The Insider.com

Emmitt Smith may be in the top tier of Dancing with the Stars' All-Stars season, but he revealed in a recent rehearsal for his Week 5 dance that a change in dance studios has negatively affected him for a few reasons.

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Accustomed to rehearsing his dance during the week in Dallas, where his family resides, Smith admitted that relocating to the Los Angeles studio this week for rehearsals has been difficult for him primarily because he's away from his family.

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"I'm off my game. I'm in a new environment," he acknowledged. "[In] our studio back in Texas, I don't hear other music outside the music that we're playing and we don't have poles, so we can dance all over the whole entire studio. Plus, I'm at home in a place of comfort. I can see my family [there] and now I've spent the last week out here...and it's not all that easy."

Smith admits being away from his family for a while had fazed him because he feels the need to be there for them. Although he spent plenty of time away from home in his Hall-of-Fame football career, he argues that his responsibilities as a father have changed his life and how he perceives being away from home forever.

"It changes you as a person. You start having kids and you have other responsibilities outside of yourself, and that's the difference for me," said Smith, who notched Dancing's highest score in its premiere week. "I like turning things that are perceived to be a negative into a positive, but at the end of the day I just cannot help but think about my family...when I'm away from them."

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Having the fortune of returning with the same partner, Cheryl Burke, with whom he won Dancing's third season, Smith says that he appreciates her corrections in the dance studio but they can sometimes wear on him and make him frustrated.

"What's simple for her may not be as simple for me," he said. "I think that's where the balance and patience come when you have a great pro like I have working with me to know where my strengths are and where some of my weaknesses are. I think that in itself makes for a great partnership, but at the same time, she gets on my nerves."

Dancing with the Stars continues tonight at 8 p.m. on ABC.