Onsight follows blind athlete and Black Diamond product developer Seneida Biendarra on her emotional journey to the gold medal at the 2023 Paraclimbing World Cup in Salt Lake City.
When her vision began to deteriorate, Seneida found solace in climbing. But it wasn't until she found people like her through climbing that she finally learned to open up and accept her impairment. This film by Janelle Dransfield and Rachel Ross follows blind athlete and Black Diamond product developer Seneida Biendarra as she finds her way on the international competition stage.
The approach to the rock sets the bar for the day - traversing rocky terrain with trees and steep passages along a trail is not only challenging, but also helps me gauge how well my eyesight will hold up. Each step is carefully executed based on a tiny visual tunnel that is an often unreliable navigator.
As my eyes dart back and forth to expand my field of view, I gather information through a small, golf ball-sized periscope that shows about 5° of the world. What I see is clear on a good day, sometimes obscured by blinking dots or noise, but enough to make out the width of the trail and negotiate steep terrain.
Sometimes my optic nerve swells, causing the vision tunnel to narrow and darken.
Seneida Biendarra
On those days, there's no opportunity to enjoy the view because my attention is 100 percent focused on the next place I set my foot on. Search, step, balance, repeat - until it's time to climb.
And it's not just that the whole process seems frustrating. I remember how much easier hiking used to be and mourn the life I led when I could see. Climbing is different because it has always been hard. I started losing my vision the first time I climbed an ice pillar in Wisconsin.
If crossing the street was scary, ice climbing felt like flying.
Seneida Biendarra
When the snow melted, I found some climbing shoes and a sport that didn't make me feel "different." If I had enough patience and perseverance to spot the next handhold, I could climb just as hard as my friends.
Climbing gave me a space to move with control and awareness, and the fear served a purpose. Often balancing around on the steep gravel path up to the rock was more frustrating than climbing, where I felt I had the vertical plane under control again.
Blindness teaches humility. By having a place where I felt strong and capable, I was able to rebuild my confidence from the ground up.
Seneida Biendarra
I've always struggled to understand the adaptive part of myself; as a visually impaired person, I try very hard to fit in. Since the public perception of blindness is usually binary, i.e. either completely blind or completely sighted, it felt natural to hide my "invisible disability." And without the obvious signs of visual impairment (e.g., cane or guide dog), it felt dishonest to identify as a blind person.
Me? I was a climber, a product designer. Maybe it's because of the competent self-image I had built up before my diagnosis, but I feel guilty about burdening those around me with the reality of my struggle.
For a while, I wasn't sure if I would meet other climbers like me. I wanted to, I just didn't know how. It took a mentor pushing me to participate in the Adaptive Climber's Festival in the Red River Gorge to finally accept my disability from the perspective of the sport that had previously helped me escape it.
At this event, I suddenly found myself surrounded by people who were impaired in the same way as me, who had their own stories of loss or feelings of isolation caused by their disability.
In this community, I enjoyed the freedom that came with being able to "say the quiet part out loud." These honest conversations broke down the walls I had built up over the course of eight years, and I finally found the words to tell my story.
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Credits: Article Black Diamond, cover image @janelledransfield