Hello, Danielle with the Stars gang.

It's Danielle Fishal podcaster, TV director, mother of two and to Panga Lawrence, daughter of Jedediah and Rhianna and Lawrence from the TV show Boy Meets World.

But if you're listening to.

Me right now, you are well aware that I am also an aspiring ballroom dancer on season thirty four of Dancing with the Stars and a student of shiz University.

Because it was wicked night, and despite having no prior dance experience, I have now completely submitted my body and well being to the art form and institution of dance alongside my partner, the incredible Pasha Pashkov, and included in this commitment has been a podcast set in motion to share my first hand experience with you, and it's called Danielle with the Stars.

You'll write along as I avoid total body breakdown, learn new dances every week, and stare longingly at the Len Goodman Mirror Ball Trophy like a dog at the window of Ruth's.

Chris and I am joining you now fresh off the press line of what was a jam packed night of action, fancy footwork, incredible sets, fantastic music, and it was Wicked night, I danced the Argentine tango to the song No Good Deed, as featured in both the musical Wicked and Part two for Good.

I was nine out of ten to perform tonight.

I really felt a lot of pressure for tonight's dance last week, felt like getting that feedback, specifically from Carrie Anne that she thought our dances looked the same, and I totally knew what she meant, and I really wanted to have exactly what she called tonight, which was my breakthrough dance and my breakthrough night.

I really wanted to have a breakthrough week, and I knew that we were getting to the point in the competition where if I didn't have one, it was possible, it was just never going to happen.

And I knew it was possible, Like I knew it was possible.

I knew I could do it.

I knew I had it in me.

I knew Pasha was capable of, you know, doing some fantastic choreography to a number that would really help me feel like I had a total breakthrough.

And so I just really wanted it to be this week, and I felt a lot of pressure for it to be this week.

And when I saw Pasha's choreography and I saw all the lifts, and I was like, I've never done anything like this before.

Nobody has ever picked me up other than being, you know, a five foot one woman who people sometimes will hug and then pick up.

And I'm like, okay, any want to be picked up?

I have never done lifts like that.

Like, I didn't know what to expect.

I didn't know what my role in it was supposed to be, Like, how do I help you?

Help you help me?

How do I do that?

I didn't know.

And I felt at the very beginning of the week like I was just a sack of potatoes and it was.

None of the moves were looking good, none of the lifts were looking great and truly full.

Two days into rehearsing the routine and I was like, this doesn't look good.

I'm not sure we have a dance here.

Pasha never gave up on me.

He never felt like there was something we couldn't do.

He just kept challenging me, and every day a new body part hurt.

I have like some very sore ribs and some sore skin around my ribs from where he was, you know, having to grip me for.

All of the lifts.

They realized very quickly that lifts, as much as they are on the man to actually pick you up, so much of a lift is actually in the woman and being able to have your shoulders down and your lats engaged and your chest engaged.

And when you do that and your one solid piece, it makes it significantly easier for them to pick you up and move you instead of being like a bunch of individual body parts.

That requires a lot of strength.

And I told Jensen, my husband, on one of the first days of this new week, I said, imagine that feeling when you've gone to the gym or you've done a really hard workout and one or two parts of your body are just incredibly sore, like fatigued to one hundred percent you have maxed them out.

Then normally, if you are just working out for health and wellness, you move on to other body parts.

Don't go back to those same body parts.

You don't do biceps on Wednesday and then biceps on Thursday and then biceps on Friday.

You do in dance like we're doing these same moves over and over again, seven days a week.

So whatever little sore spots you have, whether it's your ribs or it's your hamstrings, or it's your neck or your shoulder.

Guess what.

You get a night's rest and you get to take some advil and you get to go to sleep and maybe take an ep, some saltpath, maybe do a cold plunge.

But tomorrow you are back at it, hitting that body part again with those same exact moves for four plus hours.

It is just I did not realize how much I did not recognize what dancers put their bodies through.

It is a lot.

And we had our share of struggles this week.

Pasha's his hamstrings were bothering him.

