I heard about ClickSonar a long time ago. I always thought it would be too hard for me to learn. However, playing Showdown since last year showed me that I can train my hearing much better than I thought. So, I looked for a way to learn it and ended up with Juan Ruiz at clicksonar.eu. He’s located in Vienna, Austria, which was a short train ride away.

First up was learning the click. This was a bit tricky for me, but after a couple of minutes, it worked okay, and Juan prepared some things for the next exercise.

He took a plate and a book and held them in front of me, either to the left or right of my head. I had to figure out what it was and where it was. That worked out pretty well. I was amazed that I could do that.

The next exercise was walking around the school for the blind. First up was following the hallway. After some trial and error, that worked out pretty well. If you scan a bit with your head while clicking, you can hear in which direction the sounds get reflected well and where not. The direction with less sound reflection is the way to go along the hallway.

In the next exercise, we looked for doors. Some doors were in niches, which made them pretty easy to find with ClickSonar. I also learned to get some idea of how big a room is and how to find the stairway. I also tried positioning myself in the middle of the hallway just by clicking. That all worked pretty well. Juan really has a great concept for teaching ClickSonar. That was it for the first day, and my brain was full of new impressions.

On the second day, we started off with some exercises from the day before and then headed outside. Outside was a different story for me. I had a much harder time hearing my click. Traffic and other sounds on the street were a distraction. But after some hints from Juan, I could figure out some things, like bigger poles, bus stations, and when I walk by a car, when it ends.

We also exchanged the bigger plastic cane tip of my white cane with a small Kellerer ceramic tip. At first, I was skeptical, thinking it might get stuck all the time. But it works great if you lift the white cane a bit, just enough to still have contact with the ground. Juan said that I can read the ground like reading Braille that way, and he was right. Another benefit, besides the tactile one, is the echo from the ceramic cane tip. I can now walk along a wall with about a 0.5m distance just by listening to the echo from the cane tip.

The last exercise was a sort of hide-and-seek game. We went to a grassy area in a park with trees. I had to search for the trees with ClickSonar. That worked out pretty well. The sound gets lost in the distance if it doesn’t hit a tree and reflects back to you. I never thought I could achieve this in just one afternoon and one morning of training.

Juan really has a great concept for learning ClickSonar. I have lots of stuff to train at home. My click is getting more consistent and louder each day, which makes it much easier. Thanks, Juan, for the great two days. I can’t wait to see what I will be able to “see” with ClickSonar!