Stephanie Roche is one busy lady, as she is currently competing on Dancing With The Stars, keeping up with her football training, and coaching career.
But while its been a challenge, she’s balancing them all brilliantly with a bit of help from her loved ones. Sharing how husband Dean and his family have been supporting throughout her dancing journey.
As she explained: “It’s been very difficult, I’ve been doing really well in balancing my own football training and the dancing training.”
“But in terms of my coaching business, that’s the only thing I’ve taken a back seat from. I’ve been very lucky that I have Dean and his dad. They have been very good at being hands on and helping me out to manage different things.”
“We do after-school programs in schools, and there is a camp coming up in February for the midterm break so I’m quite lucky that I have help with that. I took a bit of a step away from that now.”
But even still, the Dubliner still has plenty on her plate, with dance practice taking up a lot of time.
“It’s been tough because Mondays and Tuesdays, we are in the gym and on the pitch in the evening, and I’m on Dancing with the Stars Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” she said.
“It has been hard finding the balance with that, but we’re three weeks in now so I’m kind of getting used to it.”
“I definitely have a tired body, especially on Wednesday morning. I’m balancing it quite well overall and I‘m enjoying it.”
Her teammates have also been incredible understanding and helpful. As Stephanie praised: “Shamrock Rovers have been brilliant at helping me out. I haven’t missed a session but in terms of the training, sometimes they’ll adapt it depending on what I’ve been doing all day at dancing.”
Of course, her family, friends, and teammates aren’t the only ones helping, as Stephanie was also quick to praise her pro-partner Ervinas Merfeldas.
“He’s very experienced for someone who’s only 20. He’s been brilliant for giving me advice,” she gushed.
Although some of his methods can be unconventional, like eating escargot to get into character for last weeks Moulin Rogue inspired routine, which tasted “absolutely horrible.” But rest assured, normally the snack game is much better during rehearsals.
“To be fair to Ervinas, he brings a lot of snacks to train. He is very good for snack, so we’ve a lot of jellies and biscuits. There always food there for us to snack on,” she confessed.
Dancing With The Stars continues tomorrow at 6.30pm on RTÉ One.
