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“Dancing With the Stars” professional dancer Daniella Karagach says it’s “never too late to start” dancing. The choreographer and Season 30 Mirrorball champion, who has been performing since she was a child, uses her expertise to teach everyday people and celebrities how to go out of their comfort zones and move their bodies. “Anyone can do it, you just have to start,” she tells TODAY.com. “You have to trust the process — and sometimes getting out of your comfort zone is healing.” “When we’re young and put into dance, we don’t think twice about it. We just do it. If it works out, great. If not, it doesn’t,” she continues. “But it’s the same thing when you’re older. When you take a dance class, the worst that can happen is you’re not interested anymore or you don’t do it again. But it’s always so much fun to start and see if you do love it.” Karagach and husband and fellow “DWTS” pro Pasha Pashkov know firsthand how anyone can learn new techniques and enter the world of dance. The couple got married in 2014 and welcomed their daughter, Nikita, in May of 2023. “I know people who have started in their 20s and became world champions in my professional field where I used to compete and grew up. So it’s never too late to start,” she says. “Pasha and I used to teach this couple in Albany and they were in their 70s. They’re so inspiring and they were three-time... champions.” For Season 34 of “DWTS” Karagach is partnered with Dylan Efron. “It’s amazing to watch someone with no dance experience build the confidence week to week, and he’s been working so hard,” she says. “So it’s nice to see it pay off.” Below, Karagach shares tips and tricks on getting into dance, her personal fitness and health routine and how she takes care of her mental health during the season. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. For People Who Have No Dance Experience or Want to Get Into Dance, What's the Best Way In? I would say fear is a huge part of the whole process. A lot of people are scared to try. But honestly, with the amount of people who have been on the show, I can pretty confidently say anybody who has any interest in dancing can actually dance. The first thing that we do in the studio when I first meet them is check their musicality, check how they move, strategize what dances I want to do with them, what dances I don't want to do with them on the show. In general, if you've never danced before, the first thing I do is the salsa, hip action, just making sure that they can do a figure eight. Because in ballroom dancing we live in a figure eight for almost every single dance in the Latin style. But one of the biggest things is hips, how much their hips can move, and their ballroom frame. What Are Some Tips That Help Someone Loosen Up? Tequila. No, I'm just kidding. (Laughs) It's more about softening the knees and allowing your hips to naturally sway side to side. The fundamentals are a huge part of it, the technique. I break it down with my students, with my celebs, with my partners, whoever it is I'm dancing with. I always try to simplify it and break it down to see how much they can do without bending their knees. If some of them have hip replacements or whatever, we cheat the system a little bit. (You) just have to adapt to the person you're teaching. You can't have the same method for every single partner. There's no way. Some people like Iman (Shumpert), my (Season 30) partner, had knee surgery, shoulder surgery, (and) he had hip (issues). So we had to cheat the system a lot. There are people who physically can't do much because their body just hurts with age or whatever, and you just have to make it work. Every single person has their own formula. Is There a Specific Style That Would Be a Great Intro Class? Salsa. How Do You Approach Your Diet and Fitness as You Age? I’m the worst person when it comes to this because I eat everything. I’m such a foodie. I don’t think I could ever really diet — but I definitely work really hard at maintaining a healthy lifestyle. A lot of my diet is more protein than carbs, but there are days where I literally just eat carbs all day long. Like after a show day, I’m non-stop carbs, so it depends how my body’s feeling. If my body's tired and it needs energy, I'm not going to deprive it of that. I'm just going to give it whatever it needs, whether it's a chocolate chip cookie or a cake. If I’m not on (the “DWTS”) season, I’m in the gym like five times a week. If I’m on season — I haven’t been to the gym since before the season — but during the season, dancing is such a huge way of exercising. You’re using muscles that you’ve never used before. I tell this to all my celebs, they always shed like minimum 10 pounds when they’re on the show because they’re using muscles they don’t work out in the gym. These are muscles that you only use when you’re dancing and you shed fast because it’s not only cardio, but you’re also building muscles in ways that require the little, tiny muscles. What Does Your Workout Routine Look Like Outside of the Ballroom? I actually just do weights. I don't do any cardio. I don't really like cardio. Your Cardio Is Dancing. Yeah, so I do mostly weights, like pressing. I do a lot of barbells, crunches with weights. Whatever I do, I do with weights. So if it's sit ups, I do it with weight with like a minimum of 15 pounds. That helps me also stay toned. I also don't want to get too muscular for my body. My body gets muscular really, really fast. I still want to stay lean but at the same time I like it when I have a butt. Offseason, I go to the gym but I also train in dance. I don’t stop dancing. I have a partner I practice with and we've been practicing before the season started. Once the season stops, I’m going to go back to practicing and maintaining because it’s really easy to lose quality when you’re not taking care of your dancing after the show. I want to make sure that I take time for my body to recover, but I also stay in it. How Do You Take Care of Your Mental Health? I try to stay off of social media. I made a priority for myself to not read comments because right now the new viewers are younger. Sometimes they (comment) based off of whatever they're seeing (online)... and people jump to conclusions so fast. First of all, if I have five minutes at home, I'm with my family and not reading what people are writing or trying to be online. If I need to post, I'll post and then I'm off my phone. I'm really lucky with my social media team, I have a great girl who takes care of that so I don't have to sit there and dwell on what people think of me. That's been a really huge thing for my mental health. I'm also spending as much time with my family (as possible) because I don't get to see my family very often. I have the best husband in the world. We see each other very rarely right now because he has one schedule and I have another. So when we see each other, we're like, "Well, how was your day? Tell me about your day." We just talk and spend time with our baby girl, and that re-energizes me.
