““So we got to the show that night, and despite the injuries and setbacks in rehearsal, we kept the showstopper lift in our routine. I just focused on the steps and that lift. I still wasn’t feeling the emotions she wanted me to feel. At least I wasn’t until they played the video before we danced. It’s a very emotional video and I heard myself say in it, “The worst thing I ever did was not open up to anyone during my depression.” The way the dance started was with me standing next to a mirror where you could see I looked whole. I loved that Sharna came up with that concept, because one day I just told her about how looking in the mirror made me upset. And so she loved the idea of the mirror. When the dance begins, the mirror is there and I look complete, and then the mirror turns and I’m facing it. Then we go into the dance and I turn and then I pick her up to do a move where she goes back and then we do another move where I pick her up, spin her around into a cradle hold, and then down and then we hit the floor, we push back, we go into the star form, we come down, we rotate, we grab each other’s arms, we lift each other up, we hug, and then she goes to the left, and I turn and face her. I looked at her and nodded to say, “We got this.” She ran up at me and I lifted her and locked out and when I did it, I saw the crowd jump to their feet and cheer. I was reminded in that brief moment of the wall I climbed in my first Warrior Dash. Everyone cheered and I didn’t want to put Sharna down. When we finished, the crowd roared again, and in the judges’ comments segment, judge Bruno Tonioli told me that I was a titan among men. I felt amazing. We didn’t go home that week.””