We had the quick step in the jive the two weeks prior to that, so both of us were doing lots of little flicks and kicks and la of runs, and then we have this stance, which is, you know, he's doing a lot of lyfts, so he's in a lot of squats, He's doing a lot of squats, and everything was, everything was hurting, And there was at one point on I think it was Sunday, we went to do the routine full out one hundred percent and my left peck muscle hurts so bad that I had to stop, and I said, We're going to have to be really strategic here, because right.

Now I'm in so much pain.

The thought of trying to do that move again is making me shake, Like I'm so scared to feel the pain that I'm going to feel.

And I don't want to do this because it's Sunday, and like I could what if I really hurt myself right now and then Monday camera blocking, I can't do it, or even worse, Tuesday show day, I can't do it.

And so Pasha said, you're right, we need to be smart about this.

Stop.

Let's stop doing all the tricks.

Let's not worry about the tricks for the rest of the night.

Let's just clean and focus on everything that isn't a lyft.

Let's do the whole.

Routine top to bottoms, marking as much as you can the lifts, and focus on everything else.

And so we spent the next like hour and a half just doing that, and I actually took a leave during that time.

It took an hour to an hour and a half off and by the time we got to that hour and a half, I said, what time is it?

And he said, it's about eight thirty PM, and our rehearsal was over at nine and I said, I think I feel okay to try one all the way through with the tricks, I think, and he said already sure, and I was like.

I did some stretches and I was like, yeah, I feel significantly better.

My anxiety about the end, like about hurting myself, is now gone.

And when I touched the muscle, I feel okay, let's try it.

And we were able to do it.

It was really good.

We felt super confident about it all of that time.

That hour hour and a half time we spent focusing on the stuff that wasn't the lifts did not go to waste.

The dance looked so great after that one.

We still had some things we needed to fix, of course, but at least at nine pm when we finished, we had done it top to bottom, including the lifts, and I was really happy that we spent all that downtime letting me heal and cleaning everything that wasn't a lift.

So anyway, this week was not an easy week.

It was especially not an easy week for Pasha, and I'm really very very.

Proud of us.

We had our highest scores of the season last week.

We had seven seven, seven, eight, and this week.

We had four nines.

I did not go into tonight even really thinking about scores.

I really just went in thinking about feedback and like what I wanted the feedback to be.

And the one thing that I feel like I really kept saying to myself was like my goal was that I wanted someone to say or to feel like this was a breakthrough dance, because I had that in my mind and I had that pressure on me all week.

And so the minute Carrie Anne said that she felt like this was a breakthrough dance for me, I felt really very touched.

And then at the end of the night, something nobody got to see is while we were standing on the floors right before elimination, the judges were all standing at their tables, and Carrie Anne looked at me and she smiled.

At me, and she said, I'm really proud of you.

And it really meant a lot, Like it really really really meant a lot, and I just want to keep getting better every week.

So the fact that she gave me that note last week and then recognized how hard we worked to get to this point is like just the most satisfying feeling when people recognize your hard work for what it is.

This week, with hair, makeup, wardrobe, everything was a sharp departure.

We had completely slicked back hair, tight bun.

Oh my gosh.

You know they actually sew our hair into itself.

This is not an exaggeration.

And there's like a hook.

It looks like a fishing hook and you put the thread in it and they just like curve it into your bun and then into your scalp and out and they sew it down so that it doesn't go anywhere.

That's how I'm able to be upside down and in the splits and swung around in the air without that hair moving.

Also, as you can tell by my glorious look here, the hair spray they use is not quite hair spray as much as it is glue, just straight up glue, so your hair is basically shellacked and glued to your head.

I thought the makeup this week was just I mean, my makeup every week is so great.

My makeup artist is a woman named Lois on the show, and she also works on Electric Bloom.

She does some of the makeup on Electric Bloom.

So that's really fun because I know her and I work with her she's used to seeing me as a director.

I think she killed it this week.

Kimmy is who did my hair, and she did an upside down braid.

So she started with me in the chair.

I tipped my head upside down.

She braided my hair upside down.

Then they put that into a ponytail.

They had separated the crown of my hair into a bunch of little sections, and then just like peace at a time, they comb it back and spray it down and make sure it's super sleek.

