Since this is the time of the Strictly year when we start accusing all the celebs of having an unfair advantage... I give you:

Matt Baker being intensively trained to take part in a latin competition (Jive and Paso), circa 2003
Part two- Matt Baker winning the latin competition

5 days training with world Latin professional champions Michael Stylianos and Lorna Lee.

Including a free lesson with two times British National Latin Professional champions Darren and Lilia (Strictly's most successful pro couple).

Winning a competition judged by Ian Waite.

Despite this, I don't think he will win. I think he's too clean-cut to keep getting the vote all the way through to the final.

Excellent, I'm glad Aliona has a good partner

I'm wondering what the purpose of this thread is. To cause an argument?

I expect it'll be to combat those who are crying wolf on Kara and Michelle.

I thought Michelle was experienced... but this takes the biscuit.

I don't care though, to be honest.

Most impressive! So Kara should not be the only one who's banned for one week for having done some SCD-ish stuff a while ago! This is going to be a cracker of a show!!! Yeah!

Not really... I've posted it in a contentious way, I'll admit. Mostly because I'm just curious what people will make of it. It's one of the quirks of Strictly fans that we don't really care what experience the men have, but we'll pick up on any little advantage the women might have. I'll be willing to bet people don't care about this as much as they care about Kara being taught to do a fairly tame Samba by an ex-cricketer.

This is obviously quite a while ago (I think it must be early 2003), but apart from that it's obviously much better grounding than what Kara has, and yet she's getting a week less training.

But I've had this clip for a long time (obviously) and when it became clear Matt was going to take part, I was asked to post it online again. I used to have just the bit with Darren and Lilia on my old youtube channel.

Feel free to ignore my ramblings and just enjoy the clip.

Btw... I've got a tenner on Matt to win. I've got no interest in stirring things up for him. I genuinely don't think this will.

He was also a gymnast so must be fairly flexible and so forth......however much as though I personally dont like him.....I think its no more experience than Kara or Michelle have, and Aliona is still an unknown quantity in the coreography stakes. I think he will have to be very very good to win and I am not sure he has the performance gene.

Is that definitely true though? If so what bilge, like a week makes much difference.

I don't mind too much myself, how do u quantify how much is too much experience to do the show? I've always felt it should be so long as they aren't trained in Ballroom or latin, but then I think the same as I do with Kara, what difference will a weeks worth training do? And I would never have taken Cherie Lunghi out of the show just because she apparently had quite a lot thirty years ago.

Hey Tyler ........I think Felicity has a look of Rachel when she is older........heres hoping she dances as well as Rachel too !!!

I don't think Kara should be penalised for Sport Relief... it's almost irrelevant in my eyes. If Matt had done this last year then he would be a good candidate for a week less, but I'd be impressed if he remembers much about it. What I think this video shows though is that he's likely to pick things up quite quickly.

I like having a bit of insider knoweldge, so I held onto the clip until I'd placed my bet! Unfortunately he was already a favourite so it probably wasn't worth it! And perversely I don't think he will win... but I'm often wrong about these things, so hey!
It's gonna need to be looking at some of the other celebs...

Thank you. Haven't seen that for a while

Sorry, it was a casualty of my youtube cull! I've got a few other things I may quietly re-post at some point (D&L, not Matt Baker!)

Ooooh that would make me happy if you did Only if you can of course.

Whoops I seem to have gone off topic.

Watching the clips it got a little bit heated between Zoe and Matt.

I'll pop a list on the D&L thread of things I've got and could re-upload... probably not till the weekend as I'm v tired, just posting on here until it's an acceptable time to go to sleep!

Actually, there are already some I think would be good, Goldie, the psychologist (Pam?), and Jimi, besides Michelle and Kara.

Wow! This is going to be interesting!!!

Katie on behalf of myself thank you so much for this - I am eternally grateful for this and I would love to be friends with you - believe me that's how happy I am.

From Hayley

Previous dance training does matter to me, as at the start of the show everyone is not on a level playing field.

Matt did have some ballet training for his gymnastics. It's difficult to quantify how much help previous dancing is, as it depends what type it was, how much and how long ago. Pamela said she had polio as a child and was sent to dance lessons to strengthen her legs, and that would have been 50 years ago. Most who have gone to stage school have had some dance training.

I cant forsee a fair way of handicapping the experienced dancers and the BBC are very unlikely to list the dance experience of each celeb, so I think it is only really for personal knowledge if anyone is interested enough to let it change the way they rate the celebs.

Matt does look like he will be a good dancer, so we will get to see how good a choreographer Aliona is.

I think the female pros do a fair bit of subtle leading though (and a lot of corrective following), so I'd like to hear from him about that after the show ends.

Hi, my sentiments exactly Jan!

I think she may not dance as well as Rachel (Rachel WAS a good dancer), but I'm sure she'll not be robotic in her performance. In the groups dance, she gave it all. That's what I would have expected of the celebs to do in show like this. I am so looking forward to seeing her dance with Vincent!!! They look a happy (dance) couple.

Why? I would think vote the viewing and more importantly voting demographics would go for a cliff Richard type? He's also done the 7 PM same time slot type of shows on BBC 1 and the watching sheepdogs jumping over fences type weekend shows that might also share the same viewers? Gethin did alright. Chris did very well last year? I agree they have some muscular sportsmen - but footballers don't tend to be that good and Charlotte has lots of fans.

Well if he can win a latin competition he must be good.

2003? It shows a clip of Jill dancing. Series 2 was in 2004? I've looked it up and Zoe hadn't even joined BP in 2003.

Sorry, you're right. It's early 2005. I was actually dating it based on the fact it was between series two and three, but I was tired and got the years muddled up

Well, I do think it will give him a bit of an advantage, particularly combined with his gynnastics background. I don't mind though; I think it will make the competition more interesting.