If tomorrow you were suddenly forced to use a wheelchair because of an illness or accident, could you keep moving forward and taking on new challenges?
Two men who became wheelchair users partway through their lives—one due to illness and the other to an accident—came to Kurashiki from Kyushu and Okinawa for a wheelchair city-walk event.
Because they have gone through painful experiences themselves, they do not want others to suffer in the same way. They want to encourage people to move forward and take on the things they want to do. I went to hear talks by these two men, who are driven by such passionate feelings.
The information presented is current as of the article’s publication in June 2024. Please note that it may differ from current information.
About the Ochimizu Yosuke & Miyo Tatsuya Lecture, “Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next”
Held on May 25, 2024, at Kurashiki Community Center, “Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next” was a collaborative lecture by wheelchair users Ochimizu Yosuke and Miyo Tatsuya.
The organizer was Moriue Miho, a physical therapist. Every spring and autumn, Moriue holds wheelchair city-walk events in the Bikan Historical Area.
This lecture was held as a pre-event gathering on the eve of the wheelchair city-walk event. This article introduces how Moriue came to organize the lecture.
![[Held Saturday, May 25] Ochimizu Yosuke & Miyo Tatsuya Lecture, “Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next” — The challenge of a woman who started a wheelchair city-walk event in the Bikan Historical Area](https://media.kuratoco.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/23004003/DSCF2123.jpg)
What kind of people are Ochimizu Yosuke and Miyo Tatsuya?
Ochimizu Yosuke
Ochimizu Yosuke was born in 1982 in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture.
He played soccer from a young age, and in elementary school he played on the Kitakyushu City select team alongside former Japan national team forward Yoshito Okubo.
He worked in sales and product development for a cosmetics manufacturer, but in 2013 developed primary lateral sclerosis (PLS), a rare disease affecting one in a million people. Gradually, he lost the ability to move his body, limbs, and mouth, and became bedridden. Today, he is active nationwide, giving talks and live performances and appearing on television and in other media.
In 2021, he also founded PLS Inc. and has been actively working toward “creating places where everyone can live more easily,” including giving more than 100 talks a year across Japan.
Miyo Tatsuya
Miyo Tatsuya was born in 1988 in Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture.
In 2006, a motorcycle accident left him with a spinal cord injury, forcing him to use a wheelchair. After undergoing surgery and rehabilitation, he traveled to Hawaii alone in 2011. Experiencing accessibility far more advanced than in Japan sparked his interest in overseas travel.
He later left his job, where he had been employed under a disability hiring program, and after short-term stays in Los Angeles and Australia, decided to travel around the world alone in a wheelchair to share the appeal of accessible environments overseas with as many people as possible. He visited more than 42 cities in 23 countries over about nine months, completing his journey around the world. He currently lives in Itoman City, Okinawa Prefecture.
After returning from his trip around the world, he has given talks nationwide as a wheelchair traveler. He has also expanded his activities by partnering with travel agencies to visit destinations in Japan and abroad and help plan tours that are easy to take in a wheelchair, as well as actively contributing to students’ welfare education under the theme of “Education × Travel.”
The venue on the day
On the day of the event, when I entered Meeting Room 2 on the first floor of Kurashiki Community Center, several wheelchairs were lined up in the front row.
People who wanted to hear Ochimizu and Miyo speak had gathered from outside Kurashiki City, regardless of whether they had a disability. Their ability to draw people in must have been one of the reasons the lecture was held.
I have a hearing impairment, so I listened to the two speakers using a hearing assistance system and a speech recognition app. I had told the organizer about this in advance, and they had kindly prepared a table for my smartphone, with the speech recognition app open.
Hearing assistance system
A system that sends words picked up by a transmitter’s microphone directly to a receiver attached to a hearing aid
Speech recognition app
An application that converts audio information into text
At 7 p.m., the scheduled start time, the two emcees announced the opening of the event.
