DWTS Season 16 – Derek Hough Blogs for TV Guide

And another pro blogger joins the ranks. Derek is very sporadic with blogging – some seasons he does them and some seasons he doesn’t.  Anyway, he’s excited about Kellie and, while not saying he broke the rules a lot, he does say that’s what people claimed but guess what?? He and Shawn also had the most Youtube views (by huge margin) and he wants to go memorable again with Kellie.  Will he break the rules? I imagine, as usual, there are some who will claim he does when he doesn’t – but I think we can be sure that he will NEVER be boring. Thank god.  Let’s hope that Mark and Val follow his lead and make this season about AMAZING dancing. Here’s an excerpt of Derek’s Blog from TV Guide:

I’m having a great time with Kellie. She’s a wonderful person and such a hard worker, and I’m so happy I decided to come back this season. I had every intention of taking the season off to work on some other projects, but ultimately it didn’t feel like the right time to leave. On top of that, I’ve always multi-tasked and I love the show. I was actually in the hospital with my mom and I had this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to do this season. It didn’t feel right to take this one off. I’ve been trying to listen to my instincts a lot more, so I’m really happy I listened because I met Kellie. The funny thing is Kellie’s grandfather is a huge fan of the show and wanted me to be her partner, so Kellie is very excited because she gets to fulfill her grandfather’s wish.

We have the cha-cha as our first dance. Kellie’s looking great. She has such natural ability and skill. The cha-cha will be very traditional since the first dance is about an introduction, but our second dance, the jive, is really going to surprise people. We’re going to step it up a little bit. I like to play around with my partner and see what they’re good at and work around that, and Kellie’s good at almost anything — no joke! I’m constantly impressed by what she can do. The choreography is going to be super-intricate. We were working on it the other day and I said, “We’ve only got 20 seconds, but there’s more choreography in those 20 seconds than there is in an entire dance.”

I’ve gotten heat from the judges, especially last season, for “breaking the rules” and being too out-there with choreography, but I’m not really going to change my approach. I think you’ve got to push yourself, and that’s what we’re doing with the jive. A fan told me that Shawn had more YouTube views than anyone else last season and that’s sort of what I choreograph for — not the number of YouTube views, but people who want to go back and watch it again and again. I’d rather please the people who watch the show and entertain them than just please the judges. I want to do both, but if it means I kind of have to step out of line, so to speak, I will. We want to step it up and challenge ourselves. I value the judges, but I want to make a lasting impression and good routines. There are a few that stand out. But no one else says, “Remember that samba you did one time that was sort of forgettable?”