Hannah Brown has been nailing every routine on this season of Dancing With the Stars, out-performing many of her fellow contestants by literal leaps and bounds. Although her routines have left audiences in awe, the judges seem to be critiquing Brown and her dance pro partner Alan Bersten more harshly than many of the other contestants.

The former Miss Alabama believes that the fact the she danced recreationally when she was younger — and the fact that that information became public knowledge — has worked against her in the ballroom competition.

"A lot of the contestants do have just as much training as I have but because that has been kind of out — because I did pageants I obviously had a talent at some point and had to work for that — they critique me more on dance," Brown told Woman's Day.

Judges Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba, and Bruno Tonioli have all made references to Brown's dance history, which largely consisted of ballet. During the third week of the competition, Inaba told Brown she needed to work on her hip movement more because from "someone with as much training as you have, we need to see you get into the ballroom and latin styling.”

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According to Brown, it can feel like the judges are expecting her to have more technical knowledge than she actually does.

"I never was anywhere close to being a professional dancer or pursuing that," Brown said. "I think in my small town you either did cheerleading or you danced when you were little, or maybe softball, and you picked one. So I do think it’s a little hard and they assume that I should be better or should know things."

The 25-year-old reality star said that getting harsher critiques on technical aspects that her fellow competitors aren't being judged on can be pretty frustrating, but she has learned to turn it into motivation to do better each week.

"I’m just like everybody else learning something completely new each week and it doesn’t come easy to me at all, so I think it can be a little discouraging but it also makes me want to work harder to show them that I can step it up."

Dancing With the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Laura Hanrahan Laura is a NYC-based freelance writer.

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