At this lecture, not only the two speakers but also both emcees were wheelchair users. The organizer’s desire to support the activities of people with disabilities themselves came through clearly.
Miyo Tatsuya’s talk
“Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next” began with Miyo Tatsuya’s talk.
Miyo is also known as a “wheelchair traveler.” I thought he would surely tell us stories about his travels… but as soon as he picked up the microphone, he began, “I’ll only talk about travel for about five minutes today. That’s because what I want to talk about today is the Hero’s Journey.”
The talk’s theme: “The Hero’s Journey”
The Hero’s Journey is a narrative pattern common to the stories of heroes in films, manga, novels, and other works, proposed by American mythologist Joseph Campbell. It is a framework that progresses through 12 stages.
For details, see the images of Miyo’s presentation slides.
Miyo’s Hero’s Journey
When Miyo was 18 and spending his days working part-time jobs, a motorcycle accident injured his cervical spine, forcing him to use a wheelchair.
After several years of rehabilitation, he became able to manage daily life on his own. However, he said that during rehabilitation and later when finding a job, he lived passively, listening to his family and supporters and doing as he was told.
But a fellow wheelchair user he met at the rehabilitation facility advised him to get out and do things for himself: “Why not take the train from the rehabilitation facility back to your family home?” “Why not try living on your own?” “Why not travel overseas?”
Miyo’s first trip abroad was to Hawaii. He chose it because he thought he would start by visiting a place where it would be easy to get by in Japanese.
When he actually traveled overseas, he was moved not only by physical accessibility, such as wheelchair-accessible paths across the sand to the beach, but also by the emotional accessibility of people reaching out to him as a wheelchair user and saying, “Come dance with us.”
After that, he began taking on all kinds of challenges with ease, such as traveling around the world and moving alone to Okinawa, a place in Japan he had grown fond of. He now makes a living giving talks about these experiences across the country.
Everyday life guided by the spirit of “Know, perceive, act, reflect”
A phrase Miyo holds dear is “Chikaku Doko,” a Zen saying. It is read “tomo kaku ugokou,” meaning “just get moving,” and, as the words suggest, he says it is important to act first rather than think too much.
At this lecture, too, rather than listening and thinking, “What would I do?” before taking action, he urged the audience to find something they can do now and act right away, then reflect on the result and ask, “What should I do next?” “As you listen to our next speaker, Ochimizu, try looking for something that might prompt you to take action,” he said, handing the microphone to Ochimizu.
I also have a hearing impairment, but I have traveled abroad alone.
When I tell people, “I can’t hear,” many teach me sign language in their country or serve me by writing things down. Sometimes I even think, “Maybe it’s easier to communicate smoothly with people overseas than in Japan.” So I could relate to many of Miyo’s stories, and listened to him, nodding the whole time.
After the lecture, Miyo also actively asked me questions such as, “How do people with hearing impairments usually communicate?”
I felt that his way of immediately asking about things he was curious about and saying, “This is what I think,” was exactly the spirit of “Chikaku Doko.” Because I can’t hear, even when I don’t understand what is being said, I tend to pretend I do just to get through the situation.
But I was reminded that I need to start by saying, “I didn’t understand,” and value the process of understanding one another with the people around me.
Ochimizu Yosuke’s talk
“I have a disease called PLS. Do you know what PLS stands for? Peace Love Smile.”
The first words of his talk brought a warm smile to everyone in the room.
Ochimizu had no slides or other presentation materials. He slowly and carefully wove his words together at his own pace. His illness is progressive, gradually weakening his muscles. Since he cannot freely move the muscles in his mouth either, his speech has a distinctive, unhurried rhythm.
The theme of the talk: “Positivity is a skill”
Ochimizu speaks at a relaxed pace, but he is skilled at capturing his audience’s attention with just a few words, like his opening line, and keeping them listening intently. The theme of his talk is “Positivity is a skill.”
