Dancing with the Stars pro Peta Murgatroyd has opened up about what it's like to train a deaf contestant, Nyle DiMarco.
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"Nyle has absolutely made me a better teacher," Murgatroyd, 29, told People following Monday night's Dancing with the Stars premiere. "I have to be very careful to explain myself so well and make sure that the words I am using to describe things are very clear."
DiMarco, the latest winner of America's Next Top Model, apparently digests direction easily despite his inability to hear Murgatroyd and the music.
"I mean, he is a smart guy. It's not like I have to dumb anything down," Murgatroyd said. "But if I want him to put his foot on the floor, I have to show him how to do it. I can't just tell him, 'Be strong with the leg.' I have to describe what I want."
Murgatroyd and DiMarco's first dance was the cha cha and they tied for first place on the judges' leaderboard with two other couples thanks to their score of 23 out of 30 points.
"You could be 'America's Next Top Dancer.' Unbelievable," judge Bruno Tonioli said during last night's DWTS broadcast.
Judge Carrie Ann Inaba also told DiMarco after he performed that he "brought the rhythm to life."
"I think at first when I found out he was 100 percent deaf, I was really nervous, really scared and I kind of went home and thought about it a little bit and tried to wrap my brain around how I was going to work this," Murgatroyd told Us Weekly in a separate interview.
"But I'm loving it, I have to be a better teacher. [We're having] so much fun."
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
