Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion (19 page)

From day 1, we were finding our way through this journey together. Different dances require different leg positions, and I discovered that when I let her legs click together, there were buttons on the inside of the prosthetics that released them. Amy shook her head. “That’s not gonna work,” she told me. But neither of us wanted to compromise the technique or the choreography. So we came up with a little safeguard. We put a bottle cap and duct tape around each of those buttons. That way when her legs smacked together, nothing unexpected happened. Still, you can plan and plan and take every precaution and things will still go wrong.

Minutes before we were supposed to go on for the week 2 swing number, I spotted Amy in the corner of the room, freaking out. There was panic in her eyes. “Derek,” she whispered. “My foot’s come loose! My foot’s come loose!” Usually, it would be no big deal—she’d make an adjustment and tighten it up. But this time, she couldn’t find her Allen wrench to screw it back on.

I ran around and grabbed one of the crew members. He had a Swiss Army knife in his pocket and that was the best we could do on short notice. I handed Amy the knife and she used it to screw on her foot good and tight. I thought we had dodged a bullet, but Amy didn’t look convinced. Instead of being pumped to go out there, she was a nervous wreck. “I really want to do well. I want this to be a good one,” she told me.

I knew I had to calm her down so she wouldn’t sabotage herself. “Listen, every step you take is a success. We’re all here, we’re all rooting for you. Take the pressure off yourself. You standing here in front of this audience is a success.” Her face relaxed and the tension in her body suddenly dissipated. We went out there and she did an amazing job. I was so proud of her. We hugged and high-fived each other as we took our place before the judges. No matter what they had to say, no matter what our score was (for the record: it was a 24 out of 30!), we won.

This past season was a lot more for me than just teaching a partner to dance. It felt like Amy and I were pioneers blazing a new trail. We never worried about the competition or compared ourselves to others. It was never really about the win. We were simply doing our own thing. There’s no special dancing prosthetic. It doesn’t exist because double amputees don’t usually ballroom dance. At first, we used her walking-around legs that her prosthetics maker adjusted. Amy’s done it before; she created her own snowboarding prosthetics because they’re not really available in any market. We had to learn how to work with the prosthetics so they looked graceful and in control. In week 3, we got new legs. We found feet for swimming that have pointed toes. It opened up a whole room of moves that we couldn’t do with the other prosthetics, and in our contemporary dance, we were able to add lifts and flips and use her legs in ways we couldn’t before. This dance was for Amy’s father. She asked me how she could thank her father for saving her life—words could never say enough. I told her that by taking advantage of her new life and living it to the fullest she has been thanking him every day.

Regardless of your religion, I feel like the best way to show gratitude to those we love and to our creator is by living our lives with passion, purpose, and happiness. Bruno called the dance “miraculous to behold” and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Second place is amazing. Neither of us had any idea what would be possible going into this. We are so proud of everything we achieved and created. I loved our freestyle. When I heard the music, “Dare You” by Hardwell, I knew it had to depict Amy’s journey. It’s what our whole season has been about: daring to go for it. I wanted that last note we hit to be positive and a dare to everyone out there watching: take the chance and see what can happen. When I began to choreograph our number, I had this vision of her spinning in the air, ascending to the sky and transcending the dance. I asked a friend of mine if he could rig a rope and he said it was possible, but it would take two weeks. We had an hour! The spin looked effortless, but requires tremendous back strength. Amy had been having a lot of problems with back spasms in the previous weeks, so we were a bit worried about it at first. But when she went up there, she soared. She did it with one hand, which was just incredible.

I have never been calmer in my entire
Dancing with the Stars
life than I was in the finals. Usually I’m tensed up and hyperfocused on getting it all right. But when we were standing there, I had the most amazing sense of peace and joy. I knew that regardless of the result, I would be extremely happy, proud, and fulfilled. I have Amy to thank for that. She brought kids with disabilities to the show every week. On one of the last shows, we had a ten-year-old girl with prosthetic legs in the audience, and during the commercial breaks she got up and started dancing around. I thought, You know what? That’s it. That’s what this is about. Amy didn’t have that person to look up to when she was going through this. She’s become that role model. So, honestly, that is the greatest victory we could have achieved.

