Dancing's Derek Hough Reveals the Near Mishap You Didn't See

Hey guys!

How's it going?

Thanks for your votes! I think I'm still on a high from Monday. It was such a great show. I'm so proud of Bindi and I was really happy we were able to pull that off. I don't think I've ever been that excited and relieved after a dance before.

Contrary to what the package suggests, I never did drop Bindi once when we actually rehearsed on land! But what happened was minutes before we went on -- seconds, really -- we were practicing in the hallway and her dress kept slipping as I lifted her up. You don't really get a chance to rehearse with the costumes, so we weren't really prepared for that. I would get her up, but her skirt would slip down and she'd start sliding. So I ran to wardrobe and asked them to thread her skirt to her underwear so she wouldn't slip. They were literally threading it while we were heading to the stage. We didn't get a chance to practice a lift with it threaded. Luckily it all worked out. Once I had her up there, that was it. It was just about staying up there. Once you're locked in, it's not hard. It's more about actually getting her up there and the timing.

I texted Jennifer immediately afterward and she was like, "Love it! That was great!" Kenny Ortega also texted me and was super pumped about it. I'm glad they both loved it. We really tried to honor the original dance as much as we could. I know some of you were worried that we would be docked for a lift in the rumba since that's not allowed, but we all had a lot of leeway in our choreography because it was about paying tribute to these iconic dances. We did some rumba in the beginning, but the dance was by no means a rumba! We were all told the rules were going to be loose so we didn't have to be concerned about that. Now you may be wondering why they didn't just give us a mambo since that's the dance in the movie, but I'm kinda glad they gave us the rumba. We got it over with!

This week, we have the Argentine tango. We're dancing to "Cry Little Sister." With Bindi, we've seen the sweet side of her obviously. This is gonna be the fierce, sexy, strong side of her. I'm excited for everyone to see that. She totally gets into character and I think it's gonna be good.

Our team dance is going to be Ghostbusters! We've got Carlos, Alexa and Alek. We're still figuring things out. I love the other team's song and part of me wishes we got their song, but ours is gonna be a lotta fun. Everyone loves Ghostbusters, right? Who ya gonna call?

See you Monday!

Derek