By Olga Kotova | Project Leader
Dasha attends a school for children with disabilities in St. Petersburg. Although she has a musculoskeletal impairment, since she was a little girl she was interested in sports, but she couldn’t make up her mind which sport to concentrate on. She tried out track and field, boccia, tennis, and archery… Dasha was good at these sports, but none of them were her calling — a sport she really loved and wanted to dedicate her life to.
But at age eight Dasha tried wheelchair dancing. She immediately loved it, but it didn’t come easy to her. Her dance instructor admits that at first she had a really hard time. She didn’t do well in her coordination lessons and she just couldn’t get how to keep the rhythm and dance in sync with others. For a while it seemed that dance was not what Dasha had been searching for.
But Dasha loved to dance. She didn’t want to give up her lessons, so instead she doubled her efforts. She trained four times a week with a teacher who totally supported her. And before long Dasha improved and got really good at it. And now she’s no longer a newbie — she’s a real professional. She is a member of the Russian National Team in Wheelchair Dance Sport and has won numerous awards at the Dance Sport Continents Cup, World Cup, Russian Championship and Festival of wheelchair dancing in solo programs and in a dance troupe.
Dasha just got a new professional wheelchair for dancing, which will help her get even better results. Dasha has big plans for it. She intends to keep winning everywhere and every time she competes.
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