TV Watch

Gilles Marini: I Need Surgery

04/14/2009 at 12:00 AM EDT

He's been ailing since last February, but Gilles Marini is hanging in thanks to his partner Cheryl Burke's "trick" choreography.

"I used only my right arm for the jive. Go check it out," Marini says of Monday night's high-energy jive. "She makes sure I only do what I can do. I didn't use my left arm. I need surgery because the bones in the left shoulder have separated. So after the show I will get surgery and that will take a day and about three weeks to recover and I'll move on with life."

Two seasons ago Burke's partner Cristián de la Fuente tore a tendon in his left bicep while performing the samba. De la Fuente had surgery last May and tells PEOPLE, "I'm one hundred percent better now."



Marini is confident he will be fine, too, and says the injury may have been avoidable if he'd only listened to Burke.

"I tell you, I did not listen to her. I did not pose my arm, I just yanked at it when we did the cha cha because I did not know better and I completely separated it," Marini says. "Now I know better and it will be fine." -- Monica RizzoChelsea Lauren/WireImage