NEWSDerek Hough's DWTS Blog: Samba Success!
April 27 2010, Published 9:12 a.m. ET
Dancing With the Stars pro Derek Hough has teamed up with OK! to update you every week as he attempts to turn his partner Nicole Scherzinger into a ballroom champion!
Hi, everyone, and welcome to my OK! Dancing With the Stars blog! Well, Nicole and I are thrilled to be halfway through the competition and last night, we danced our butts off as everyone had to perform twice. We’re on top again and couldn’t be happier.
We worked so hard in rehearsal this week on the samba and our swing marathon dance. We were excited to finally get out there and dance them in front of the audience. When Nicole and I performed on Monday night, we were having so much fun.
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Of course, you all saw footage on the show of our rehearsals, in which Nicole showed some insecurity in trying to get everything just right. She said it’s a good thing, though, because it puts her in balance — there’s no sense in being overconfident. After going through the struggles in rehearsal, we found we really started to enjoy the process. By the time we hit the ballroom floor, Nicole told me she didn’t want to think about the scores. Luckily, she had a great group of friends, including Pussycat Dolls guru, Robin Antin, in the audience, so that helped her give it her very best.
I found it difficult to dance the samba myself because I had planned some tough choreography. I think she danced it amazingly. We had a great song. But it’s one of those dances where, if one little thing goes wrong, it’s like a ripple effect so it’s like walking on eggshells. But we performed it really well and had a blast.
And the swing “dance-off”? It was THE hardest thing I’ve ever done on the show, ever. Stamina wise, I’ve never been to a point like that where you have to keep pushing it past your comfort zone. Our swing dance was so energetic and it pushed me to the limit — I was lifting her above my head and flipping her around constantly as all the other couples were being eliminated around us. Nicole’s neck got all messed up — she told me it was strained after the show and there’s no mystery why. We won the dance-off but it meant doing our moves much longer than some of the other couples. It truly was a marathon for us!
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Nicole said despite it being a pain in the neck (ha) she was still high off the swing adrenaline after the show. Nicole said doing swing was nerve-wracking for her because her attention span was bad and when she heard people cheering for our co-stars, she was thinking, I want to see that! Oh, whoops, we’re still dancing!
But I didn’t feel that Nicole was unfocused at all during the dance. I was yelling commands to her throughout the swing dance—section one! Okay, go to this step, the cuddle cook! I was yelling out the names of the various moves so we’d stay on track.
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It’s awesome being in first place but it’s short lived because it’s elimination night today and after that, if we make it through, we have to go right back into rehearsal for next week. We just want to continue to come out and do fun dances and hopefully people at home will enjoy it with us. At the same time, Nicole and I remind each other we’re in it to win it and you can tell by our determination — and our sore necks! We appreciate all your votes and talk to you again soon!
Derek
