Remembering the old dance halls from years ago the floors were always very slippy, and I wondered why none of the dancers ever slip or slide.

I have no idea, I wouldn't even make it down the stairs without falling flat on my face.

you know I was thinking the very same thing last night especially with nerves as they came downstairs without looking down..I thought they all did rather well .

When my mom & dad went to dances on a Saturday evening (many years ago now), their dance shoes had what appeared to be suede for the soles.

But I think some dancers still slip - I'm sure that it has happened a couple of times on Strictly.

I had been told that years ago about the soles of their shoes being a chamois material but thought it was made up story.

Yes, my dance shoes have suede soles which you have to remember to brush now and then. However I've heard that the SCD studio dance floor is particularly slippery, even taking into account the dancers having the proper shoes.
Last edited by Vivacious Lady : 19-09-2009 at 13:46

dance shoes have suede soles on them

dancers do still slip tho so its not fool proof!

They do slip occasionally, the most famous example being Ian during his and Zoe's showdance.

Ian slipped on Zoe's fan though, so that wasn't really the floor's fault!

Well, yeah, but the fan slipped on the floor so in a round about way we can blame the floor too

haha, excuses excuses. speaking of ian i think jade will be great tonight

Ian said on ITT last year that they brush them to roughen them up and I have seen Matt Cutler wet the bottoms of his.

You brush them with a steel brush when the floor is slippery, and you put talc on them when the floor is sticky - well we did in the olden days!

Matt di Angelo in his fast and furious quickstep stumbled and was 50% into a fall but he recovered. Not sure if it was his shoe or the floor.

I thought that it was because the sides of his shoes touched and momentarily stick together as the one foot was passing the other. I'm sure than maybe Len on ITT had said something about rubbing some Vaseline onto the sides to prevent that from happening.

They do slip sometimes. I remember Ian Waite falling right onto his knees and bouncing back up again like a Zebedee one year. Very good viewing.

I can only remember Tom slipping in one of his ballroom dances last year.

The foxtrot in the Final.
Without hesitation Camilla put in 2 extra steps to get back into sync with Tom. Well done Camilla.

Like a Zebedee made me laugh out loud , he realy dod bounce up like a spring .

At Blackpool this year, there was a bottle of fizzy drink where we were standing, and one professional latin couple (not sure who) opened this drink, poured it on the floor and stood in it, presumably to make their shoes sticky (I was just stood staring in disbelief at the cheekiness of that!).

I'm sure Ian said years ago on ITT they use Coke etc to make their soles sticky.

Dancers also use oil etc to make their shoes more slippery so they haven't got as much friction between them and the floor I presume.