I have always said that I believe that people come into your life for a reason. In Amy Purdy’s case, she couldn’t have come into mine at a better time. She summed up everything that I want to be and practice. When people asked her, “Are you doing
Dancing with the Stars
to inspire people?” she had a great response. “No,” she’d reply, “I’m doing this to inspire myself. But inspiration is contagious.”

LEADING LESSONS

There is success in every step you take
.

When you take pride in every accomplishment—no matter how small—you create momentum and it builds to bigger and better things. With Amy, everything we achieved on the dance floor was something new that neither of us has tackled before. I wanted to cheer after every performance because we had gone where no one else dared. During one of our rehearsals midseason, Amy broke down in tears. “I have ten things I have to think about and I don’t feel like I’m in the dance,” she said. The dance was her personal story of what she had been through in learning to walk again, and it was dedicated to her dad, so it meant a lot to her—so much, that she was beating herself up for not doing it perfectly. I stopped her; the rehearsal was deteriorating. She was focusing on all the things she needed to work on instead of celebrating all the things she’d achieved in the dance. She was forgetting all the beautiful parts and editing them out. All she could see were the flaws. “Before you say what you need to work on, let’s finish the dance and tell me five things that felt good and effortless.” When she did that, she put her mind and body in a positive state of being where she was able to fix things much better and quicker. I told her, “Put your hands up in a V shape like you just won the biggest victory of your life.” We walked around the room like this, reveling in it. We put on the music, and she danced it perfectly. When we finished, she had tears rolling down her cheeks. “I got really emotional,” she told me. I smiled: “That’s perfection—not the way you move your body, but the way it made you feel.”

The only disability you have is between your ears
.

We all have our disabilities; we all have our little insecurities—some are just more visible than others. How do you handle yours? Do you let them hold you back? I’ve learned that our brains play many tricks on us. Fear and doubt are only in your mind and have as much power as you give them. When Amy was lying in a hospital bed, being pumped full of fluids and fighting to stay alive, a doctor asked her what she believed in. “I believe in love,” she told him. “And I’ve got a lot more love to give.” It’s incredible to know someone who’s been on the brink of death and come out on the other side. Amy doesn’t want sympathy or pity or special treatment. Her legs are her legs—she doesn’t see them as a disability. It’s not about what you have or don’t have—it’s what you give and you share with others. The more you put into something, the more fulfillment you get back in return.

REFLECTING ON DEREK

“Derek is connected to something so much bigger than himself—universal energy and light. His purpose is to be here and inspire the world through movement. We’re very like-minded and spiritual, and we have great conversations. He’s wise beyond his years. Here I am, a motivational speaker, and I sit on the floor utterly mesmerized by the words coming out of his mouth! Week after week, we are just experiencing things together without any end goal. We are in our world, seeing what comes out and keeping it organic.

Derek has also brought out this real femininity in me. I love dressing up and getting my hair and makeup done even though I’m a total tomboy/snowboarder. Working so closely with him, I’ve found this part of myself that I’ve never been in touch with and it’s transferring into my day-to-day life. When we worked on our contemporary dance telling my personal story, we cried the whole week together. We knew we were on the right path if it made us cry. It was such a deeply moving dance for us. Right before you go on, there are always nerves, but there was also an emotional heaviness to what we were doing. Derek intuitively knew I was getting overwhelmed. He took me aside backstage and reminded me that the whole dance was about gratitude. He put his hand on my hand, then put my hand over my heart. He calls it ‘stacking.’ You stack all the things you are grateful for. He told me, ‘You just won a bronze medal. Your family is here. You are so lucky to be alive and be here tonight.’ We took the moment to breathe together and use the emotion I was feeling for strength and power. Whenever he does this, it fills my heart with such a positive light, I want to go out and share it. Working with Derek is an experience I will never forget. When I met him, I thought, ‘This is so meant to be.’ We were meant to come together to confirm things in ourselves. He is the embodiment of all the principles that I try to live by. The ancient Greeks used the word
genius
to describe being connected to an energy that flows. Derek is so connected with his genius, and I am so honored to have gotten to experience it firsthand.”

