A Lifetime of Challenges – Including a Spinal Stroke – Leads Dancer to Infinite Possibilities

By American Heart Association News

WEDNESDAY,Aug 23, 2023 (American Heart Association News)– As a Japanese American woman maturing in Irvine, California, Marisa Hamamoto seemed like an outsider in her mostly white area. Her classmates teased her due to the fact that she looked various. She had not been one of them.

But when she got in the dancing workshop, whatever transformed.

“I discovered at an early age that dance can unite us,” she claimed. “I was the only girl of color, but moving my body to the music made me feel like I belonged. I was part of a community in dance class.”

As she entered her teenager years, she fantasized of coming to be a specialist ballerina. But as her body developed, she encountered a brand-new collection of challenges. “I didn’t quite have the right body for ballet,” she claimed. “I was also curved. And my joints were also limited. I was not adaptable sufficient. I had to maintain battling to verify …