Derek Hough

Hey guys,

How are you? Thanks for your votes!

I hope you're all having a better week than I am. I've been feeling under the weather and my back's been acting up the past week. I think it's just wear and tear. It's just that part of the season when it all starts to catch up to you and the show is getting tougher with multiple dances. I'm taking care of it. I feel confident it'll be OK. I was hurting Monday, but adrenaline got me through it.

I was very happy with our samba. Amber did great. The samba's a tough dance and really tests your stamina, and Amber rocked it. The audience was amazing and we got two 10s! The thing with Len cracked me up because last week in rehearsals, I literally said to Amber, "We're going to do four of these, so Len can say, 'Oh, I like that you put that in there.'" And we do them and he found it repetitive! It's cool. We're not offended or upset or anything. That's his opinion and he wasn't feeling it. Hopefully viewers liked it.

I wasn't surprised by the non-elimination. That was a good call. It was the only thing they could do after putting up the wrong numbers. I didn't really know it was coming until the end based on the way they called everyone safe, but some of the cast had a feeling earlier that no one would go home. But there's no double elimination this week even though no one left.

We have the paso doble and the team dance this week. The paso's going OK. We didn't start working on it until Wednesday. Tuesday, I was so dead. I got sick and it was rough! I was just at home, drowning myself in water, ginger, lemons, oils and all that stuff. The paso's probably the worst dance to have with lower back problems. I don't want to make my back worse, but I can't sit down and choreograph. I have to do it on the floor and feel the dance and see how Amber or whoever my partner is doing. I can't create sitting down, so that's been difficult, but we're making it work.

The team dance is going to be crazy. It's a freestyle dance, so anything goes. Corbin, Brant and Jack are on our team. Elizabeth and Val, and Amber and I were team captains, and we chose the teams after the show Monday. We were lucky and got first dibs, and I think we have a really great team. Our song is "What Does the Fox Say?" I'm laughing just thinking about it. The song is hilarious, but it's also so musically varied that we can showcase the strengths and dynamics of each couple. For example, Jack is our Twinkle Toes. He's awesome at ballroom, so the slow part will be Jack and Cheryl's solo and they can kill it with a smooth routine. I'm really excited. And there may or may not be animal costumes involved!

Thanks for reading!