Maks Chmerkovskiy's Partnering Skills

One. Smaller. Look at me. One, two. One, two, one, two. What's up guys? Leslie Robbins here for Young Hollywood at a dance studio one-on-one with Maksym Chmerkovskiy. He is hitting the road with his brother Val for a tour called Our Way and I am getting a little sneak peek. I love on your Twitter front page it says, you know who I am, but I also know who I'm not. Yeah. So who are you?

My parents' son, you know, that's that's it. I just try to do my best with what I get what what I'm given. You have a right to be successful and and and then it's up to you how how much you're willing to work for it. There's a metaphoric finish line. And if I cross it first, I win, well then I'm going to run faster than others. You know, I'm at least I'll try. So that's how I approach life and sometimes it comes across like this guy's What are you gonna do? Given what we do, what I'm trained. Yeah. This although I never competed in salsa. It's kind of like the basic sort of dance. If you if you do any sort of Latin American dancing.

Okay. Rumba too sexy. I don't know. Too sexy. Way too sexy. What's too sexy? What's that mean?

Too sexy. Slow, a lot of hips, a lot of very, very close proximity. Too sexy. Way too sexy.

Who aren't you? Who are you not?

I'm not uh, I'm not a superficial dude that's on TV that would say things just to get paid, you know, and I'm also not somebody who's going to, you know, take opportunities to maybe make a dollar if I don't believe in that particular opportunity. So, you know, I have a lot of moral fiber, as they call it. Yeah. Sure. I can't believe this is the first time I use moral fiber in a sentence.

So you're just going to rest your hand on this massive bicep and uh, uh, just enjoy yourself.

Feet together. Enjoy myself. That's the first rule. You have to enjoy yourself.

You own studios. You've been dancing forever. Your work ethic is amazing.

Work ethic encompasses more than just dancing and practicing. Going to bed every night, weekend or weekday, having accomplished and done something. So therefore you keep growing, you keep building and there's never never a day off. And one, two, three and then forward with the left. One, two, three.

You are recently engaged to your dancing costar Peta, which is, yay, we're all excited for you. What do you want your life to look like moving forward then?

I just want a castle. I want to be old. I want to be surrounded next to next to beautiful old Peta and just a bunch of kids, grandkids, you know, little bulldogs running around. I'm still not sure exactly where I'm going to end up, you know, 20 years from now, but I know I'm going to be happy and I'm going to be surrounded by beautiful family.

You're happy. Yeah. Is that bad? I love that you're happy.

I'm I love that I'm happy.

You're glowing. It's great.

I don't know about glowing. It's this reflective light. So one, two, three. And the idea in a partner dance is that, you see it like what you're doing, for example, you're looking down trying to make sure you're doing the right thing. And not my bicep.

One thing I love about successful people is the family behind them. Your mom is kind of like this touchstone for you and Val and your family just they support you. I it's amazing. I think that is what makes a successful person.

When you have a family support like we did, that's why we're so so so active and pursuing success and and goals because there's no reason not to, you know, we we have no excuse.

Does your mom text?

Yeah, with a lot of emojis. A lot of smiley faces, flowers, just some obscure things that I'm not sure what that means, but whoever leads is a person that knows where this is the whole thing is going. And whoever follows is a person that doesn't. Right. And so the idea is that you just relinquish control because then you can produce beautiful movement.

You're going on tour with your brother.

Yes, we are and it's going to be amazing. I'm I can't wait. We're very excited. It's the show from about Val and I and where we come from from zero to Dancing with the Stars. It's very interesting and I think uh, people will walk away being inspired, uplifted and entertained, of course, and definitely having found out a little more about us.

Well, you did 14 seasons on Dancing with the Stars. So you have a huge fan base. There's going to be no problem selling tickets, getting butts in the seats.

Tapping tapping into the to the unified fan base that we all have.

And you're done. You're not going to make a surprise announcement. Hey, I'm back. On Dancing with the Stars?

Yeah. They do not need me there.

Everyone needs a little Max in their life, come on.

Allow your arms to to kind of follow what the body is trying to do. So you're not trying to move your hands, yeah? Because this is pretty. Have your arms be kind of like the sort of reflection of where your shoulders and your hips are doing.

Got it. What kind of dancing is your tour going to be? Ballroom, hip hop, everything? Just ballroom, Latin, what are you going to mix it with?

Just interpretive movement, I think, you know, it will go with the story. Obviously, Val and I are trained ballroom dancers and, you know, our accolades are in ballroom, Latin, especially. Dancing with the Stars has been an incredible opportunity to dabble in other things and some things we've dabbled in better than others. I'm I'm not claiming hip hop, but I I can do some contemporary, some modern. A lot of partnering, obviously. Because of where we come from. Yeah. You know, that's another thing that shaped us into who we are today. Since I'm four years old, I have a partner in in in my professional life. And that partner's always been close proximity, it's always been an opposite sex for me. This has been an incredible experience of how to deal with another person and uh, you know, how to be a teammate. This is the nucleus of why, you know, Dancing with the Stars, I think has become what it has become. It's about the But again, just just the physical it's the hips. It's the hips. If you give somebody the power of hip action, they'll walk away they're like, I want to do this for the rest of my life. So you're going to go side together, side together. Quick. There you go. It's beautiful. I think moving through life with music and being around music all the time and being able to interpret that music, you know, it's it's amazing. So you go one, two, three. One, two, three. And then whatever I decide to do, you just follow. One, two, three. Back with the right, forward with the left. In Hollywood, in the last 10 years of Dancing with the Stars being in existence, you know, on all the resumes and that's not just me saying this, all of a sudden in this business, if you're going to be dancing for somebody like Beyoncé or even Rihanna, yes, it's all hip hop, yes, it's a lot of modern, but one thing, if you have partnering skill on your resume, because it portrays the best type of relationship. Well, you have to teach, you have to communicate. It's it's the whole No, because you have to be able to do what you're good at with a person right in your private space. One, two, one, two, one. two, one. You see?

Yes. Are you glowing? Glowing. Do you have fun? Beyond. Everybody needs a little Max in their life.