I never wear my hair like that.

I never wear all my hair pulled back, as you guys know because you see me all the time.

But I got so many compliments on the hair and makeup and wardrobe tonight.

Daniella the head costumer here at Dancing with the Stars, Oh my gosh, they are so amazing, and a thought who does the tailoring?

Ever?

Here in Nadej who does the body makeup.

It is a full hands on effort to make us look like we look on Dancing with the Stars.

It is all hands on deck and it's so cool and it's so fun and the process is great.

Tonight, I wore fish nets in my dance.

Fish Nets were a last literally a last second edition.

I was going to be bare legged.

And then we did our dress rehearsal and Danny suggested to Pasha that I wear fish nets.

And also I got a suggestion of fish nets from an executive on the show, and the executive said, would you be open to trying it for the dress rehearsal and I said, yeah, why not, I'd love it.

And so we put on the fish nets that have like the seam down the back, and it just really added to the whole look.

And I knew after then watching the dress rehearsal and seeing what it looked like, I was like, Yeah, the fish nets were the way to go.

And I asked Danny tonight, I said, I gotta be honest, I was a little insecure when I heard that you also suggested that I.

Should wear fish nets.

Did you just think that my legs didn't look good?

And she goes, no, I know from myself that if I'm having to do a lot of lifts and splits and i feel like I'm showing too much skin, I will hold back.

And she said, and I didn't want you to be holding anything back tonight, And She's right.

I didn't even think about it.

But after I put the fish nets on, I just felt more contained and confident in what I was wearing, and I didn't feel like I had to be concerned about any of the tricks we were doing.

So that was really great.

I will say that.

During dress rehearsal, my nose in that last trick came millimeters.

Away from the ballroom floor.

There was something about the momentum that we did during dress rehearsal of the spin where I was up in the air above, you know, on Pasha's shoulder, and he's spinning around and.

He had all that momentum.

He didn't slow down at all.

He went from full momentum to just rolling me forward down toward my nose, and he did not have a great grip on me.

And I saw my life flash before my eyes as the hardwood floor came, I'm not kidding you, this close to my face.

And at the very last second when I was like, oh, I'm still moving in my head because we've been practicing this move all week and normally there's like a very hard stop, and today I was like.

Oh gosh, Oh my gosh, I'm still getting closed to the book.

Then the floor was like right here, at the very last second, I put my hand down like this, and then I realized I wasn't moving anymore so and then I went back into position.

And afterward Pashua I was like, what happened?

And Pasha was like, I'm sorry.

Your back wasn't as much to me as it needed to be and I barely had a grip on you.

And he's like, but I promise you I will not drop you.

So no matter what happens tonight during the live show, do not put your hands down, stick your landing, and I will not drop you.

And I said, I know you won't drop me.

I completely trust you.

And he said, good, worst case scenario, I'll pay for your nose job.

And I was like, well, nothing has filled me with more confidence than that.

So we got out there and we did it.

I'm really happy.

I haven't been able to read any comments, I haven't been able to watch to watch our dance.

I don't even know what it looked like.

I know what it felt like.

I can tell you I have never felt more present in my body than I did tonight.

I would say tonight is the first time I actually felt like a dancer, like I really felt like a dance tonight.

I felt like a dancer who knew what she was doing and who was in a place that I was supposed to be.

And that was very exciting and it was thrilling and makes me just want to be even better week after week after week.

Having John m Two there Wicked, the director of Wicked and Crazy Rich Asians.

I'm such a fan of his as a director.

He was so nice.

I thought his.

Commentary and his critiques were so smart.

His one of his first comments being about transitions, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, yes, he really knows what he's talking about.

That's super exciting.

He's really smart.

He was really great guest judge.

I thought he gave he tied in the storyline of the movie really well into his critiques.

I just thought he added so much.

I really think tonight, as the themes go, you could tell how excited everyone was for the Wicked theme.

You could tell that people from the moment they knew that this was on the menu for a list of things to do, people were thinking like, Oh, I just really want to make it to Wicked night.

I thought all the dances were amazing.

