Ballroom dancer Val Chmerkovskiy is a 2-time World Latin Dance Champion and a 14-time U.S. national Latin Dance champion. The younger brother of Maksim Chmerkovskiy, he's best known for his work on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Val shares a DWTS record, originally set by his longtime rival Mark Ballas, of having the most celebrity partners to never individually score less than 8 from any judge. He is also the only professional dancer to go three consecutive seasons (16, 17, 18) without ever scoring less that an eight.

In this conversation, Val talks about the biggest misconceptions about ballroom dance, the importance of chemistry and storytelling, the mentality required for competition dancing, whether he and Kelly Monaco were together during season 15 of Dancing with the Stars, and why being a male ballroom dancer is one of the most masculine things you can be.