Selma Blair Says Dancing Blindfolded on DWTS Was Like 'Boot Camp'
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Eric McCandless/ABC
Selma Blair is pushing her limits each week she competes on Dancing with the Stars — even after fainting between rehearsals.
For week three, "Bond Night," Blair, 50, performed a rumba blindfolded, relying on her partner, Sasha Farber, to guide her.
"The blindfold is an ingenious way to add a little bit of style but also a challenge that was kind of comforting to me and brought me closer to my partner," she told reporters including PEOPLE after the show.
Farber, 38, came up with the idea after watching Blair revert to closing her eyes when she was struggling to nail a move or sequence in rehearsals. "Dance is a feeling," he said, and so as Selma would "close her eyes a lot when she would feel a disconnection from her brain into her body," he wanted to see how a blindfold would help.
"I remember putting it on her and she had goosebumps," he added.
RELATED: Selma Blair's Son Arthur, 11, Says He's 'Really Proud' of Mom After DWTS Debut: 'It Was Amazing'
ABC/Eric McCandless
Blair called learning to dance blindfolded a "wonderful, forced, spiritual, emotional boot camp." She said she could see the results of how the new experience helped to "rewire things" and "strengthen" her.
It also pushed her even more than the previous two weeks have. "We were trying to up the ante and it was amazing," said Blair. "Sasha is never far from me. At all. But it was a way to not have too much sensory overload in my head, because it's exciting and there's so much going on and people moving, so it was a way to buffer it."
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Since sharing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2018, the Cruel Intentions star has been candid about the ups and downs of her health journey. Competing on DWTS is yet another step she's taking to break barriers and prove her strength.
ABC/Eric McCandless
As she navigates through a series of unique challenges related to her MS, Blair's perseverance has earned her a plethora of support, both from viewers and the judges themselves.
On Oct. 3, the Legally Blonde star and her DWTS partner shared that Blair had once texted Farber before a rehearsal to say she had fainted at the airport but was still on her way to work.
"I'm like, 'Take the day off, just chill,' " Farber told Entertainment Tonight. "She's like, 'Nope!' "
After originally planning to practice for two hours, Farber said Blair pushed through for an impressive five-hour rehearsal. The actress — who said she's fainted before in her MS journey — noted that one of the reasons she's able to get past her fainting spells is because of her service dog Scout.
RELATED: Selma Blair Fainted Before Rehearsal for Dancing with the Stars: 'I Pass Out a Lot'
"The thing is, I pass out a lot," Blair admitted. "It's part of the reason I have Scout and it doesn't mean I lose consciousness [or] it's a whole ambulance experience, it's something that I lose my vision, gravity pulls me down and I'm very disoriented and gone for a spell. He's kind of there to also catch me, you know, make the ground a little closer with his back."
"It's just something that I have to be honest with where I'm coming from but also know, like, 'Wait, I really have this.' It comes and goes," she continued, per ET.
Now, as she proves to herself and the world what she's capable of, she's reflective of what her journey means for the wider MS community.
"I just want to say, I think that people might look at MS or chronic illnesses as one thing, but all of us in the community know, it's just as varied as everyone else everywhere, and with support, it's amazing what we can do."
Dancing with the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Disney+.
