On the beach volleyball courts in Taipei, Taiwan crowds will cheer, music will bump, whistles will be blown – and Mike Brüning won’t hear any of it. The legally deaf Mission Beach resident will be participating in the 21st Summer Deaflympics from Sept. 5 to 15. “We’ve all had the same key struggle in our lives and that struggle has been, in a hearing world, not having communication ties to a majority of the world,” Brüning said. “It is a very powerful opportunity to get the American deaf and the international deaf together. It’s a pretty amazing thing.” In the 2005 Deaflympics, Brüning and his partner took home the silver medal in beach volleyball in Melbourne, Australia. Brüning will team up with Dimitri Nikiforov in Taipei and has his sights set on the top of the podium. “The opportunity that I have now is probably my greatest opportunity for a gold medal,” Brüning said. “I feel really confident.” Brüning was born with complete hearing but suffered a fever and left ear infection at the age of 2 that resulted in deafness in his left ear. His hearing loss was not fully discovered until the first grade, when his teacher could not get his attention one day in class. “I was drawing away and she was trying to get my attention,” Brüning said. “I wasn’t responding.” Brüning was referred to a then-start-up program at the University of Arizona designed to help deaf individuals. There it was discovered that Brüning needed a hearing aid in his left ear. Brüning said he still struggled in the classroom with the analog hearing aid and he didn’t know where to turn for support. “At that point,” Brüning said, “I wasn’t deaf, I didn’t really know any deaf people and I thought my struggles were my own. I used to function without [a hearing aid] because I was so embarrassed about it.” In 1989, when Brüning was 19, a gunshot fired near his head resulted in hearing loss in his right ear. This made Brüning legally deaf, as both of his ears now had 60-decibel loss, greater than the minimum requirement of 55 decibels. For Brüning, this incident necessitated the use of two hearing aids at all times. But Brüning said being forced to wear more powerful hearing aids was not a negative point in his life – it was actually the opposite. “Once I got these two new ones, all of a sudden I could hear normal conversations,” Brüning said. “I would miss random things, but my communication skills skyrocketed and my fears diminished because I was able to hear and communicate for the first time.” After the gunshot, Brüning finally came to terms with his hearing loss. Before becoming legally deaf, he grew his hair out to hide his hearing aids. “I cut my hair, exposed my hearing aids to the world and nobody ever changed how they treated me, I was just more involved and I could hear and communicate,” Brüning said. With the help of his hearing aids, Brüning is not limited day to day. He has no trouble conversing in person or over the phone and said his hearing loss has resulted in him picking up subtle nuances in communication. “I’m really in tune to body language and lip reading,” Brüning said. “I pick up on stuff that a lot of people wouldn’t.” At his 70-decibel hearing loss, Brüning said the biggest benefit is being a part of both the deaf and hearing communities. He even feels sorry for those without hearing loss. “Actually I think I’m really fortunate – I’m the lucky one,” Brüning said. “You guys get to hear all that crap when you’re sleeping, you get to hear the really loud traffic, you get to be bothered by noises and sounds; I hear what I want to hear.” On the professional beach volleyball circuit, Brüning has had success this season, capturing an FIVB title in the Cayman Islands in March. At an AVP event last month in Manhattan Beach, Brüning and his partner squared off against 2008 gold medalists Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers. “It was impressive to see them and play against them. I definitely was a little nervous,” Brüning said. “They have an advantage just because they affect people with their presence.” Competition at the Deaflympics will differ from Brüning’s appearances at professional tournaments and even his training sessions at the end of August on Mission Beach for one reason. Competitors in the Deaflympics are not allowed hearing aids so that no one player gains an advantage. “It’s a very silent game of volleyball, which is not what you would expect from the game. But the thing is we’ll have that disadvantage and the team across the net will have that disadvantage,” Brüning said. “That’s the purpose of the Deaflympics, because when I play against hearing teams, I’ll give up a couple points a game – I’ll just call it a deaf point.” At the Deaflympics, all of the points will be deaf points. But that won’t make them any less intense. “I can play through the whistle sometimes,” Brüning said. “I don’t hear the whistle, so I’m still going for the ball, whereas some players will think they heard a whistle or stop before the whistle was blown.”