Hardly handicapped

Circling around the parking lot at a local Torrance gym, Atif
Moon pulled into the handicapped spot, not necessarily thinking
twice about the fact that he didn’t have a placard. After
finishing his workout and finding a ticket pressed against his
car’s windshield, he was obviously frustrated.

After all, it’s not often that lifelong paraplegics get
ticketed for parking in handicapped spots. Yet that wasn’t
what upset Moon. Nor was he upset at the fact that he had left his
handicap placard at home that day. The sophomore was angry that he
hadn’t parked in one of the regular spaces.

Since he first stepped onto a tennis court at the age of six,
Moon has been raised to believe that he is not any different than
any other student. Though paralyzed from the waist down since birth
because of a spinal cord injury and confined to a wheelchair his
entire life, Moon doesn’t see himself as limited in the least
bit.

“I don’t really think about it much,” he said
of what life would be like with functional legs. “Certain
things would be cool, but I realize I can do a lot of things with
my disability.”

Chief among those activities is tennis. In 2004, he finished the
year ranked seventh in the nation among Junior Wheelchair Open
players. Without a steady coach or a regular practice schedule
since enrolling at UCLA, he has succeeded by playing during his
spare time with able-bodied partners. And it’s not as though
his friends and family are doing him favors by hitting with him.
He’s quite capable of keeping up.

“His disability allows him to maneuver better than other
people I’ve worked with,” said Michael Watson, who
began coaching Moon when he was eight and has worked with other
disabled students for 20 years. “It’s easy to work with
Atif because you tell him something and he understands what
you’re saying right away.”

Moon’s father, Munir, and stepmother, Elena, always wanted
their son to have the same experiences able-bodied children had.
Tennis became the first activity that ensured that was
possible.

“We were looking for easy things to get him involved
with,” Munir said. “The whole goal was to keep him busy
in some kind of sport so he didn’t feel disappointed or
depressed.”

While other parents pushed their children into sports to learn
the value of teamwork, Munir and Elena wanted Atif to gain
independence through sports. The individual and non-contact nature
of tennis made it an obvious choice, so Moon’s parents signed
him up for a wheelchair class offered at El Camino College. Moon
admits he wasn’t immediately drawn to the sport, but became
hooked as he started improving and succeeding.

“At first, I never really cared,” Moon said.
“My parents really forced me to get involved.”

Except for the allowance of two bounces, wheelchair tennis
retains the same features as the regular version of the sport.
However, the training regimen is markedly different for Moon and
other wheelchair players. With his leg muscles continuously
atrophying, all of Moon’s strength must come from his upper
body. At UCLA, he works out three times a week to keep his arm and
shoulder muscles fit enough for competitive tennis. Even when he
was a young child, his upper body was naturally more developed
because of his dependence on it.

“I was amazed that his handshake was almost like an
adult,” Elena said of when she first met Atif 15 years ago.
“It was so heavy and very strong.”

As Atif grew and matured, Munir and Elena kept finding ways to
instill strength and independence in their son. Four years ago,
when strolling down the street, Moon tripped over a bump in the
road and fell out of his wheelchair. But rather than asking whether
their son needed help getting back up, Munir and Elena only sought
to make sure he wasn’t hurt.

“We were thinking, if we weren’t here, how would he
get up?” Elena said. “We coached him a bit on how to
put the chair up and put the brakes back on himself.”

In college, some of Moon’s closest friends have similarly
made a conscious effort to avoid taking care of him.

“At first, a lot of us felt like we should try to help him
out as much as we can,” third-year student and friend Adnan
Nasir said. “But it makes him that much stronger to be on his
own. We don’t want to make him feel dependent because
he’s definitely not. He’s able to depend only on
himself.”

Though tennis is Moon’s most successful sport, he has
participated in a host of others. Growing up, he played goalie in
neighborhood hockey games with his older brother. During lunch
breaks in elementary school, he regularly sank more shots than his
able-bodied classmates in basketball. And over the past year, he
has expanded his horizons and tried out jet skiing, kayaking and
swimming. With each activity Moon picks up, he receives a stronger
feeling of independence and a lesser feeling of disability.

“They don’t know how I do it, but no one discourages
me,” he said.

Nevertheless, many people do sympathize with Moon. At the dining
hall, students frequently ask if there’s anything they can do
for him.

But those who spend the most time with Moon are usually the
least sympathetic. These people don’t look to treat him
differently, and that is a reason why they are some of Moon’s
closest friends.

“I don’t feel sorry for him,” Nasir said.
“There are actually a lot of people who are worse off than he
is. He’s actually blessed to be where he is, studying at a
prestigious university with an abundance of resources in terms of
support and friends.”

As part of the Muslim Student Association, Nasir and Moon
volunteer together at a medical clinic in Watts. His experience
there has helped Moon forget about his disability all the more.

“When he looks at other quadriplegics and goes to Watts,
it helps him get an appreciation of the opportunities he does
have,” Munir said.

Working legs would undoubtedly make some things in life easier
for Moon. But from the tennis court to the classroom, he has become
increasingly independent without them, making it harder and harder
to consider him disabled.

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