An Incredible Story: Kyle Maynard
April 24, 2009 – 7:15 am by Tas Melas
Excuse the deep thoughts on a Friday, but sometimes people hear stories that make them think about where they’re at in their own lives – Kyle Maynard’s tale definitely fits in to that category. Kyle has a rare disorder called congenital amputation where his arms basically stop at his elbows, and his legs at his knees. Listening to this interview made me realize how simple life can be.
He never looked at himself as different – always just persevered through obstacles in front of him. And, that’s it. While many look at him as a charity case or feel sorry for him, he makes ‘normal’ people look like the charity cases. Maynard grew up doing regular kid things including football and wrestling and will now fight in his first Mixed Martial Arts match this weekend. Maynard joined KNBR in San Francisco to discuss his life philosophies, what his parents did for him, and the fact many are looking at this weekend’s fight as a gimmick.
On how he looks at life:
“I really just try to look at adversity as an opportunity, to learn something about yourself. I try and put myself in adverse positions sometimes; from my perspective, I enjoy challenging situations. From early on, my parents wouldn’t allow me to make excuses in those challenging situations, so I think that’s kinda carried over…”
Great kid, great parents:
“They wouldn’t allow me to give up and quit on stuff so easy. When I started wrestling I didn’t have a lot of success right away. I lost the first 35 matches I ever competed in as a 6th grader through 7th grade and they wouldn’t let me quit until I finally broke through and started beating kids… My family just never really allowed me to look at myself as having a disability and I’ve never really looked at myself that way either.”
Some look at his MMA quest as a joke:
“People look at this as kind of… You know, I’ve been untested in MMA. There are a lot of people that don’t think I have a chance to last 30 seconds. I can assure you I’ve been sparring and that’s not the case but I think the interesting thing is, I do have an opponent now, I’ve got a lot of respect for this guy for taking the fight…”
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