Nice article explaining more about their prep and how they were picked!
S.D. couple takes on The Amazing Race
Emmy-winning reality TV show's 21st season premieres Sunday
Abbie Ginsberg and Ryan Danz, aka The Dating Divorcees, make up one of the 11 teams competing in the upcoming season of "The Amazing Race." CBS
Written by
Michael James Rocha
Whats new: This year, 11 teams will race around the world for a prize of $2 million instead of the usual $1 million. The competition will take teams through three continents and nine countries, spanning 25,000 miles.
When: 8 p.m., Sunday
Abbie Ginsberg and Ryan Danz knew auditioning for the reality TV show The Amazing Race would push their fledgling relationship to new heights and in some cases, new depths.
After the couple found out they had been picked for the 21st season of the Emmy-winning reality TV show it picked up its ninth Emmy on Sunday they went into full training mode.
First up: addressing Ginsbergs fear of enclosed water spaces.
I threw five pennies into my hot tub, asked her to dive in and I closed the lid, Danz said.
And thus began their intense and grueling training regimen for The Amazing Race, which makes its season premiere at 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS.
The couple aka the team of The Dating Divorcees sent in a tape to try out for the show last December. That was soon followed by an email from the shows producers expressing interest. And in January, a phone interview.
After producers found out that Danz was no stranger to reality TV he was on the 2005 season of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart Ginsberg and Danz were told the show does not bring on people from other reality shows.
So that was that until late March when reps from the show called Ginsberg with some good news: Theyre on the show.
A team dropped out, and one of the executives was on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart when I was on it, Danz said, and she thought Id be great on the show.
The rest is reality TV show history.
How the couple hes a businessman from Encinitas and shes a dance instructor at the Carlsbad Dance Center does on the show is top secret, or as they say in TV parlance, youll have to tune in to find out.
In the meantime, the couple, under clear orders from CBS to be tight-lipped on details about the upcoming season, took some time to answer questions some questions, anyway about what it was like preparing for the show.
Q: How did you prepare yourselves physically, mentally?
Ginsberg: After we found out we were in the running, we took it upon ourselves to start training. We watched several seasons of the show to see what kinds of tasks we might encounter, and we made a spreadsheet of both physical tasks and mental tasks. We did kayaking, rock climbing and even took a navigation compass class. We did a lot of physical training running with backpacks, working out in the gym, Pilates, running on the beach. For the mental part of it, we did crossword puzzles, Sudoku
. And we really worked the kinks out communication-wise ... a lot of that was just working on the tasks and trying to figure out how we communicated with each other.
Danz: One major thing we had to do together was I had to teach Abbie how to drive a stick shift. We would spend a few hours every week. We got into our worst fights over that stick shift. It was, by far, the best preparation we could do as a couple ... . Its funny, we only had a year of time together, a dating relationship, before doing the show. Were not married, so we had to accelerate the relationship and find out who we are as a couple.
Q: Speaking of being a couple, were you at all nervous about putting yourselves out there as a couple you know, be under scrutiny?
Ginsberg: We talked about this a lot. Respect each other and dont put each other down and call one another nasty names. As a teacher, there are 700 to 800 kids in Carlsbad who know me. Add to that the number of parents and siblings, were talking about a large of fan base of children and families. It was important to me to be a good example and be respectful of each other and not condescending and rude during the competition.
Q: How ready were you when you started competing?
Danz: We trained a lot, but Ill be honest, you either have it or you dont when it comes to these kinds of competitions.
Ginsberg: You have to have the combination of brains, the physical strength, street sense and luck thats what makes the show exciting. ... We dropped off the face of the earth while we were training. We were kind of living a hermit lifestyle. Wed bust through an episode and train and do it all over again. It was good preparation.
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