Sometimes people can get lost within the crowd, but we have to remember that ballroom dancing is an intimate sport where people look into your story and not the other way around. It's so important to just stay focused as a couple and that you don't let your adrenaline get the best of you by dancing too fast to the music or whatever.
Growing up in the Soviet Union, ballroom dancing wasn't the coolest thing to do. But that probably made me tougher, because it wasn't an easy task to do ballroom dancing and not get bullied. And I never got bullied in my life, even though I changed to five secondary schools in three different countries.
For ballroom dancing, remember that your partners have their own distinctive styles also. Cultivate flexibility. Be able to adapt your style to that of your partner. In doing so, you are not surrendering your individuality, but blending it with that of your partner.
When you're out dancing with your friends, you think you're cool. But then you get in the ballroom, and it's totally different.
I was first introduced to dancing through the TV: I remember watching ballet, jazz and ballroom dancing when I was very little. But I felt no connection with it whatsoever: it was just like watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
I was always attracted to music that moved people. Whether it be gospel, R&B, folk, hip-hop, pop, alternative rock - whatever moved people, whatever made a crowd just get lost in the moment.
It makes me feel young. Dancing just gives you youth. You can get lost in these moments where the day just seems better. There's something very freeing about dancing, and I love that.
A lot of girls get caught up looking at what other people are doing. You've just got to stay in your lane. You've just got to go forward and know that whatever is meant for you is going to come your way.
At 14 I discovered girls. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship.
When I was dancing, whether it was the music or the story, the question was 'Why am I doing this piece, and why am I dancing?' It is exactly the same when you are acting. You have a very close relationship with your body movement. You have to find the physicality of your character.
I get amazed, I can't look at it but about 10 seconds, at these politicians dancing around this, dancing around this, I'm trying to find a correct name for it, this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men.
I didnt learn until I was about 26 that my dad was a national ballroom dancing champion. He won loads of trophies. Im not sure why he was so quiet about his achievements. Maybe he thought ballroom dancing wasnt a manly thing to do.
Ballroom is two people dancing together to music, touching in perfect harmony.
I feed on other people's creativity, photographers, artists of every kind. Sometimes a feeling that you get listening to a song can be so powerful. I've wanted to write whole scripts around what I felt just listening to a piece of music. I think music is important, and surrounding your visual field with stimulating things.
Ballroom dancing is a contact sport. Rugby is a collision sport.
I can't just keep fooling around every other fight. Have a few good fights and then get unfocused again and have a couple bad fights. I really have to stay the course and stay focused.
When you are working on something yourself, it's very easy to get lost because you are convinced that people think in the same way - that they will get these unspoken things that are just floating in your head. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.