—AMY PURDY

NEXT STEPS

T
HIS IS THE
part of the book where the author usually sums it all up in a conclusion chapter and announces, “I did it!” I suppose I could have titled it “The Finale,” but that’s just not me. I don’t think you ever reach a point in life (or in writing!) where you get to say that. It ain’t over till it’s over. I want to be an eternal student, always pushing myself to learn more, fear less, fight harder.

What lies in the future? Truthfully, I don’t know. For some people, that’s a scary thought. They like their life mapped out and scheduled down to the second. Not me. Not anymore. I take comfort in knowing not everything is definite. There’s where you find the excitement, in the unknown, uncharted spaces. If I take the lead in my life, I expect that things will keep changing, progressing, moving. That’s the joy for me. Where will I go next? What doors will open? What doors will close? All I can tell you is that I will be performing and connecting with people—be it through dance, movies, music, or speaking. I want to inspire and create. I love the phrase “I’m created to create.” That’s what I feel like, and that’s what makes me the happiest. I’m building a house right now—my own extreme home makeover. I love the process of tearing something down and rebuilding it, creating something from nothing and bringing my artistic vision to it. I will always be someone who likes getting his hands dirty.

But the blueprint of my life has completely changed from the time I was a little boy dreaming about fame. It’s broadened and widened. I want variety in my life; I like my days filled with new and different things. I love exploring the world, meeting new people, learning new crafts and art. It’s why you might often read what I’m up to and scratch your head: “I didn’t know Derek did that.” I probably didn’t before, but I do now.

I met Olympic ice dancing champs Meryl Davis and Charlie White through an agent we both knew, Yuki Saegusa, and also through our mutual friend Kristi Yamaguchi, who won
DWTS
with Mark. Yuki reached out to me: “Meryl and Charlie, the reigning ice dancing world champions, would love for you to choreograph for their Olympic routine at Sochi 2014.” I hesitated: “I’m not really sure about that. It’s not something I really know how to do. I don’t want to make a fool out of myself, and more than that, I don’t want to give them a bad routine.” Yuki understood. “Just think about it.”

So I did. Whenever I am confronted with a “can’t,” I need to turn it into a “must.” I agreed I’d meet with them and just see how it went—no promises. I was in the middle of the season with Kellie Pickler, and I had a lot on my plate. But when we got into the studio, I was immediately struck by their fire. They had tasted silver before; they wanted to go all the way. I knew that passion; I’d lived it. So we began working and we just blew through the routine. It had a
My Fair Lady
theme—a medley of “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “Get Me to the Church on Time” that combined elements of quick step plus lifts, spins, and tricks. Usually, I like to be part of the music choice, but this was their realm and I trusted them. I was excited; they were excited (and surprised by how fast I worked), and it came together very quickly. It was just flowing. They showed me a map of an ice rink: “We need to be moving in this direction, near the judges, then in this direction.” When you choreograph for the ice, it’s a whole different ballgame than the ballroom. I tried to imagine myself on the ice, picturing the movement and the momentum. We did this for a couple of days, and a month later, I went to Detroit, where they trained, and got to work with them on the ice. I am no Olympic skater, so it was quite a challenge for me. All three of us wore wireless headphones so we could hear the music, but no one else could (it needs to be a secret when you’re at this level of competition). The most thrilling part of ice dancing is that you do so much more than you can on a wood floor. When I do a movement it stops; but when they do it on the ice, it keeps going. It’s seamless.

Fast-forward several months later, and I was watching them on TV competing in the Olympics. They were amazing—the commentator dubbed them “power with grace,” and I couldn’t agree more. It was the first time in Olympic history that the United States won the gold medal in ice dancing, and that I could be a small part of that victory is totally surreal.