Graham Smith and Valerie Semeniakaite

Graham Smith, 12, and Valerie Semeniakaite, 13, students at Davis Middle School in Dublin, Ohio, are aspiring ballroom dancers who recently became partners in the ever-increasing popular sport. In between preparing for their first Arnold Youth Dancesport Classic and appearing in a promotional DVD for the 2009 Arnold Sports Festival, Graham and Valerie sat down for a quick chat with Arnold Sports Festival News.

ASF News: Graham, how long have you been doing dancesport and how did you get involved?

Graham: I have been doing it for about two-and-a-half years now. I kind of got signed up without my permission, but I tried it for a couple of days and found that it was fun, so I went along with it.

ASF News: And what about you, Valerie?

Valerie: I started when I was six, so I have been doing it about seven years. I started when I was still living in Lithuania. Dance is really important there. I wasn’t really interested at first, but I took a lesson and loved it.

ASF News: Dancesport is a relatively new sport. What do you friends think?

Valerie: No one really thinks it is that physical, so I always say take a lesson to find out. You have to dance like your teacher tells you, but you can also add your own style to it.

Graham: When I tell my friends I do ballroom dancing they think it’s weird, but then they watch Dancing With The Stars and see how much work goes into it and then they think it is cool.

Valerie: I think so many people judge you by how you look or what you wear, but it is not really how about that. People should try it before they judge it because it is a lot of fun and you have to stay really fit to do it. But now a lot of my friends understand how really hard you have to train.

ASF News: What are your goals in the sport?

Graham: I am just 12 right now so I do not know where it is going to lead.

Valerie: I want to stick with it for the rest of my life.