During his roughly one-hour talk, Ochimizu repeatedly said, “Positivity is a skill. You can acquire it with practice.” He says that “he is happier now than at any other time in his life.” He came to feel this way after developing a condition called PLS, which taught him to be grateful for being able to see friends and work—things he had taken for granted.
He says that understanding what “normal” means is one of his strengths.
Having PLS has enabled me to choose options that fulfill me
Ochimizu was not always able to think positively. He says that for the first two years after learning of his illness, he spent his days feeling depressed, wondering, “Why did I have to get this illness?” Then he began writing down the moments each day that lifted his spirits.
He realized that even before he became ill, he had been compromising on nearly 80 percent of his everyday choices, such as, “I’m really tempted by the 1,000-yen lunch, but I’ll go with the slightly cheaper 800-yen lunch for no particular reason.”
But now that he has PLS, his muscle strength declines day by day—today compared with yesterday, and tomorrow compared with today. He says that even when making small everyday choices, thinking, “This may be the last time in my life I can do this,” has helped him choose the best option for himself at that moment.
By developing the ability to discern which choices fulfill him, he can confidently say, “I’m happier now than at any other time in my life.” That is why Ochimizu says, “I hope that even one fewer person has to go through the same painful inner struggle I did.”
“I’m here giving this talk because I worked hard to become positive. Positivity is a skill.”
He said this with a smile, but with earnestness, and the venue fell into a hushed silence.
Smiles, bad moods, and encouragement are all contagious
I think every word resonated with us in the audience because Ochimizu’s messages were earnest and grounded in his own experiences.
Like Miyo, Ochimizu spoke to me after the talk. He listened intently as I told him about my work as a Community Revitalization Cooperator in Kurashiki City and as a writer for Kurashiki Tocotoco, then smiled and said, “I’m glad to hear about the achievements of a fellow person with a physical disability.”
Perhaps because they speak in front of audiences, they take an interest in what others have to say and encourage each other’s work. During the talk, they also said, “Smiles and bad moods are contagious.” My exchange with these two truly left me feeling, “Let’s do our best.”
Moriue Miho fulfills a five-year dream
The talk, “Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next,” was a dream fulfilled after five years for its organizer, Moriue Miho.
Five years ago, Moriue was deeply moved by talks given by Ochimizu and Miyo. The event came to fruition because she spent the past five years working tirelessly to bring the two of them to speak in Okayama Prefecture, where she was born and raised.
At the end of the talk, Moriue looked back on memories from the past five years and was moved to tears. Nearly all of the roughly 50 people gathered at the venue, including the two speakers, knew how hard she had worked over those five years.
The entire audience applauded her determination, bringing the talk to a close.
From the Writer
When I interviewed Moriue, the organizer of the talk, beforehand and asked, “Why did you decide to hold this event?” she replied, “When I heard the two of them speak, their stories of taking action to pursue what they wanted to do despite their disabilities gave me courage.”
Why did she say “courage” rather than “inspiration”? By attending the talk, I came to understand that it was because both Ochimizu and Miyo had drawn on their experiences of grieving over their disabilities to discover “what they can do now,” and are trying to pass that on to the next generation.
People with disabilities who take on challenges to do what they want can all seem like “special people,” making us think, “I could never do that.” But because the two speakers had experienced life without disabilities, they understood what made their own experiences unique and spoke with a clear sense of what they wanted to tell the audience and what they hoped they would put into practice.
That is why their words are so persuasive, and why they give us the courage to take action and challenge ourselves to do what we can now.
Details: Ochimizu Yosuke & Miyo Tatsuya Talk, “Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next”
| Name | Ochimizu Yosuke & Miyo Tatsuya Talk, “Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next” |
|---|---|
| Date | Saturday, May 25, 2024, 7:00–9:00 p.m. |
| Location | 2-2-21 Honmachi, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture |
| Admission (tax included) | In-person: 3,000 yen; online: 1,000 yen |
| Website | Ochimizu Yosuke & Miyo Tatsuya Talk, “Never Give Up on Your Challenges: A Five-Year Dream and What Comes Next” |
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