On the beach volleyball courts in Taipei, Taiwan crowds will cheer, music will bump, whistles will be blown \u2013 and Mike Br\u00fcning won\u2019t hear any of it. The legally deaf Mission Beach resident will be participating in the 21st Summer Deaflympics from Sept. 5 to 15. “We\u2019ve 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,” Br\u00fcning said. “It is a very powerful opportunity to get the American deaf and the international deaf together. It\u2019s a pretty amazing thing.” In the 2005 Deaflympics, Br\u00fcning and his partner took home the silver medal in beach volleyball in Melbourne, Australia. Br\u00fcning 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,” Br\u00fcning said. “I feel really confident.” Br\u00fcning 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,” Br\u00fcning said. “I wasn\u2019t responding.” Br\u00fcning was referred to a then-start-up program at the University of Arizona designed to help deaf individuals. There it was discovered that Br\u00fcning needed a hearing aid in his left ear. Br\u00fcning said he still struggled in the classroom with the analog hearing aid and he didn\u2019t know where to turn for support. “At that point,” Br\u00fcning said, “I wasn\u2019t deaf, I didn\u2019t 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 Br\u00fcning was 19, a gunshot fired near his head resulted in hearing loss in his right ear. This made Br\u00fcning legally deaf, as both of his ears now had 60-decibel loss, greater than the minimum requirement of 55 decibels. For Br\u00fcning, this incident necessitated the use of two hearing aids at all times. But Br\u00fcning said being forced to wear more powerful hearing aids was not a negative point in his life \u2013 it was actually the opposite. “Once I got these two new ones, all of a sudden I could hear normal conversations,” Br\u00fcning 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, Br\u00fcning 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,” Br\u00fcning said. With the help of his hearing aids, Br\u00fcning 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\u2019m really in tune to body language and lip reading,” Br\u00fcning said. “I pick up on stuff that a lot of people wouldn\u2019t.” At his 70-decibel hearing loss, Br\u00fcning 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\u2019m really fortunate \u2013 I\u2019m the lucky one,” Br\u00fcning said. “You guys get to hear all that crap when you\u2019re 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, Br\u00fcning has had success this season, capturing an FIVB title in the Cayman Islands in March. At an AVP event last month in Manhattan Beach, Br\u00fcning 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,” Br\u00fcning said. “They have an advantage just because they affect people with their presence.” Competition at the Deaflympics will differ from Br\u00fcning\u2019s 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\u2019s a very silent game of volleyball, which is not what you would expect from the game. But the thing is we\u2019ll have that disadvantage and the team across the net will have that disadvantage,” Br\u00fcning said. “That\u2019s the purpose of the Deaflympics, because when I play against hearing teams, I\u2019ll give up a couple points a game \u2013 I\u2019ll just call it a deaf point.” At the Deaflympics, all of the points will be deaf points. But that won\u2019t make them any less intense. “I can play through the whistle sometimes,” Br\u00fcning said. “I don\u2019t hear the whistle, so I\u2019m still going for the ball, whereas some players will think they heard a whistle or stop before the whistle was blown.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the beach volleyball courts in Taipei, Taiwan crowds will cheer, music will bump, whistles will be blown \u2013 and Mike Br\u00fcning won\u2019t hear any of it. The legally deaf Mission Beach resident will be participating in the 21st Summer Deaflympics from Sept. 5 to 15. “We\u2019ve all had the same key struggle in our […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Volleyball specialist heads for Summer Deaflympics","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}