Guillermo Rodriguez walked into Week 3 of Dancing with the Stars with something to prove, and his Yacht Rock Night performance with Witney Carson gave viewers another look at how much his dancing has changed since the season began.
The longtime Jimmy Kimmel Live! personality and Witney performed a foxtrot to Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song),” taking on a much smoother ballroom style than the routines Guillermo had faced during the first two weeks.
For Guillermo, that alone was a major challenge. He entered Season 35 without the kind of dance background some of his competitors possess, meaning every week has required him to learn new technique while performing live in front of millions of viewers.
His season started near the bottom of the leaderboard, and Week 2 didn’t make things much easier. Guillermo and Witney received 12 out of 30 for their paso doble, even though many viewers felt he had shown noticeable improvement from his premiere.
That made Yacht Rock Night especially important.
Instead of focusing only on the comedy and personality that made Guillermo a fan favorite, the foxtrot required him to concentrate on posture, timing, controlled movement and staying connected with Witney throughout the routine.
And viewers could see that Guillermo was becoming more comfortable on the ballroom floor.
His movements appeared more deliberate, his confidence had grown, and he looked increasingly willing to commit to choreography that would have seemed far more difficult during his first performance.
Witney has been working around Guillermo’s limited dance experience while gradually increasing what she asks him to do each week, and their Week 3 routine reflected that steady approach.
The improvement doesn’t mean Guillermo suddenly became the most technically polished dancer in the competition. In fact, he has continued to face tough scoring compared with many of the season’s strongest performers.
But his story has never really been about arriving as the best dancer.
Instead, Guillermo has increasingly become one of the contestants viewers can actually watch learn in real time — making the difference between his earliest routines and his newer performances part of the entertainment.
That is also why fans reacted so strongly when his Week 2 scores remained low despite the progress they believed they were seeing. Some viewers argued that the judges weren’t giving enough credit for how much Guillermo had improved from his starting point.
His partnership with Witney has kept him alive in the competition despite those difficult leaderboard positions, showing that audience support has become an important part of his run.
Yacht Rock Night gave Guillermo another opportunity to demonstrate that improvement, this time through a smoother style that forced him to rely less on character and more on actual ballroom fundamentals.
Whether Guillermo can continue climbing against dancers with more natural ability and experience remains to be seen. But after three weeks, his biggest strength may be that viewers can clearly see a contestant who keeps working, keeps improving and refuses to let low scores stop him from coming back stronger the next time.
