Jump, spin, lift, land.
dancer Zhai Xiaowei is like a smart bird in the live broadcast room, showing the perfect dance freely and elegantly.
And all these difficult moves are done by his incomplete body.
How would a bird survive if it only had one wing?
If dancers lose their traditional stage, what is the future?
Zhai Xiaowei, known as the "One-legged Dance King", has experienced two major challenges in his life at the same time, but he has deduced his own wonderful story.
Zhai Xiaowei never shy away from his physical disability.
Whenever someone asks what happened to his legs, Zhai Xiaowei will make up a rather romantic story:
When he was a child, he was watching the meteor shower under the starry sky, and suddenly a brilliant light flashed across him, and the brilliance smeared him. The left leg disappeared magically...
In fact, the real accident was much more tragic than what Zhai Xiaowei said.
The sixth day of the tenth lunar month in 1988 was a turning point that changed Zhai Xiaowei's life.
It was Zhai Xiaowei's younger brother's full moon wine that day. At that time, 4-year-old Zhai Xiaowei climbed into a tractor while adults were not paying attention. He was curious and playful and put his legs into the holes in the middle of the tractor wheels. Xiao Xiaowei's left leg was rolled into seven segments by the spinning machine on the spot.
Because of this accident, four-year-old Zhai Xiaowei lost his left leg forever.
However, the reason why Zhai Xiaowei can tell his story in a humorous way is because he was only four years old when the accident happened.
"When my legs are broken, I am young and my awareness of the two legs is vague."
Parents feel bad for their child, but they don't take care of him in every detail. The father said that he can manage for a while, but not for the rest of his life, and the future depends on the child himself.
From the first day of school, Zhai Xiaowei has to go to school by himself. Every morning, he walked to school with a small bench and upside down.
Zhai Xiaowei knew that his parents had been watching him silently from behind.
Because he was not given special attention, Zhai Xiaowei didn't feel that he was different from other children, and he didn't feel that there was anything wrong with him.
Zhai Xiaowei had a happy childhood. Like other children, he was mischievous, went to the river to fish, and climbed the tree to dig out the bird's nest.
Although a child who goes to school upside down is bound to cause a super high rate of return. But in the face of onlookers, Zhai Xiaowei has a very good mentality. He is neither anxious nor annoyed. He often says, "I am looking at the scenery, and the people watching the scenery are looking at me."
Zhai Xiaowei often said to his son: Human potential is infinite
Zhai Xiaowei is naughty and smart.
When he was eight or nine years old, he helped the family sell vegetables. As soon as Dad picks up the scale, he can quickly figure out the price. This also makes his food stall always have more customers than others, because many people come here to buy food just to see Zhai Xiaowei settle accounts.
When he was in high school, Zhai Xiaowei often got perfect marks in science. The teachers are optimistic about him, saying that he has no problem with the university entrance examination.
But in the end, Zhai Xiaowei still refused the college entrance examination. The family has spent a lot of money for him because of the treatment of his legs. If you go to college, there will be a lot of expenses. He wants to work early to support his family.
Zhai Xiaowei, who left school, has worked as a wire coiler, a network manager, and a stevedore.
When the boss saw that he only had one leg and wanted to decline, Zhai Xiaowei would say, "Don't look at me with one leg, try it out for a day." Man is still strong.
Later, the outstanding Zhai Xiaowei was recommended to the Henan Provincial Disabled Sports Team to train bicycles.
In three months, he has reached the level of the national team. Zhai Xiaowei has always been full of confidence. He feels that he can do many careers and many things.
However, Zhai Xiaowei never thought of becoming a dancer.
dance, too far from his life.
Unexpectedly, he met his future partner and teacher Ma Li while shopping by chance. This chance encounter brought dance into Zhai Xiaowei's life and became the love of his life.
That was 10 years ago, Zhai Xiaowei was walking on the streets of Zhengzhou, a girl kept staring at him,
and then ran to him and asked him a lot of questions: Where is your home? what is your phone number? where do you work?
Zhai Xiaowei felt very strange: "Did you check your hukou?"
The girl said that she chose dancers.
At that time, Zhai Xiaowei couldn't imagine that a man with a mutilated body could still dance.
In his habitual thinking, dancing for the disabled is juggling under the flyover to make money.
This was completely unacceptable to him, so he refused at the time with a sullen face.
The next day, Zhai Xiaowei's leader found him and gave him a few tickets to let him experience the dance. At the
performance, Zhai Xiaowei felt the charm of dance for the first time.
To his surprise, he found a girl on stage with an arm.
But such a defect does not affect the beauty of the girl at all, her dance is soft and more powerful, and every movement of her interprets aNever give up for a disabled person.
This makes Zhai Xiaowei in awe. After the performance of
, the one-armed girl ran over to ask Zhai Xiaowei how he felt about the performance. At this time, Zhai Xiaowei discovered that she was the girl who asked him to be a dancer on the street that day - she was Teacher Ma Li. Because Mr. Ma Li wore a prosthesis that day, he almost mistaken him for a liar.
Just like that, Zhai Xiaowei embarked on the road of dancing.
On December 6, 2005, Zhai Xiaowei came to Beijing and began to learn dance with Ma Li. He also wanted to use the special art form of dance to show the value of his life just like Mr. Ma Li.
At the dance competition on March 19, 2007, Zhai Xiaowei and Ma Li performed the most perfect dance "Holding Hands" with three incomplete arms and three legs.
When they finished their performance and left the stage, the whole audience stood up and applauded them.
