Nicolas Roche has said he is taking his participation in Dancing with the Stars very seriously and has even developed a unique training routine. He has incorporated some dance moves and other aspects to his jogging routine each day to get used to the movement required for dancing.
Roche made his debut on the show last week and is partnered with Karen Byrne, the best-known professional dancer on the show. While some of the judges said he had a lot more work to to, he gave it a very good go and has sportingly thrown himself into the show with full commitment.
"I was a bit disappointed with the marks afterwards and didn’t think I had danced that much worse than everybody else but I know I have to improve," Roche explained.
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He said that after retiring from cycling at the end of last season he wanted to find challenges that put him out of his comfort zone.
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"Back then though, jumping around a dancefloor in a see-through pink vest, heels, and skin-tight sparkly black pants in front of a live television audience was definitely not on the agenda," he said in an Irish Independent diary he is writing while on the show.
However, he decided to give it a go after being approached by the show's producers last year. Now training between three and five hours a day, seven days per week, with his dance partner, he says his fitness from cycling means he could do even more, though others on the show had complained of fatigue and soreness from the training.
As he had been a cyclist, with his feet clipped into pedals and only moving in one way, he said the movement in the dancing was much more complicated than anything he had ever been used to. That was something he was trying to overcome with his own workout as he jogged around Dundrum, where he is staying with grandparents, and nearby Marlay Park.
"In an effort to improve my dance moves, I’ve incorporated bursts of lateral movement, heel flicks, high knees and even a few steps from the jive into those runs, which probably gives any onlookers a good laugh," he said.
