Even seven years removed from her Dance Moms career, Kendall Vertes is still mom Jill's "little Kendall." Now on the James Madison dance team, she spoke to E! News about living on a new floor.

More than a decade after Kendall Vertes' Dance Moms debut, the 21-year-old finally made her way to the top of the pyramid—and then directly into the Daytona surf.

"I sure did," she reflected in an exclusive interview with E! News of helping the James Madison Dukettes win their fifth NDA national championship. Though, she allowed, "Being on a college dance team is very different from the competitive dancing that we've done."

Though she did pull off the front aerial mom Jill Vertes once chided her to perform on-camera because she "needed to stay stretch." Joked Kendall, "I pulled that out. My back is still hurting!"

And, naturally, Jill was on hand to cheer on her little Kendall.

"Oh my god, she's at every game," Kendall confessed to fellow Dance Moms alums Chloé Lukasiak, JoJo Siwa, Brooke Hyland, Paige Hyland and Kalani Hilliker while discussing their May 1 reunion special. "She and my dad drove to Florida from Pittsburgh. They didn't want to fly. They were at every performance. If you watch the video, you can see my dad, like, fist pumping in the air."

In fact, joked the political science major, "They got VIP seats so they didn't have to be distracted by people."

And while Jill remains the ultimate supportive stage mom, Kendall has also held onto a few traits from her years under Abby Lee Miller's tutelage.

"I've definitely learned a lot from my past with Dance Moms competing," she said of her six seasons on the Lifetime series. "The stakes are very different. You have a camera in front of yourself, versus a university that you're representing. But I've learned so much from Abby, the good, the bad and how to calm my nerves because we've all been under very stressful circumstances."

So, these days, before she hits that mat, she can reflect on her time shaking off the anxiety with a little 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

"It's basically what I've been working for, for three-and-a-half months with my team, all for a two minute dance," explained the college junior. "So at the end of the day, you just have to go out and do what you've been doing your entire life."

And, aside from the sage save-your-tears-for-your-pillow wisdom, "I've learned a lot of different experiences from Abby," continued Kendall, "and I've tried to incorporate that into my college dance team. It's definitely helped a lot."

And now that she's a fully fledged adult, versus a somewhat prone to tears tween, she was excited to show Dance Mom fans her true personality "because they didn't get to see who we were as kids," she explained. "They just saw us going through the motions and doing what we were told every day and I think now they can see how we react to a certain situation or a moment that happened between us and a mom or us and Abby." 

Not to mention see that the Abby Lee Dance Company squad is every bit as tight now as they were in their headpiece- and sequin-heavy youth. (The proof is in the matching tattoos.) Check out what Kendall and the rest of the team have been up to since they stopped living on Abby's dance floor.

Source:
courtesy of E!ONLINE

by SARAH GROSSBART

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