A friend sent me this amazing story about two dancers, Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei, overcoming amputation and still winning a dance competition. The determination and grace of their achievement brought tears to my eyes. It was the most inspiring thing I have seen in the performing arts since I watched Paul Potts sing Puccini’s Nessun Dorma in the Britain’s Got Talent competition. See my post on that.

The link at the bottom of this story is a link to the televised dance competition in China where they were awarded one of the major prizes. This, despite the woman having only one arm, and the man, only one leg. Watch the video and give yourself a treat.

Here’s the background information to this story: Ma Li, in her 30s, was a dancer. She had trained to be a dancer since she was a little girl. Later she got into some kind of accident and lost her entire right arm. She was depressed for a few years until someone asked her to coach a Children’s dancing group.

From that point on, she realized she could not forget dancing. She still loved ballet. She wanted to dance again. So she started to do some of her old routines. But by her losing an arm, she had also lost her sense of balance. It took a while before she could even making simple turns and spins without falling. Eventually she got it.

Then she heard of a man, Zhai Xiaowei, in his 20s who had lost a leg in an accident. He also had fallen into the usual denial, depression, and anger type of emotional roller coaster. She looked him up (he was from a different Province) and persuaded him to dance with her. He had never danced. And suddenly he was being asked to dance with one leg. He turned her down.

But she didn’t give up. He finally agreed with some reluctance. “I have nothing else to do anyway.”

So she started to teach him Dancing 101. Their dance partnership broke up a few times because Zhai had no concept of using muscle control with his body, and a few other basic things about dancing. When Ma Li would become frustrated and lose patience with him, he would walk out.

Eventually they came back together and started training, hiring a choreographer to design routines for them. The end result was beyond their wildest dreams.

In the competition you will see them dance beautifully, and legitimately beat others in the competition!

Save this video of their dance performance in your favorites list. The next time you hear yourself or someone else, “I can’t”, play this video: