Cochlear implant was created to empower. But for many, the default perception is that cochlear implant users are constricted in many ways. Some may have reservations about CI users being involved in sports, let alone building a career out of it. Cochlear implant user John Lui, a 35-year-old Aussie, does just that.
John Plays Competitive Deaf Tennis and Coaches
John, a unilateral cochlear implant recipient, undertakes a tennis coaching career and competitive deaf tennis. He represented Australia three times in the Deaflympics games (2005 in Melbourne, 2009 in Taipei, and 2013 in Bulgaria). He was once ranked as high as no. 8 in Men’s Singles for International Deaf Tennis. John began coaching tennis part-time in his university years. He founded a tennis coaching business academy, Lui Tennis, upon graduation from university in 2009. His students include individuals of various age groups (five and above) and levels (from beginner to open tournament level).
He Spent Much Time Abroad Growing Up
Born in Sydney with profound deafness in 1985, John was implanted at age 10. John’s family frequently moved around when he was younger due to his father’s international work assignments. He spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Brunei, the Netherlands and Hong Kong before returning to Sydney when he was 15.
Adapting to a new social environment and culture was one of the biggest challenges for John. John had his constraints when meeting strangers. Engaging small talks, understanding and cracking jokes were quite tricky growing up. He needed a more controlled environment when conversation flows more structurally and predictably, which don’t often happen with small talks and jokes. He felt more comfortable in staying with just one friend most of the time.
He Didn’t Set Out to Be A Pro Player and Coach in Tennis
John’s path to becoming a full-time tennis coach isn’t linear. He graduated with a double degree in Bachelor of Social Science and Bachelor of Laws from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Clueless about what he wants to do for a living, he chose to study law for the prestige associated with the field. “I thought it’d be cool when people learn that I study law at parties,” John quipped in the Zoom call I had with him.
He began coaching tennis part-time during his third year in university. He turned his coaching into a vocation when he graduated from university in 2009. He is the first profoundly deaf person to become a qualified Tennis Australia Club Professional coach. When John coaches, he puts on the CI speech processor. But when in a game, he takes it off because there’s a high chance that the speech processor falls off when he serves the ball due to the head movement.
He’s Also Serving the Deaf and HOH at Hear For You
In 2013, John found out about Hear For You, an Australian-based non-profit organisation aimed at supporting deaf teenagers. They run mentoring programmes, career workshops and community outreach events. His first involvement with the organisation is through a mentorship programme in which he served as a mentor. Four months into the mentoring programme, he was offered an opportunity to assume the New South Wales (NSW) State Manager position within the organisation. He took the opportunity and has been serving until today. (David Romanowski, a CI user featured earlier, is also a long-time mentor for Hear For You)
John: “Misconceptions About CI Hinder Meaningful Change.”
In his involvement with Hear For You, John observed that various reasons within the hard of hearing (HOH) community has hindered the community from being able to drive effective and meaningful change in the mainstream awareness of deafness. Beliefs like CIs are a magic fix or that CI users don’t need any additional help creates confusion and misconceptions around the help they need to perform at their best in the mainstream community. It’s difficult to find, let alone bring together the many hundreds and thousands of CI users in a way to create proper change.
When John isn’t coaching or running Hear For You activities, he is at home spending time with his wife and their two daughters, aged four and two respectively.
Enjoy this one-minute video featuring John’s life story produced by Hear For You:
You could find more cochlear implant user stories here.
CI Project collects cochlear implant user stories. I’d like to invite you to join the private Facebook group. You’ll receive an update of each new story (about once a month) and will get to interact with the characters of each story there. I’m also looking for more cochlear implant user stories. I’d appreciate it if you could nominate a cochlear implant user (including yourself) for me to write a story about!