Yes - that's what I was groping towards saying, you put it better than I could.

My feeling is that Natalie's not explaining the nature of the dance to Ricky, whereas others do explain that to their partners, at least enough to put some of the spirit into it. I get the impression she's simply throwing a lot of complexity at him and relying on his natural ability to pick it up.

Fair enough.



Ooopsie! and an added ouch!

I've seen my daughters ballroom and latin teachers attempting to teach them salsa also but I'm guessing they don't have a great deal of specialisation in that area either because it don't look good. (it is usually only done as a filler between new terms so not really much effort put into it)



Will have to look at Heather's one again I can't bring it to mind at the moment. I think Laila is the only one left to do a salsa this series. Can't say I'm looking forward to two samba's and a salsa next week but stranger things have happened

I thought it was fascinating watching the 'training tips' vt on ITT.

Natalie didn't have a clue ' I don't believe in 'beginners' you get up to my standard - fast'. And then some guff about props being useful.

Erin stressed getting to know your partner and their fears, strengths and weaknesses. Vincent said that he makes them listen over and over to the music, and explains the character and mood of the dance.

It was hugely telling, and something I'd been groping towards understanding from Ricky and Natalie's performances. I genuinely think he has been landed with a poor, flashy teacher, with someone who has some innate, but not codified and properly self-articulated understanding of dance. And who is therefore not a great communicator and teacher.

She has confidence, ability and ideas, but no, I don't know, beautiful dance heart, or something, and she can't communicate what she does not really understand.

That's why it seems to be all tricks and 'attitude', and why Ricky is struggling. He shouldn't be struggling at all.

Erin would have taught him, and looked worse than him in some dances by now - and that's not a criticism.

Come on then - anybody disagree?

If you think yer 'ard enough like

(Note to self: drink less wine on Saturdays.)

Disagree with the skills of Erin - remember muppetgate and her AS with Austin.

Agree that Natalie Lowe has fallen short - but this is her first season, so if she's asked back I hope she's learnt from this series.

Love the choreography of most established pros - most of all Ian.

Fate dealt him a bloody unfair blow this year - with Jade he could have lifted the glitter ball.

I agree about Erin not being infallible.

I thought her As with Austin was awful. I don't know what happened, but Austin couldn't 'take off' without her in hold, unless he was doing something 'butch'.

I'm not sure it was all down to her.

Muppetgate I just want to forget -she's paid enough for that.

I think that's pretty much my attitude.

Basically, Ricky's not progressed much - he's very good, but he started off being very good. With his initial advantages, by now, I'd expect him to be unbeatable, and he's not; he's stayed at the "very good" level.

And I think that lack of progress is - at least partially - down to Natalie.


Blimey, I thought I was the only one who got over-argumentative on the forum after too much wine...

Sure, she's dropped some clangers - that's the thing about tailoring choreography, there are risks to it.

She's certainly not perfect, but she's now taken several competitors beyond where you'd expect them to be - Ricky Groves is a classic example, very little dance talent but oodles of performance, and she tailored the routines to suit.


Yes, me too. The good ones definitely improve with experience.


Yes, I think he had a good shot, and he was doing well with training and choreographing Jade; their Jive was excellent, for example.

Exactly - loving Natalie's work with Ricky - look forward to more great dancing.

I have no clue about the technicalities of dancing/choreography but some of Erin's dances over the years have made me cringe slightly. I'm not into things like Ricky's hair-combing, Austin's roar at the start of his Paso etc. Muppet-gate left me open-mouthed in shock!

I think Ricky W might have done better with a different partner. He is a good dancer but I agree with the people who say he hasn't improved as much as he might have done with someone else.

I think Ola is pretty good at choreographing (or developing other experts' choreography) to show her celeb as best she can. For example, last night's Charleston had very little in the way of the dance's most basic step - I'd imagine that Chris wasn't very good at it. Yet what emerged was probably the most crowd-pleasing dance of the night.

Interestingly, conspiracy theories happen when the pro DOES do a good job like this. The judges probably have some technical element to their mark and score accordingly - so Ali got more marks than Chris last night since she DID do a better Charleston in terms of content. But people are left with a sense that the 'best' dance (in terms of exciting an audience reaction) was somehow undermarked.

PS to the above post: it would help, probably, if the judges tried to sum this sort of thing up better in their comments. I know it's a difficult task in ten seconds, but um... "fantastic performance, great crowdpleaser, but we did need some more basic steps so that we could see your basic mastery of the actual dance" would educate the audience a bit better than "pickle my walnuts". Perhaps things wouldn't get so heated then.

I actually don't feel quite the same way about the Muppet dance. Yes, I too would have liked to see them get rid of the dolls part way through but I totally get her reasons for doing it in the first place. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of the judges actually giving any comments about how good Colin was dancing on his own. It was all just, how old fashioned, end-of-the-pier, 'Erin, what were you thinking', stuff. I thought it was very brave of both of them.

I remember being disappointed about that too, because Colin really did a beautiful job and he couldn't half dance. I felt gutted for Erin too, as I could see where she was coming from. One of those things.

Actually, although I'm supporting Chris and Ola, I don't think Ola is a particularly good choreographer. To a certain degree, her routines can look repetitive (I don't know anything about dance). James seems to be very similar to her.

Erin on the other hand seems to choreograph stuff that suits her celebrity (e.g. Willie, Julian etc.). I also like Ian's choreography, I think he is absolutely fabulous.

I do agree with people about Natalie's choreography, and I think even Karen Hardy criticised her for some of her dances (e.g. the jive). Somehow, she wants to be flashy without considering on how to present her celebrity in the best possilbe light.

Vincent is absolutely fab (although he can get it wrong - VW with Louisa) and I think Lilia is also very good at choreographing something to suit her celebrity.