In disaster there is opportunity - finding a path through paralysis | Martyn Ashton | TEDxBristol

Martyn Ashton explains the unbelievable challenge presented by a career-ending injury, and how he used a unique approach to tackle it. 'If I’m going to be paralysed, then I may as well be good at it!'

Martyn Ashton's talk takes us through the antics of a man searching for a way to face the test of a lifetime, using the instinct of a competitor, plus the enjoyment and passion of a sportsman, to not only discover new things but to ultimately find his way back to the sport he loves most, riding bikes.

Martyn Ashton has been a professional mountain biker since 1992, and in that time has won a world championship and numerous British titles. However he’s probably best known for his live stunt shows and his highly successful YouTube video series 'Road Bike Party' films in which he takes highly expensive (and fragile) carbon road bikes on an exhilarating journey of stunts, obstacles and vertigo-inducing skill that the viewer could never expect.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

I'm excited.

I've got a great story to tell you today.

I think it's cool, and I think it's fun,

but unfortunately I've got to start it
at this photo, which is not a cool moment.

OK, but we're not going to dwell on it.

This is me four years ago
performing in a stunt show.

I was a professional
mountain bike rider of 25 years.

But this photo -

just moments after it, I had a crash.

And in that crash, I sustained
a spinal cord injury,

which was devastating to my career.

But what I'm going to do
to keep this moving, fun and cool, right?

(Laughter)

We're going to skip forward
an hour from this photo

to where I think it started getting cool.

OK, so we're going to skip past
the very tense moments with paramedics

and a dawning realisation
of what this might mean to me

and a very noisy helicopter ride

to an hour from here,

where I was in one of those MRI scanners,
one of those claustrophobic tunnels.

I was all alone for the first time
since the accident.

And there were these magnets
droning away around me.

I was finally in a place
where I could have a think.

What's going on?

And I'll be honest,

I was in a lot of pain around my midriff.

I was kind of hypersensitive,
and below that I could feel nothing.

I had no movement,
and it was really scary.

Did I say this would get fun and cool?

(Laughter)

It's going to get fun and cool.

But I was in turmoil, in all honesty.

I was thinking all the things

you would expect someone
would think in that situation.

How am I going to work?

You know, I'm never going to walk again.

Wheelchairs.

How am I going to be a good dad?

How am I going to be a good husband?

All that stuff.

But I've got to admit something today
that I've not really told many people.

Underneath all the turmoil -

I'm already starting
to smile a little bit -

underneath the turmoil,
there was a genuine excitement,

which sounds weird, but bear with me.

In all the turmoil, I'd been
thinking through some scenarios,

like, what is it like in a wheelchair?

What's it like being
four foot tall all the time?

All that kind of stuff.

But my competitive sportsman brain
was starting to kick in,

and I was starting to think like,

'So who's the best
paraplegic in the world?'

(Laughter)

'Who's that guy or girl?
It must be a pretty impressive person.

Like what's the world
rankings of paraplegia?

How do you get in the top 100
of being a paraplegic?'

I can't help it; that's the way I think.

And I was excited, and I instantly knew,
although it was a dumb thought,

it was also a very useful one.

I could feel it had energy,
it had movement, it was positive.

And I nurtured it from that moment on.

I kept hold of it.

I knew that it was
an important moment for me,

and I really used that energy
to move forward in my life.

And let me explain
why I was so excited by it

because

I'd been riding bikes for a long time,
and often I would get excited by an idea.

It was quite often an idea,
as you can see,

that probably wasn't a good one.

Some people would try
and talk you out of it,

'That's stupid, man!
You might hurt yourself!'

or, 'You could potentially get arrested
for riding on bridges illegally!'

and things like that

And the excitement and that energy
that I was recognising in the MRI scanner,

that's what I used to use to get past
that inner voice that's saying I shouldn't

and the people actually physically
saying to me, 'Don't.'

And I would use this energy -

that was a particularly silly bit -

I would use that energy to get stuff done.

So I knew it was important.

I went into hospital
after the accident for five months.

I had 12 weeks' bed rest,
which is a blooming long lie-in.

That's like the longest lie-in
any of us need.

That's probably the longest
lie-in in this room.

(Laughter)

Any? No, no. Definitely
the longest lie-in.

I also spent that time rehabilitating,
getting some fitness back,

getting used to the very basics
of what life meant in a wheelchair.

I was also on a ward

with lots of other people
who'd had spinal cord injuries,

and I was amazed at the bravery
I saw in these other people.

