Rami Beracha: Rewriting the Rules
When Your Body Won't Play Along
Rami Beracha shares that watching someone kitesurf with a prosthetic leg is like witnessing a masterclass in creative problem-solving Every maneuver that comes naturally to other riders becomes an engineering challenge wrapped in an athletic feat How do you land a jump when your ankle doesn't absorb impact? How do you maintain balance on a board when your prosthetic doesn't provide natural feedback? The answer isn't found in any instruction manual –it's invented, one crash at a time.
The adaptation process is fascinating and brutal Most people assume prosthetic athletes modify existing techniques, but that's not how it works. They're creating entirely new approaches to sports that were designed around intact human anatomy It's like learning to paint with your non-dominant hand while wearing oven mitts – technically possible, but requiring a complete reimagining of fundamentals.
What gets me is how these athletes approach failure differently from the rest of us When you're already operating outside normal parameters, crashes aren't setbacks – they're data points. Each wipeout teaches something new about weight distribution, timing, or equipment setup. There's no user manual for kitesurfing with a titanium knee, so every session becomes a form of research and development.
The gear modifications alone tell incredible stories of innovation Custom straps that accommodate prosthetic shapes. Specialized boots that interface with artificial joints. Board modifications that compensate for different leverage points These aren't products you can buy off the shelf – they're one-off solutions born from necessity and refined through countless hours of trial and error.
But the mental game is where the fundamental transformation happens When your relationship with your own body has already been fundamentally altered, extreme sports become less about conquering fear and more about embracing calculated chaos These athletes have already faced their biggest "what if" scenario and come out the other side. A nasty kitesurfing session doesn't seem existential when you've already rebuilt your entire life around adaptation.
The ripple effects extend far beyond the water Colleagues watch someone navigate a boardroom with the same fearless creativity they bring to navigating offshore winds. Kids see that athletic achievement doesn't require a standard-issue body. Other amputees discover possibilities they hadn't considered
Here's the thing that traditional sports often miss: when you can't rely on conventional techniques, you're forced to develop an intuitive understanding of physics, timing, and risk that goes deeper than normal training provides. These athletes aren't overcoming their prosthetics –they're integrating them into entirely new approaches to human performance