Although playful and spontaneous with her friends, Isabel’s demeanor shifts when she dances. Brown eyes often crinkled with laughter turn focused and steady, and the same feet seen treading the ground in Converse defy gravity in pointe shoes. Isabel completely immerses herself into the routine.

A similar switch occurs when she teaches elementary-age students in dance class.

Concentrating on instilling discipline and correct ballet technique in her young students, she adopts a more stern attitude while she teaches. In this way, she hopes to honor her previous dance teacher, who inspired a passion for dance within her.

Isabel started dancing at Yoko’s Dance and Performing Arts Academy when she was five years old. The late Yoko Young, founder of the dance studio, taught Isabel for eight years until she passed away in the fall of 2013.

“She was 10 years of my life basically, and all of a sudden, she was gone,” she said. “My role model was just not there anymore. I think it’s important that I carried on her legacy through what I teach my students because the teachers I have now are nothing compared to her, so in a way I try to be like her and I try to teach her students the way she taught me. Hopefully the next generation will be as good as ours.”

Yoko’s unique teaching style played a major role in Isabel’s love and appreciation for dance.

“I think [the most important lesson she taught us was] discipline — always to stay one step ahead of other people or the group,” she said. “She was very unexpected. She’d just randomly throw you in [a dance] and expect you to learn it in a day. One of the biggest lessons was learning to appreciate what you do and learn to do it at its fullest. That’s what she instilled in all the dancers.”

Even when she didn’t notice it in herself, Yoko saw potential in Isabel.

“You know how I got that haircut in eighth grade?” Isabel said. “The bob with the bangs? Basically, she started choosing people who she believed had potential, and she would make them get the same haircut as her — which is really weird. I didn’t even think I was that good but there was just one moment in front of the whole class. I was standing right in the center, and she pointed at me and she was like, ‘I see myself in you.’

Isabel believes that it is her willingness to dance rather than her technique that separates her from her peers.

“I was so moved by that because I didn’t think that I was good enough, and I saw so many others [that were better]. I don’t think she looked at my technique then, because I knew I wasn’t as good compared to the other students,” Isabel said. “I think she looked at my potential and my passion for dance, and that’s why she chose me to get that haircut that symbolizes ‘her.’”

Isabel now teaches classes at Riverdale’s After School, a local daycare, as well as her dance academy. She started TA-ing last year and now leads classes for six- and seven-year-olds at both the daycare and Yoko’s Academy. Guiding young students through the basics of dance evoked Isabel’s own memories with Yoko.

“I think once I started teaching like her, I remembered a glimpse of how she talked with us and how she taught us,” she said. “So then, the more I taught, the more I kept on thinking the way she thought, the more I saw how each dancer has their own flaws and good qualities. I didn’t become her, but I became like her as a teacher and used the processing to return back to how I once was. Now, in a way, I see how she sees in the way I dance, so my passion is slowly returning.”

Although she follows Yoko’s teaching style, Isabel’s own love for children originates from a childlike place within her.

“I love kids, and I’m sure Yoko did too, but the way she loved kids is different from how I love kids,” she said. “I think it’s because I’m still a kid that I love kids. I still think like a kid. It’s hard to make a connection between me and her and me and my students.”

Joyce Huang (12), Isabel’s best friend who has known her since second grade, sees how Isabel’s life at school reflects her time spent with children.

I’ve seen her with her eagle buddy, which is [so] cute,” Joyce said. “They just run around the field every single time, and she’s always out of breath and exhausted afterwards, but she’s like, ‘Omg, it was so worth it because I love my eagle buddy,’ and it’s adorable.”

As an instructor, Isabel often gives extra attention to more reserved students.

“Students who are shy and need to be motivated and pushed are the ones I empathize with the most because that was me, and Yoko did that pushing,” she said. “I want to be able to reciprocate that, to motivate them. If I wasn’t pushed by Yoko, I wouldn’t have grown because the only way I would’ve grown was with that discipline that she forced on us. If they don’t get motivated, they see dance as only a hobby instead of a passion, so I want to help them find that passion.”