Entertainment TV Peta Murgatroyd: Why This Is 'One of the Hardest Weeks Ever' in 'Dancing with the Stars' History Peta Murgatroyd is blogging about her Dancing with the Stars season 25 experience exclusively for PEOPLE By Patrick Gomez Patrick Gomez Patrick Gomez is the Editor in Chief/General Manager of Entertainment Weekly. Formerly at People magazine and The A.V. Club, the Critics Choice and Television Critics Association member has appeared on 'Today,' 'Extra!,' 'Access Hollywood,' 'E! News,' 'CNN,' and 'Nightline,' and can be seen frequently on 'Good Morning America.' Follow the Texas Native at @PatrickGomezLA wherever your media is social for all things 'For All Mankind' 'Top Chef,' and puppy related. People Editorial Guidelines and Peta Murgatroyd Published on September 25, 2017 05:07 PM Share Tweet Pin Email Peta Murgatroyd is currently partnered with singer Nick Lachey on season 25 of Dancing with the Stars while her husband Maksim Chmerkovskiy dances with Nick’s wife Vanessa. The pro dancer is blogging about her experience on the ABC reality dance competition exclusively for PEOPLE. Follow Murgatroyd, 31, and Nick, 43, on Twitter! Well, we made it through the first week of the season! There’s always a lot of nerves going into premiere night, but I have to say that I think Nick handled the nerves the best out of any of my partners. He has a lot of experience doing TV, and I think that helped him. That said, he was still nervous, and that definitely affected his performance. I thought he did so well, but there were a few moves that I know he’d done better in rehearsal than he did in front of the audience Monday. But there were also parts of the dance that hadn’t gone well until the live performance, so it went both ways. Watching the rest of the cast dance on Monday was great. I thought so many people did a fantastic job. As I said before the premiere, I think Lindsey Stirling and Jordan Fisher are the frontrunners. They have a ton of experience dancing for an audience, and it showed Monday. I definitely think we’re going to see them in the finals. But I think Nick has a big shot at going all the way because he has already grown so much, and I think he has the potential to become a really fantastic dancer. PEOPLE’s special issue, 25 Seasons of Dancing with the Stars, is available now. This week we have two dances because there are shows on Monday and Tuesday. We had a few weeks to prepare for the premiere, so to go to learning two dances in one week … that’s made this one of the hardest weeks ever. Usually we don’t have to worry about teaching two dances to our partners until the end of the competition, so it’s been a major adjustment having to get through everything so quickly. WATCH: Interviews With Pros, Judges, Creators & More — Get Your Dancing with the Stars Fix! We have a Vienesse waltz for Monday and an Argentine tango for Latin night on Tuesday. Nick actually picked up the general choreography for both pretty quickly, but he’s gotten the nuances of the tango a lot faster than he has for the waltz. I think that’s because we spent so much time working on the cha cha for last week, and that’s got really sharp movements like the tango. The waltz is a much more fluid dance, and that’s been an adjustment for Nick. I’m super excited for us to get out there and do the waltz tonight, but I know we also are going to lose our first pair at the end of the show, and it’s always hard to say goodbye to someone after just one dance. Everyone works so hard, and you feel bad when someone doesn’t get a chance to show off everything they’ve learned. But that’s why voting is so important, and I hope we have proven we are worth keeping around because we have a lot more we want to show everyone! Dancing with the Stars airs Mondays (at 8 p.m. ET) on ABC.