I went on yet another Dancing with the Stars at Sea cruise (this was my 5th). This time, Kym Johnson told me during the picture line that since we had so many pictures together we should do something special. So, we swapped poses:
Also on the cruise was Tristan MacManus (here with Kym):
Also aboard were Carson Kressley and Florence Henderson. Florence was very friendly and a lot of fun (and SO tiny).
On this cruise, I happened to go through to dance in the finale and managed to pull out a third place finish doing the samba. I got lots of good comments from Kym and dancer Magdalena Fialek. Here I am with my lovely partner, ship's dancer Kaleo.
It's funny, although Kaleo was a wonderful dancer, she hadn't had any ballroom experience. So, although she knew the choreography well, she didn't know the names of any of the moves. As she was showing me the steps, I was telling her "Oh, that's a volta" or "That's a bota fogo."
It's really interesting the way they do the dance competitions. There is a class where the ship's dancers teach a choreographed routine for about a half hour or so. Then they pick four people to compete and match them up with one of the ship's dancers, so that you're the "celebrity" and the dancer is the "pro". These four again dance the routine and there is judging and a winner is picked. The winners of the different classes and enough wild cards (next highest scores) to make six contestants go to the finale to again compete. It's difficult because the learning process has to be reversed from the way I normally do it. Usually, I go through all the process of learning the steps and getting them right, then worry about the performance. Because the time frame is so short and a big part of the score is the audience reaction, you really have to worry about the performance first and hope you get the steps right. So, if you're a better performer, you tend to do better than someone who gets all the steps right but isn't as exciting. Still, it's great fun!!
Also on the cruise was Tristan MacManus (here with Kym):
Also aboard were Carson Kressley and Florence Henderson. Florence was very friendly and a lot of fun (and SO tiny).
On this cruise, I happened to go through to dance in the finale and managed to pull out a third place finish doing the samba. I got lots of good comments from Kym and dancer Magdalena Fialek. Here I am with my lovely partner, ship's dancer Kaleo.
It's funny, although Kaleo was a wonderful dancer, she hadn't had any ballroom experience. So, although she knew the choreography well, she didn't know the names of any of the moves. As she was showing me the steps, I was telling her "Oh, that's a volta" or "That's a bota fogo."
It's really interesting the way they do the dance competitions. There is a class where the ship's dancers teach a choreographed routine for about a half hour or so. Then they pick four people to compete and match them up with one of the ship's dancers, so that you're the "celebrity" and the dancer is the "pro". These four again dance the routine and there is judging and a winner is picked. The winners of the different classes and enough wild cards (next highest scores) to make six contestants go to the finale to again compete. It's difficult because the learning process has to be reversed from the way I normally do it. Usually, I go through all the process of learning the steps and getting them right, then worry about the performance. Because the time frame is so short and a big part of the score is the audience reaction, you really have to worry about the performance first and hope you get the steps right. So, if you're a better performer, you tend to do better than someone who gets all the steps right but isn't as exciting. Still, it's great fun!!
