Dancing's Derek Hough: We're Surprised We Got the Top Score

Hey there!
How's everyone doing? Thanks for all your votes!
I'm actually not with Kellie right now. She's in Las Vegas, so we're losing a day and a half of rehearsals! I didn't go with her because I'm working on a special performance for Tuesday's results show. It's with someone awesome and I'm really psyched about it. It's not a "known" guest, but it's someone with amazing spirit. I hope you all will like it.
Since Kellie's gone, we finished our whole routine on Thursday. We lucked out with the rumba this week since it's slow and it takes up time. There are fewer steps to memorize as opposed to the jive, which is stocked of moves every second. I just really want to make it simple and make it about the song and not the wow factor. It's the quality of the routine. We still need to polish it, but Kellie's looking good. The theme this week is the best year of your life. Kellie's is the year she secretly eloped with her husband. He wrote a song for their wedding called "Say I Do" and he's actually going to perform it while we dance, so it's going to be a wonderful moment for them. Regardless of the competition, it's nice to be part of something that special.
It sucks to lose a day of rehearsals, but this stuff happens. Now we're really getting into the grind of the season and everyone's schedules are jam-packed. We also did Ellen this week and some other stuff. It sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not. I love that we get all these opportunities and it's just about time management in the end. It's one of those weeks for us where you just have a lot and you have to make it work. And I think it's one of those situations where you're forced to focus and buckle down and do the work. I question myself less this way. Part of what's great about the show is you have a certain amount of time. Whenever I have too much time, I second-guess myself on a move here or there and change it. But when you're in a time crunch, you just go with your instinct. I think that's also good in certain areas of life.
We were both surprised to get the highest score this week. I'm not going to lie — we made some mistakes. Some steps were out of sync and I was thinking in my head out there, "Oh, we shouldn't have done that." But it was a good example of not letting a mistake get the best of you. The worst mistake is showing you made a mistake, and Kellie did not do that. So we definitely were not expecting such a good score. And I have no idea why we couldn't add 8, 8 and 9! That was a major blonde moment for both of us. Your brain is just not there at that point. But I'll have you know that I got a B in math. That's above average!
It was sad seeing Wynonna leave. She's a legend and she's amazing. But I'm glad Andy stayed because I think he's the one who could benefit the most personally from this. You can tell how much this means to him and I think a lot of people would've been bummed had he left too. I was a little surprised that Wynonna's fan base didn't save her, but it just shows that you can't assume anything about the votes and fans. You never know who's voting for whom or who has the most votes.
I like that they never tell us the vote rankings. I don't think that's necessary. What's the point? I suppose it's a better way to create a story and drama from a production point of view, but it's enough to know the bottom two. Revealing the full rankings would add nothing except make people feel worse if they're at the bottom or if they're lower than they expected. Also, if someone is consistently in the top, fans might get complacent and not vote. I love the Twitter voting that we've been doing this season, even though they never put the pros' handles up! But seriously, I think it's cool that we're engaging fans more. However, there's a drastic flaw in that because whoever has the most followers is at a huge advantage. Plus, we have new pros who are unknown to fans, so that doesn't help either. And depending on the core of your fan base, your fans might not be all that tech-savvy. Again, I like that they're doing this, but there are some drawbacks. I also feel bad for the people who will never have a chance to win it. Andy and Sharna's Lady Gaga performance two weeks ago was the highlight. That was just so much fun and a one-of-a-kind performance. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wanted to see that again. Zendaya and Val were absolutely amazing and they rocked their encore, but I do like when those special moments get encores. I feel like the judges have done a good job picking those over the years.
We've all gotten so many comments over the men vs. women debate. My point was that there is a higher expectation for women because they're normally the focus of the dance. I'm biased because I'm on this side, but I think what Mark and Val said is absolutely true. I love all the guys who've been on the show, but they can have heel leads, bent legs, almost zero technique, and as long as they're shaking their butt, people love it and they get a good score. If a girl just shook her butt with bent legs, she'd get called out on it. I think this is one of the most interesting debates on the show.
Thanks for reading. See you Monday!
Derek