Cody Rigsby - the first Peloton instructor to compete on 'Dancing with the Stars' - started out as a back-up dancer for Katy Perry

• Cody Rigsby is one of Peloton's star instructors, with 860,000 followers on Instagram.
• He is one of the contestants on season 30 of "Dancing with the Stars."
• Before Peloton, he trained as a dancer and performed with musicians like Katy Perry and Pitbull.

Peloton instructor Cody Rigsby is one of the celebrities competing on season 30 of "Dancing with the Stars."

Before joining Peloton, Rigsby was a professional dancer who performed with A-list musicians including Katy Perry and Pitbull.

Rigsby, Peloton's cycling director, is now well known for his uplifting, empowering rides and pop nostalgia playlists, and, as of publication on September 8, he had 860,000 followers on Instagram, eclipsing the brand's other major stars, including Ally Love (776,000 followers) and Alex Toussaint (495,000 followers).

He loved learning choreography as a child

In a recent interview, Rigsby told the Washington Post he always loved to dance.

As a child in Greensborough, North Carolina, he would learn Britney Spears' and 'N Sync's choreography and then teach the moves to girls in his school.

He didn't have any formal lessons until he was 18, when he started going to free ballet classes at a community center.

Rigsby moved to New York City to be a dancer

After moving to New York City for an internship program at the Broadway Dance Center, he danced at bars and for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

He landed jobs as a dancer for Katy Perry and Pitbull, and worked at The Box, a music, theater, and burlesque club.

"I was literally trying to cram as many jobs as I could into a 24-hour period and make as much money as I could," he said.

He jumped at the chance to teach for Peloton, which was paying instructors $150 per class

Rigsby joined Peloton in its early days after a friend mentioned the company was looking for instructors, and that he would earn $150 a class.

Rather than copy the serious style of some of Peloton's existing trainers, Rigsby said he capitalized on his unique strengths.

"[I decided] to be myself, to be authentic, to lean into the things that I'm good at," Rigsby said, and quickly realized people liked his approach.

"[People] think that they don't know what they're doing, that people are going to judge them, that they're going to look stupid," he said.

"So if you can laugh at yourself and then, in turn, make other people laugh at their insecurities ... we can just really have fun with the relationship that we're creating with our bodies and our minds."