EP 274: Seneida Biendarra — Onsighting Without Sight, Designing Better Gear, and Wielding the Empathy Gun

The Nugget Climbing Podcast

Steven Dimmitt

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4.2 • 576 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 151 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Seneida Biendarra is the 2023 US National Champion in the women’s B2 (severely blind) category. We talked about losing her vision as a teenager, her current visual experience, creating mental maps of the world, finding freedom in risk, designing outdoor gear, the world of paraclimbing and the adaptive community, sight guiding, the empathy gun, embracing chapters in life, and much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, friends, and welcome to the Nugget Climbing Podcast. This is your host, Stephen Dimmit.
0:06.5	My guest today is Seneda Biendera. Saneda was the 2023 Paracliming National Champion for her category,
0:14.6	which is Women's B2, which means that she can't see very well. Senada was diagnosed 10 years ago with retinitis pigmentosa.
0:23.8	Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina, which is the light
0:29.4	sensitive layer of tissue in the back of the eye. And it makes cells in the retina break down
0:35.1	slowly over time causing vision loss.
0:40.3	It's a genetic disease that people are born with.
0:45.1	And Saneda had a normal childhood and started experiencing symptoms as a teenager.
0:46.6	Before she was a climber, actually.
0:49.6	She started climbing after losing about 80% of her vision.
0:51.6	And now she's a national champion. and the Olympic Committee just announced that her category
0:54.4	will be featured in the 2028 Olympics in LA.
0:58.4	So she'll have a chance to qualify for the Olympics in a couple of years, which is incredibly
1:02.6	cool.
1:04.0	And she's awesome.
1:04.9	I really enjoyed talking to Sinata.
1:06.5	She works as an engineer designing outdoor gear, so that was cool to talk about.
1:11.8	She used to design backpacks for black diamond. And now she's a black diamond climbing ambassador. And she still
1:17.5	works as an engineer designing sleeping pads and tents and cool stuff like that. So it's fun to
1:23.5	talk about that. We talked about interpersonal relationships and going through chapters in
1:27.8	life. And we talked about her relationship with her romantic partner, who is also her site guide
1:33.7	and about the dynamics between a visually impaired climber and their site guide who's calling
	...

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