I thought everybody really leveled up.

I didn't get to see a ton of other dances this week before leading up to ours.

I had seen bits and pieces of Ezra and Jordan's, which I knew was great, and I'm so happy that they got tends tonight.

Jordan just really killed that rumba, and I know how hard that dance is, and I know that she was feeling nervous about that dance, and she and Ezra just knocked it out of the park, and so I'm really happy for them.

I saw Robert's dance right before I saw it during dress rehearsal, and then I saw him right before we went out, and I said, how are you feeling about tonight?

And he said, you know, I'm really nervous.

I said more.

Nervous tonight, and He's like, yeah, I'm more nervous tonight than usual.

And I said why, what is it?

And he said, I just I'm not used to dealing with props.

And I said, but you did it so well.

It looked so seamless, and I knew that he was nervous specifically about those props.

So when John said it is not easy for actors to work with props, they can get lost in them.

I know that note meant so much to Robert because he had been nervous about it and he'd been working on it so much.

So I'm really proud of him.

He just did such a phenomenal job.

Of course, my alliance partner, Dylan and Danny, I thought they did a fantastic, fantastic job tonight.

I know somebody, I think maybe Carrie Anne mentioned that Dylan's foot had gotten a little stuck, and then sure enough, when Dylan came off the dance water, he was like, yeah.

My foot got a little stuck over there.

But I thought that dance was beautiful.

Apparently a rumba is very very hard.

I don't know if we're even gonna I don't even know if we get to do it this season, but apparently it's a very hard dance.

But I thought the two of them tonight, both of them were incredible rumbas.

Ah Man, the elimination part of the night, the part where we all lined up on the dance floor, and I looked at Pasha and I said, man, this part sucks.

It just you know all night.

Somehow you're really able to kind of put the fact that there was an elimination behind you.

Because I'm only gonna speak for myself, I'm assuming it's the same for everybody, But I cannot believe how in the moment I am watching everybody else dance, I'm so excited genuinely to see what they have been working on all week, because I know now firsthand how hard what our days are like, and how so little time we have for anything else, for our families, for any sort of social life.

There's just there's very little.

Time, and I know how difficult it is.

And so then to watch my friends, my new friends, completely come to life in the most beautiful ballroom with incredible sets and pyrotechnics and these incredible professional dancers.

Can we talk about Troop for a second.

Can we talk about Hayley and Anne and Jackson and Carter.

I.

I am mesmerized by each and every one of them.

Every week they come out and they are pouring their souls out on the dance floor.

And here's a little BTS thing.

We have to film a wide which is like our full dance from beginning to end, one hundred percent by Thursday.

The week starts on Wednesday, so within forty eight hours they want us to be at a one hundred percent both performance and the steps and the dance, so that the director can start fill the director of Dancing with the Stars can start working on his shots and figuring out how he's going to shoot every person's dance.

A lot of times the celebrities are not at one hundred percent.

Forty eight hours later, we're just not.

We may know some of the steps, but we can't perform all of them, and you don't get a lot of opportunities.

You don't get to shoot your wide a bunch of times.

You really need to be able to.

Pretty much maybe two times max.

Be able to go beginning to end on your first or second take, and that's pretty much it.

So because of that, because I may not be ready to shoot my wide, Pasha will say I'm going to go teach the dance to Anye or I'm going to go teach the dance to Haley, and then they're going to record a wide for the director, and then I just get to go back into my rehearsal.

When I tell you, it takes them like thirty minutes to learn the entire routine, to learn the entire dance, and then I get to have that video on my phone and I just get to watch them and they're beautiful dancer bodies and the things that they do, and I get to go.

Oh, I should be doing more of that.

I have learned so much from all these pros and this troop.

I just can't say enough wonderful things about them.

They are incredible and I just am so inspired by them every week.

I think they're one of the best troops I've ever seen.

For me, in the audience tonight, I had my husband, of course, Jensen, there to support me.

I also had my long time hairdresser Lori Heaps and my longtime makeup artist Julie Cuomo in the audience for me.

And then I had some of my parent friends, some friends of ours that we know because our kids are friends and our friendship has now transcended the kid relationships.

