Within competitive ballroom dancing, there are two categories.

It's a bit artificial, but generally ballroom dances are progressive (moving around the room in the line of dance) and latin dances are not (they generally go anywhere). Also, ballroom dances are in ballroom hold. Not surprisingly


Yes. By far. Trust me on this.

Bear in mind that both "ballrooom" and "latin" are artificially-imposed categories.

So trying to fit other dances into these categories doesn't really work.

which pro was it ?

That might be a bit harsh - it's only really Joe and Kristina who went out of hold, isn't it? And it's not like they got 10s...

Oh, and


I'm not sure if they should be allowed lifts for AT. In social AT dancing, you never do lifts.

But I guess it's quite common in Show Tango, so they have it in the competition.

I thought that it was one of the most attractive traits in Arlene that she couldn't stop herself enjoying the assets of the most attractive male dancers. We all did! So I can't agree with claire2281.

Really? Coming from a complete ignorance of ballroom/latin/AT dance, I'd kind of assume there wouldn't be much to choose between any of those dances in terms of difficulty at a professional level.

I'm probably asking a completely redundant question here, but if that's the case how are Vincent and Flavia world AT show champions but not that highly placed (comparatively) in either ballroom or latin? Are they stretching themselves a bit thin or is AT just their niche?

In s2, Camilla and Roger got pulled up by Arlene over a "jump" in their Quickstep, yet it's been done ever since. And, I think they do something similar in competitions too..

It was something similar done to the jump in this about 2min9 in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqMzZzs1Dhg

well if Arlene pulled them for something similar to that one she was plainly wrong

Indeed. I think Camilla picked her up on it and said it was allowed, I have the video..somewhere :lol:

It must be pretty easy for the women to accidentally lift both their feet and for people to say it was a lift rather than a mistake.

That was the same series that Jill got penalised for very slightly raising her foot off the floor for about two seconds in her Cha Cha

I don't remember Roger and Camilla's, but it's clearly not a lift. I'd love to see the man who can lift a woman when he himself is mid-air

That quickstep is absolutely amazing though!

The 'top' ballroom or latin couples specialise and competively speaking stick to one style - it is quite rare to reach World standards at both a very notable exception in recent years is the Hiltons who were World Amateur Latin Champs and later became World Professional Ballroom Champs - but even they only competed one style.

vincent and flavia are of a high standard for 10 dancers and think they have been world 10 dance finalists but none of the 10 dance finalists are of a standard to be finalists in either style in the other comps - sorry not explaining too well.

No that makes sense, and I've kind of understood that about ten dance from previous posts (probably yours!). But doesn't that make it all the more notable that they then reach number one in AT show style dance?

Of course to reach number one at anything is notable but AT showdance is not competed as widely as Ballroom or Latin and some of the purists would say not as high a standard either as say the actual AT world champs comps.

I myself have always rated Vincent and Flavia for their overall high standard in both AND feel sorry for them that Anton is wrongly called mr ballroom on the show as their ballroom is of a higher standard

Well.... we may be getting dangerously close to a serious dance discussion here, and obviously we couldn't have that... BUT, in my opinion, the level of connection, improvisation, and continuous lead-and-follow demanded of AT makes it a seriously difficult dance to get started with.

So I'd say that, whilst becoming "brilliant" in any dance form requires arguably the same level of work, some dances have steeper initial learning curves than others.

And I'd say that the AT initial learning curve is so steep it's practically vertical. There's just so much to learn in it, simply to be able to get started.


They're not


Well, it's like sports - most decathletes couldn't compete with single-sport specialists.

That's because Anton's really really really bad at Latin...

I thought that trait in her always came across as highly unprofessional and why I failed to take her seriously much of the time.

Thanks, that explanation makes a lot of sense and answers what I was basically not getting. I guess when the only info you get on dancing is from ITT with the judges at one time or another claiming that every dance is more difficult than every other dance, it's hard to get a sense of these things!


I agree completely (or as Alesha would put it, 110% ). I definitely felt Arlene should be replaced, just not with someone like Alesha.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

To be fair, each dance is difficult in different ways - but some seem to have shallower initial learning curves than others.

Chacha seems less technically-demanding than others in some ways, the only real requirement is to move to the rhythm at that level - if you can sell the dance you can get away with a lot.