And we tackle the obstacle.
Now we are going to show you another application of slowing down
which will be followed this time by a stop ;
in this case, at the edge of the footpath or at the edge of a stairway.
First of all, you are walking along.
You are going to break your pace in order to slow down,
this warns the person behind you that something is coming up.
And then you are going to stop at the foot of the obstacle.
Well, to go downstairs, it’s exactly the same as for going upstairs.
You should stop before the stairs and you should stop at the bottom of the stairs.
That way, I know exactly when we are going to begin
and when we have arrived.
What is good about the guiding technique can be summarised in four points.
First point : I feel safe because I am behind the guide.
Second point : the terrain is anticipated by the guide.
His arm acts as a lever.
So every time the guide moves up or down,
I am going to feel it and in this way I will be warned about changes in the level of the terrain.
And this has another advantage.
It is the fact that the guide does not actually have to tell me about what is going on.
We can talk about what we did today, what we’re going to do tomorrow,
about anything and everything.
We do not even have to talk.
We can go for five kilometres, if we are on a cross-country hike, without speaking,
just like on any normal cross-country hike.
The guiding technique is enough on its own
because it’s a technique based on the body.
I am going to feel the movements of the guide’s body.
So that’s the third point, which is very important.
That means I can chat. Which is more pleasant, all the same.
The last point is that if for one reason or another,
I do not feel secure, I can let go.
I am not constrained by a person who is holding my arm from behind.
That way, I let go if I want to.
And after that, we can discuss the problem. And then we can move on again.
When you are guiding a person in the street,
you will often meet a narrow passage.
In this case you have to let the person you are guiding know
that he or she must get behind you.
It requires a simple move.
You put your arm behind your back.
The person gets behind you and you calmly go through the narrow passage,
having first slowed down of course.
And when it is finished,
you put your arm back and the person goes back to your side too.
To guide a visually impaired person to a chair,
one is always tempted to explain the direction of the chair in respect to him.
That complicates things.
In fact, you simply have to take the person’s hand,
put it on the back of the chair and let the person sense the direction of the chair
and sit down in his own way.
As a conclusion, we can say that you are in charge
of the person who is behind you.
Do not forget that.
And what is so nice about this technique
is that you can teach it to everyone. It is very simple.
You can teach it to your relatives, your parents,
your students, your colleagues and your friends.