En garde! GCU alum advances to Paralympics

Grand Canyon College alumna Jataya Taylor is an all-out monsoon.

She is a fury.

A pressure.

The Marine veteran has sliced throughout snowy mountains as a Nordic cross nation skier, battered her lungs as a biathlon athlete and track-and-field competitor, swam, cycled, climbed rocks – defeated them – and skimmed throughout peaks as a snowboarder.

She didn’t care what sport; she simply needed to sport.

So it’s ironic that Taylor, so high-velocity and so adrenaline-powered, would discover her comfortable place in wheelchair fencing, a sport that relies upon as a lot on physicality because it does technique, the place it’s not about enjoying tougher however enjoying smarter.

And it’s the game that’s taking her to the Paralympics.

“It’s humorous, as a result of in all the opposite sports activities I’ve carried out, if I get fouled … I can get actually aggressive. However fencing is absolutely calming to me, and so it permits me to make use of the logic in my mind and my athleticism. It’s one thing you don’t get to do fairly often in different sports activities,” Taylor stated.

The Aurora, Colorado, resident will journey to Paris in a couple of weeks to compete within the Paralympic Video games, which can embrace some 4,000 athletes competing to win nearly 550 medals on the most important stage in parasports from Aug. 28-Sept. 9.

What’s additionally mind-boggling is that parrying and lunging weren’t even in Taylor’s vocabulary. She had by no means heard of parafencing and didn’t even begin competing in it till two years in the past.

“I grew up in a small city in Florida, and fencing was nowhere on my radar,” stated Taylor in a Zoom name from Denver, the place she trains. “I might need seen it within the films or a present, after which I didn’t even know there was something known as wheelchair fencing.”

Taylor occurred to be visiting the Denver Fencing Middle with a gaggle from the native Veterans Affairs hospital in 2022, and that was it. She was hooked.

And now the middle, a nationwide hub for wheelchair fencing, has been her house away from house.

Rising to develop into a Paralympian wasn’t in Taylor’s life plan when she graduated from highschool, the place she made an impression on her highschool basketball group.

She had one aim: to serve within the navy, like her Air Pressure father.

Her plan was to enlist within the Military and work in linguistics – “I consider communication is a large think about fixing issues,” she stated – however the Military recruiter wasn’t at his desk on the time.

“The recruiter was off doing no matter he needed and I used to be similar to, I want to get this carried out, so I stated, ‘I’m simply going to speak to the Marine recruiter as an alternative’,” and joined in 2005.

It was throughout coaching workouts not lengthy after that when she sustained two critical accidents, a multidirectional dislocation to her proper shoulder, then an harm to her left knee. She would additionally injure her ankle and was confined to a wheelchair.

A uncommon connective tissue dysfunction made it unimaginable for docs to restore the harm.

Identical to that, her navy profession ended.

“It form of flipped my world the other way up as a result of I had one aim – the navy – and I didn’t understand that you may get damage and never get higher.”

Not one to surrender, Taylor continued to stroll on her leg, withstanding the ache for greater than 10 years when she made a life-changing resolution.

She advised her docs to amputate the leg, or she would.

In 2017, docs did simply that, however what some may see as a loss, she noticed as a brand new starting – a way of freedom after years of ache, although the years of struggling along with her well being weren’t straightforward.

Taylor fought despair and doubt; adaptive sports activities would save her life.

She relished competitors and, in 2018, was honored with the Disabled American Veterans Freedom Award, given yearly to a veteran who demonstrates braveness of their restoration.

One other vibrant mild was Taylor’s pursuit at GCU of her grasp’s diploma in public well being within the midst of the COVID pandemic.

She wasn’t actually fascinated by going again to highschool, however a consultant from GCU occurred to be on the identical ladies’s veterans assembly Taylor was attending.

“It simply occurred to be a blessing on the time as a result of I had actually no path in my life,” stated Taylor, who needed to complete a grasp’s in authorized research however due to her well being points thought she’d take a unique route.

“I needed to determine learn how to assist individuals,” she stated, and simply knew she beloved the outside and entry to the outside and advised her GCU counselor, “If I’ve an issue, I don’t step again. I gained’t again down.”

“They have been like, ‘Why don’t you attempt public well being?”

She makes use of that data in her job for the Denver Fencing Basis, through which she creates and coordinates packages and applies for grants.

“I really completed the final a part of my grasp’s whereas I used to be handcycling throughout Africa,” she stated. “It was like, this can be a good alternative. I get to discover new cultures and see how they dwell and the problems they face. I used to be in a position to carry that again and incorporate it in the whole lot I’m doing proper now with our basis, together with beginning a fencing program in Namibia.”

All of the whereas, Taylor continues to embrace fencing outdoors of her 8-to-5 job.

She’ll be in Paris competing in ladies’s foil and épée, and can be there with the Group USA fencing group, which “makes it that rather more thrilling as a result of we get to feed off of one another, assist one another – it positively will get loopy since you’re making an attempt to stability work with coaching with well being with a private life after which household.”

The parafencing group has been her supply of power in some ways.

She additionally will get power from one other supply: her religion.

It’s why she selected GCU, and it’s what retains her grounded in her generally loopy life.

She needed to include faith into what she was studying, particularly in public well being “as a result of faith and beliefs play such an enormous half in our well being selections,” she stated.

And when she’s in her white fencing uniform, her wheelchair connected to the bottom, dealing with the opponent throughout from her, she gained’t simply be relying on her bodily potential and her psychological acuity to hold her by means of.

“I like to sit down again and pray for a minute and simply get my head in the correct house,” Taylor stated.

It takes slightly religion to be a pressure.

GCU Supervisor of Inner Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults will be reached at [email protected] or at 602-639-7901.

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