, the dance "Hand in Hand" performed by Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei finally won the Silver Award in the Mass Creation Dance category.
In Zhai Xiaowei's opinion, good dancers don't dance with their bodies, they dance with their souls because of their love for dance.
So dance has nothing to do with whether the actor's body is disabled or healthy. All they need is effort.
Healthy people can complete the movement after practicing three or five times, while Zhai Xiaowei practiced dozens of times. In order not to make a single mistake.
crutches, wheelchairs, and partners must be fully integrated and tacit understanding in order to have a good dance.
Because of dancing, Zhai Xiaowei has gone from obscurity to much attention.
His performance stage has gone from rural to national and even international.
Zhai Xiaowei is affectionately called "the king of single-leg dancers".
In 2008, "The King of One-Legged Dance" gained love. When
participated in the preparations for the CCTV Lantern Festival Gala, he met people who have been with him for the rest of his life.
"It's all because I looked at her one more time in the crowd..." So far, Zhai Xiaowei will always have a happy smile on his face when he talks about his acquaintance with his wife Hu Mingli.
In 2012, the two entered the hall of marriage, and in 2014 they had the crystallization of love.
But for mother and son, Zhai Xiaowei always felt that he owed too much. Because he performs abroad all the year round, he and his wife often get together less often.
He performed in Taiwan for over a year while his wife was pregnant. A woman's most important moment, he could not be by his side.
Before his son was 3 years old, he spent most of his time practicing dancing in Beijing and missed a lot of children's growth.
In 2017, out of love for his wife and children, and family responsibilities, Zhai Xiaowei decided to leave Beijing and return to his hometown in Henan to take care of his family wholeheartedly.
He learned to do laundry and to cook. He is proficient in frying, cooking and frying. He is very proud to say that his daughter-in-law's cooking is not as good as his, and his son only eats his cooking, and he loves his fried shredded potatoes.
Time has changed Zhai Xiaowei a lot, his life and his identity, but the only thing that cannot be changed is his love for dance.
From 2017 to 2021, during the five-year period, Zhai Xiaowei refused all commercial performances and concentrated on being a "full-time father", but he also practiced dancing whenever he had time.
During this period, the most practical problem that Zhai Xiaowei encountered was that, as a dancer, if he did not perform, he would have no income.
Especially with the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the entire performance industry is in a downturn. After returning to his hometown from Beijing, Zhai Xiaowei can only live on his own, and such days will definitely not last.
was also during the epidemic, and he accidentally learned about Douyin .
With the mentality of having a play, Zhai Xiaowei posted a few videos of himself practicing dance on Douyin.
surprised him that every video has a high playback volume, and the highest video reached 7000w views.
and the comments under the video are all praises and misses. Zhai Xiaowei was very moved. I didn't expect that after four or five years, everyone still remembers him. He also realized that he and his dance were still popular and valuable. After
, Zhai Xiaowei began to try to form his own self-media team. Many of the dancers in the team were Zhai Xiaowei's apprentices.
In 2022, on September 6, Zhai Xiaowei made his first live broadcast on the Douyin platform. 30w people poured into the first show, and 15,000 people watched it online in real time.
This made Zhai Xiaowei more confident, and since then he led his team to live broadcast for 2 to 4 hours a day.
In just a few months, the average number of online visitors in Zhai Xiaowei's dance live broadcast room has reached 2w to 3w, and even 5.6w at most.
What moved Zhai Xiaowei was that in his live broadcast room, the audience spanned a wide range of ages. There are four or five-year-old children and sixty-seven-year-old uncles. Many people will reward him.
Zhai Xiaowei has never offered a reward. But in the face of the enthusiasm of the audience, he did not refuse.
Because the reward is not as traditionally thought, it is a bad thing.
The audience's reward is actually the biggest recognition and support for Zhai Xiaowei.
Many children also like Uncle Zhai's dance. Under the guidance of their parents, they gave Zhai Xiaowei a reward for the first time in their lives. This is what touched and cherished Zhai Xiaowei the most.
giving back to the audience and showing them the most beautiful dance has also become an inspirational thing for Zhai Xiaowei to do.
Some time ago, there wereA girl left a message to Zhai Xiaowei and told her experience: her boyfriend had bone cancer and his limbs were amputated. In order not to drag the girl down, her boyfriend proposed to break up. But the girl didn't want to leave, she wanted to stay by her boyfriend's side all the time.
In order to make the girl feel warm, Zhai Xiaowei asked her to choose a piece of music she liked, and then carefully choreographed a dance for her.
Finally, the girl chose a song "Love You Very Much". Zhai Xiaowei praised her tenacity and kindness with her graceful and infectious dance.
jokingly said that Zhai Xiaowei's dance is at the CCTV level and the stage is at the country level. If there is a chance in the future, he will still go to a bigger stage.
Zhai Xiaowei said that he has been to many stages, but none of them can allow him to have such profound communication and exchanges with the audience like the Douyin platform.
In Zhai Xiaowei's live broadcast room, the stories of the audience moved him, and he was also healing the audience in his own way. Since
entered the Douyin platform, Zhai Xiaowei can dance and make money without leaving his wife and children. More importantly, he can transmit an energy here, he expresses emotion with super professional dance, and also hears the needs of different audiences for dance.
He also wants to tell everyone through video: A person with only one leg like him is not complete. But that doesn't stop him from having a perfect life.
If a person with one leg can be a dance king, then what else can't you do!
Source: Douyin and Zhai Xiaowei himself provide
