Chuck Liddell grapples with 'Dancing with the Stars'

"Dancing with the Stars" loves to cast tough-guy athletes, and this season the show found maybe its toughest guy yet in former UFC champ Chuck Liddell.

Liddell is one of the best-known mixed martial artists in the world, but through two weeks on "Dancing" he's shown a willingness to embrace his more graceful side. His scores from the judges haven't been at the top of the heap yet, but he's been safe both times -- which has put the clamps on his fellow MMA fighters talking too much trash to him.

"A lot of my buddies say they watched the first show looking for ammo to make fun of me. But so far, they're like, 'I don't know what to say. You did good,'" Liddell says. "I think I shocked them a little bit."

Liddell talked about adjusting from the octagon to the dance floor and his experiences on "Dancing with the Stars" so far with Zap2it last week. Here's what he had to say.

Zap2it: What's been the biggest surprise and the biggest challenge for you so far?
Liddell: The biggest surprise was that I got as nervous as I did beforehand, because I don't get nervous before anything, really. The challenge is, I'm an athlete, and I've always been good at telling my body what to do. It's always kind of listened to me. For some reason, with some of these dance steps, it just doesn't want to listen. I have to figure out how to tell it, figure out my own way of getting it to do what they want me to do. I think I'll keep improving -- as long as I stick around, I'll get better and better. Things are coming easier now.

I would think, too, that as an athlete the idea of training several hours a day isn't that hard for you to grasp.
Yeah. I work five or six hours a day. We've got a fixed schedule at the [rehearsal studio], we usually get about 4 1/2 hours in there, and then I usually have an hour or two at home that I work on steps by myself. I need that away time to try to work through it, then I go back and have a look at it.

How has your partner, Anna Trebunskaya, been as a coach?
She's great. She's good for me -- she's known for being hard, a real perfectionist. We get along pretty well -- I think I entertain her because I'm such an oaf [laughs]. I'm so clumsy, I make fun of myself. But she's really, 'OK, let's do it again. Try this again.' And every time I get something right, she adds something else to it. There are so many layers of stuff you can do, but it works well for me being taught that way. You get this point down, and a little later we add this, then this.

How has the overall experience been, performing live and facing the judges?
It's been fun. I'm having a good time. Everyone in the back has been great -- they're really supportive. It's been a lot of work and it's very, very hard, but it's been fun.

Is the difficulty you've had just because the movement is so much different than what you're used to?
It's very different. [As a fighter] you're always looking for a way to make shortcuts, to get to that point faster. Here you can't do that -- you've got to make the clean movements. But it's also just basic stuff. Like the regular athletic position, when you're bent over, is all wrong. The way I walk is wrong. I mean, I'm working on that when I'm just walking around, working on keeping my head up and my shoulders down. [In MMA] it's always keep your chin down and your shoulders up. This is chin up, shoulders down. ...

But it's getting easier and easier. I work on it when I'm walking around, which is kind of funny. People say, "Your body even looks different now that you're dancing." I don't know if it's how my body looks or how I carry myself. I've been practicing that so it's not such a big change from walking around to walking into the dance studio.

How did you come to be cast on the show?
They came to me first. I turned them down a few times because I was busy doing other stuff. But I was taking some time off when they came to me this time, and I thought this is a great way to get exposure for my sport and me to a different group of people. And hopefully we'll grab some of those fans and they'll check out MMA.

There's probably not a big crossover audience between MMA and "Dancing with the Stars."
Yeah. Although I know a lot of MMA people are watching "Dancing" now [laughs].

Do you think you'll return to MMA after this?
It depends how long I'm in this. If I'm in it for a while, I'll take some time off, spend some time with my kids. But I'm going to be training and doing something -- I'm just not sure what. I'll talk to [UFC president] Dana [White], I'll talk to [trainer] John [Hackleman], and we'll figure out if I want to go back to fighting or if I want to be retired.

What are you doing next on "Dancing"?
The samba. And it should be an interesting outfit. I saw the drawings of it -- it includes ruffles. We haven't had the fitting so I haven't seen it yet, but it should be interesting [laughs].

Follow Zap2it on Twitter for the latest TV, movie and celebrity news.

Related:

'Dancing with the Stars' recaps
Meet the 'Dancing' cast