Just everyday people
who had this disruption in their life

that they hadn't been expecting.

And it's incredible to see
how this human spirit comes through

and finds a way to get back

and progress from stuff
that can be devastating.

I'd come out of hospital inspired by that
and with that energy.

So I'd come out of hospital
inspired and with a mantra, I guess.

I used it a lot.

It was: 'If I'm going to be paralysed,
then I may as well be really good at it.'

I may as well just
be the best one I can be.

Get in that top 100
is what I was thinking.

It started with the basics,
things like this escalator.

(Laughter)

Looks like a simple problem,

but in a wheelchair an escalator
is pretty tricky, you need to practice.

Especially going down,

because you have to go down
facing the same way you would as up.

So you have this moment
of 'Oh, my god, I hope I'm right.'

(Laughter)

And then the security guard
chases you down it.

(Laughter)

(Harsh voice) 'You're not allowed
on here with wheelchairs.'

'Well, I'm not a pram.'

(Laughter)

So I started with the basics.

But like I said, I really wanted
to be as good at this as I could be.

And I thought sport was where
I was going to find my niche

and use some of the experience
I've had in my riding career.

So I started hunting around.
What sports could I try?

And I tried loads of things.
I tried handcycling and I tried tennis.

Have you ever noticed
that wheel chair tennis players,

they've got to hold the tennis racket
and push a wheelchair,

which is like that's two things,
so I couldn't do that.

(Laughter)

I could hit the ball on the spot.

What else did I try?
Well, I tried basketball.

I couldn't throw basketballs
before my accident,

and the chair hadn't improved it.

So I didn't.

(Laughter)

But I did try wheelchair racing,
which is what you can see here.

And you've probably seen this
on the paralympics, going around a track,

or the London Marathon,

you see these guys, and they're amazing.

And I thought, I had a pretty strong
upper body from my riding.

I thought, this is where
I'm going to find my moment.

This is my one and only day
racing wheelchairs,

just simply because this
is a 100-meter race.

This photo sort of annoys me, actually.

It's a 100-meter race.

I'm the person with the black helmet,
a little red line on it, blue t-shirt.

I'm lined up ready.

The girl, just to this side,
with the pink, purple helmet

and pink, purple
'matching wheelchair', right?

She beat me. She's twelve years old.

(Laughter)

Wait, wait!

(Laughter)

She beat me by 60 meters.

(Laughter)

So kayaking! right?
It's a really cool sport!

(Laughter)

I love this photo.

I went hunting around on the internet
trying to find something else

after the wheelchair racing disaster,
and I found kayaking.

These boats are incredible.

They are super long,
really narrow and mega fast.

I managed to get in touch
with the coach of the GB team,

and he asked me to come have a tryout.

Like: 'Well come and try out; we've got
a space on the GB team for someone.'

Why are you laughing?

(Laughter)

For someone with my disability category,
I'm like: 'This is it.'

So I went a long three-hour drive,

very excited.

I took my wife Lisa, and my son Alfie
came to see daddy get picked for the team.

And I went kayaking for the first time.

Now, when I got on this boat,

I had a moment of panic,

because, like I said,
they're pretty wobbly,

and I was slightly concerned.

And I said to my wife Lisa,
who was just at the side of the jetty:

'You know,

I'm a bit worried about this boat,
it's pretty tricky to balance.'

I'm about to set sail.

And the coach says to me -

he's holding the front of the boat,
just by the jetty -

and he says: 'Don't worry, you just
kind of balance it with your core.'

And I'm like:

'OK, some really important information
has been lost in our email communication'

because I haven't got a core;

(Laughter)

that's what the wheelchair
is about, right?

I don't know why he didn't get it.

But he pushes me out, OK?

I'm strapped in with this big velcro strap
so you can't fall out of the boat.

I float out a little bit.

A bit of a wobble and then
it just goes 'blum' the other way.

And I'm literally sat in it,
perfectly sat, right?

But the bottom of the river's there,

I'm upside down,

and I was just like 'Oh, my god',
I'm like looking at mud and fishes.

(Laughter)

I'm trying to rip this velcro thing
off my waist to get out of the boat,

and I manage to get out enough
to get a breath of air,

just long enough to see my son Alfie
looking at me like 'Dad's drowning',

(Laughter)

like that looks bad.

I go back under.

I haven't come away
from the boat for some reason,

because my feet are
kind of caught up in the boat.

So I struggle my way out,
and there's a lot of splashing,

and I'm not making the waves
in this sport like I'd planned.

(Laughter)

It's a mess, all right?