They're just people that I love and adore.

So Daniel and Erica were there, my friends Michelle and Poria were there.

And then I know that in order to win a championship myself, I must be surrounded by champions, So I invited my friend WWE legend Charlotte Flair to come and visit me in the ballroom and she came tonight and she had a really good time, and I, boy, I tell you, I think she would be pretty darn incredible on Dancing with the Stars.

Trying to think should probably be Really, she'd be great paired with Brandon.

Brandon's tall, he's super strong.

I think Brandon and Charlotte would make an incredible pair.

I really love Charlotte.

I think she's so smart, she's really vulnerable.

She wrote an article about her life and her brother and her dad and her own wrestling legacy and career recently that was very touching and very moving to me, and I reached out to her to tell her how special I thought it was, and it sparked up a friendship in us and we started communicating back and forth.

And so this week I thought, I wonder if she happens to be in town, and it turns out she was.

So she came tonight and it really meant a lot to have her there, and I think she had a lot of fun, which means a lot.

So the jewelry I'm wearing this week, well, I was supposed to be wearing some jade green beautiful rings from my friend Jamie at Forever Fine Jewels, but they stayed in Jensen's backpack and I never got to put them on.

But I am wearing her ear crawler, this mixed ear crawler that you guys have seen me wear before.

I'm also wearing.

The same earring I wore last week from the lou Collective, which you guys know.

I decided for this week.

I didn't wear a watch during the dance because I had so many times where I had to wrap my arm around Pasha's neck and I didn't want like a heavy watch digging into him.

But my watch of the week, because it's so perfect for Wicked, I broke out my personal collection Rolex Cosmograph Daytona, lovingly known as the John Mayer one point zero.

It has an iconic green dial and a yellow gold case, and I thought it was perfect in honor of Wicked.

So I hope there's another opportunity for me to bust that watch out and wear it actually on the ballroom floor.

But it is the watch I chose for this Wicked week.

Also, I am wearing this ring designed by the one and only Dolly at XO, the Biju Box XO.

It is a over two hundred year old old mine cut diamond surrounded by over two hundred year old rose cut diamonds.

They were all taken out of a brooch she hand forged this.

She has a line called her xod so XO Dolly so her xod line.

If you can see the detail on this, it's just absolutely stunning.

Was really excited to bust this one out.

Felt extra special for Wicked Night, and now I'm looking onward to Halloween.

Pasha and I have a really great creative idea that we're putting into play for next week.

And next week guest judge Cheryl Burke.

So excited to see her back in the ballroom.

Can't wait to hear what her critiques and thoughts are on all of the performances.

And I have a big announcement.

Cheryl will be joining me on Danielle with the Stars this Friday as she preps for her big night.

She is a legend in the ballroom and I am honored to not only talk to her, but to have her watch me dance dream come true.

Can't wait to hear her thoughts and remember that another legend, former pro Sharna Burgess, will share her Wicked Night thoughts and score Thursday Morning from what we're calling the fourth Chair even I'm excited to hear that.

Just find the dedicated Danielle with the Stars podcast feed and subscribe so you can get that as soon as it is released.

I really, I so appreciate your support.

I've read so many of your comments.

I saw so many of you just rooting for me and really hoping that tonight and Tonight's dance was going to be that breakthrough moment we all knew that I really needed.

And I feel very proud that I feel like I had that moment, and I hope I made all of you proud as well.

And I hope that all of you who have been supporting me felt victorious tonight, and I want you to know that you had a hand in it, your support, your votes, your encouragement, your just really I can feel it.

I can feel it around me, and so thank you.

This is we were able to do what we did tonight in part because of you.

So thank you to all of you who listen and who vote and who are on team Topasha.

I really appreciate you all.

So next week got a hard act to follow after this one, but for now I will just revel in these four nines and tomorrow I'll get back to work.

I'll see you guys next time.

Bye.

Danielle with the Stars Produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel.

Executive producers Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer, editor and engineer Tara Sudbosch.

Theme song by Justin Siegel.

Follow us on Instagram at Danielle with Stars and vote for me