I get to the edge and one, I'm freezing
and two, I feel pretty stupid.

I get lifted out of the water,

and I'm kind of annoyed
because I'm used to succeeding in sport.

That's what I've always strived to do,
and this was not that.

I get put back in the boat again.

I'm like, 'Put me back in that boat
because I can do this.'

They put me back in, I float out,
you probably guessed, 'blum'.

(Laughter)

It was a horror show.

I come back out of the water again,

I'm even colder.

And I'm embarrased to admit now

that it took me four more attempts
to realise 'I don't kayak.'

(Laughter)

I'm not a kayaker, OK?

And I come out of that water,
and I just felt so humiliated.

I'd gone a three-hour drive
to get to this place

with a lot of ambition in my mind
and my excitement.

And this was not what I was after.

So we had a very quiet drive home,

but halfway back my son started laughing
in the back of the car.

I said, 'What are you laughing at?'

And he was like, 'Did you see
that café just next to the jetty

where everyone was inside
having coffees from the cold, watching?'

I was like, 'Yeah, yeah.'

And he was like, 'Imagine how that scene
looked to those people in there.'

(Laughter)

'Why do they keep putting
that poor guy back in?'

(Laughter)

'He clearly can't do it.'

(Laughter)

Terrible!

Mean people, like I'm like,
'Don't put me back in the boat.'

And they're like, 'Get back in the boat!'

Awful!

You know what?

Since my accident, I was never able
to get bike riding out of my mind.

I was looking for where
I would find use for my skill set,

but I'd always presumed
bike riding would be there.

I didn't really know how,
but I knew I'd want to do it.

The problem was no one was doing it,

no one was riding two-wheeled
mountain bikes who was paralysed.

It just wasn't happening.

So I got thinking how I could do it

and I found the answer
watching the Sochi paralympics.

I don't know if you've ever seen
these sit-ski races.

They've got like a single ski,

and then they're
in this kind of bucket seat,

and they go absolutely
howling down snowy mountains

with these crutches on either side
with little skis on the end,

and I was watching that, and I thought,

'Why hasn't anyone ever put one
of those seats on a mountain bike?

That's what I need, I need something
to really hold me securely on the bike

and once I'm rolling,
we're golden - it'll be great.'

And I started asking
some people in the industry,

you know, 'Could I get this done?'

Some of them were like,
'Yeah, we can do that.'

And other people were like,
'Hang on a minute,

you need a sort of pedal
to keep momentum

and obviously stability
and stuff like that.'

Valid points.

And I thought: "Well no, actually,
because all you need is a hill,

and then gravity is like free energy.

It's so "eco", it's like "let's go."'

They also said things about stopping.
I was like, "We'll get to that."

So this is me, right,
a year and a half after my accident,

out with my friends
on the top of the mountain,

and I can't tell you how amazing this felt
to go riding with my mates.

Once I got rolling it was incredible.

What was incredible was the experience
I had with my friends.

It was just such a team effort.

And getting out riding on the bikes,

I had that cheek ache for days afterwards
because I smiled so hard.

It was an amazing experience,
and I got back riding.

And that video we put out on the internet,

and it got millions of views

on Youtube and Facebook
and Instagram and that stuff.

It was so much noise, in fact my phone -

I was getting so many notifications,
my phone's ding broke.

So many ding, dings. I broke my phone.

So I'm thinking millions of views, right?

'I'd reckon that's like top 100,' I'd say.

'I think I've made it into the top 100
paraplegics, in my opinion.'

(Laughter)

You know, what's important
from my story I think is that ...

that moment in the MRI scanner
was really important for me

because who would have thought
before that moment,

seeing me with that injury,

that some of the best days of me
riding bikes were ahead of me.

You know, it wasn't the end of the career,
it was just a change in it.

And I've travelled the world
since my accident.

I've ridden in international events.

I rode iconic places that I would
have never dreamed of going before

and had experiences on my bike
that have just been incredible.

I don't think many people
would have said that was coming.

So I think there's
an important message there.

And I think it's that excitement and
that energy that made that possible

because that's passion, you know,

when you're passionate
about something, you want to get it done.

When you're passionate about things
that you want to do in your life

and decisions you want to make.

It's very easy to put up
barricades of excuses

and blockades of reasons why you can't
or make obstacles out of disabilities,

but when you've got that passion,
and you've got that excitement,

and you let it come through,
and you let it steer you,

you can just create a path
around all those barriers.

You can achieve great things,
and that is what I wish for you guys.

Thanks so much.

(Applause)

(Cheers)