i was on the second row, in front of THE NOISIEST children from Norway, i think the children of couple 101, i was getting pretty p**ed pff with them to be honest, rather spoilt my enjoyment

Hey ho, otherwise it was fab.

The Danish seem to be the noisiest everywhere!

I swear it's all because if this one danish coach that teaches several of the couples. During the youth rounds in Blackpool I was sitting near her and she made so much noise I had ringing in my ear for the rest of the day! She's like the danish cheerleading captain!

Even Winter Gardens isn't that great. It gets impossibly crowded after the qualifying rounds of amateur during May festival. I always end up changing in the men's changing room with my partner!

In Blackpool 2010 the Danes were no problem compared to the China team whose leader hired what surely was a professional girl screamer, whose piercing vocals would do credit to any horror film.

Ever since I have kept a safe distance from latin formation comps featuring China teams. I am not against screaming, but please amateur screamers not professional screamers.

speaking of chinese dancers and Blackpool... who attended May Blackpool this year and witnessed the magic of couple 300?

ok, just checked and they represented HK not China.

Yes, I know exactly who you mean!

Were they in Pro Latin, and if yes..yes myself and Becca did!

Yes they were. You know they had 1 recall back to the next round? Clearly it's not just the SCD judges that are confused about their job!

I remember reading that. They were hilarious. Certainly brightened up our wait til 8.22 when M&J and Sergey&Melia etc start dancing!

My favourite moment was them dancing and The Lorraine was literally crying with laughter and falling off her seat and then Marcus reminding them that lifts weren't allowed etc. Actually died laughing!

Hello,

Is anyone going this year!

I am going this year with people from my dancing school and I am getting very excited!

Each year when I touched down for Blackpool Festival I was minded that home and job was the real world and Blackpool was the illusion. After a few days of eating and sleeping and dance and music and pretty girls, I came to understand that Blackpool was the real world and home was an illusion.

RAH would involve 3 days for me, 2 days to fly in and out, just one day for dance. So I shall be there in spirit only. Have lots of fun Dancing-Girl!

Meanwhile in Quebec Canada, tomorrow and Saturday sees the 2012 Ten Dance World Championship. 22 couples dance in round one, this thins out by the second round on Saturday, then the Final of 6 couples. A Finalist would have danced 30 times including costume and mindset changes. Anyone who thinks it is easy can try.

There are only 2 or 3 serious 10-dance comps in the world nowadays, so 10-dance competing is not a fulltime occupation. Ten-dancers also enter latin and ballroom comps (their day job), with the 10-dance world champion usually placing between top 20 and top 40.

5-dance Kristina made world number 11, Matthew Cutler number 4, and Karen Hardy number 2 one year.

I was going but I am having an operation on the day before. I believe the ticket is still available. I dont have it myself my friend who I was going with has it. If any one is interested I can put you in touch with her.

Elizabeth please tell Vivacious Lady,
Vivacious Gentleman sends his regards.

Vivacious Lady sends her regards to you Soulmate
She doesnt post on here any more as she scrambled her sign in so she couldnt and she hasnt regretted it.

boompsadaisy

This is a great show we go to every year! We were going to go with two Germans tomorrow, but unfortunately they couldn't make it, so we have two spare tickets.

The tickets are for the stalls, section K, row 11, face value £ 43 each, though we're happy to accept lower offers. If you are interested, please pm me, so we can discuss how / when best to hand over the tickets.

Qualifiers from Brentwood going into RAH on Thursday

Amateur Latin
8
27
29
33
34
48
69
81
100
102
115
116
124
125
128
148
151
152
156
161
170
186
205
208
220
227
238
239
250
266
272


Professional Latin
13
14
17
20
23
26
27
37
46
47
49
54
56
60
66
67
68
75
78
80
82
89
92
94
95
97
103
109
115
124
125
128
136
142

I just wanted to say that one of my tickets has now gone. If anyone would like the last one, please let me know. For details see two posts above.

For the first time in England, Riccardo and Yulia beat Michael and Joanna to edge ahead on the computer 2003-2002.

Arunas and Katusha won their 67th consecutive competition to advance their computer score by 1 to 2052 -- after 3 years not yet catching Ed Moses the 400-metres hurdler who won 107 consecutive finals over 11 years.

Any firsthand stories?

Professional Latin:
1 Riccardo Cocchi & Yulia Zagoruychenko USA
2 Michal Malitowski & Joanna Leunis England
3 Sergey Sourkov & Melia Russia
4 Maurizio Vescovo & Andra Vaidilaite Canada
5 Andrej Skufca & Melinda Torokgyorgy Slovenia
6 Stefano Di Filippo & Dariya Chesnokova Italy

Professional Ballroom:
1 Arunas Bizokas & Katusha Demidova USA
2 Viktor Fung & Anastasia Muravyeva USA
3 Andrea Ghigiarelli & Sara Andracchio England
4 Domen Krapez & Monika Nigro Slovenia
5 Valerio Colantoni & Yulia Spesivtseva Russia
6 Sascha & Natascha Karabey Germany

Amateur Latin:
1 Neil Jones & Ekaterina Sokolova England
2 Troels Bager & Ina Jeliazkova Denmark
3 Kyrill Belorukov & Elvira Skrylnikova Russia
4 Ferndinando Iannnacone & Yulia Musikhina Italy
5 Mirko Risi & Maria Ermachkova Italy
6 Morten Lowe & Roselina Doneva Denmark
7 Marek Fiksa & Kinga Jurekca Poland

Amateur Ballroom:
1 Emanuel Valeri & Tania Kehlet Denmark
2 Marek Kosaty & Paulina Glazik Poland
3 Chong He & Jing Shan China
4 Andrew Sadecki & Karina Nawrot Poland
5 Sergiu Rusu & Dorota Makar Poland
6 Lukasz Tomczak & Aleksandra Jurczak Poland

Fabulous have fun,

It is instructive to watch the judges standing round the floor. In spite of the way a lot of people (including Len Goodman) go on about footwork, I have never seen a judge at a competition looking down at the dancers' feet. I remember saying that once on this forum and many people replied that they didn't believe me - they had obviously been brainwashed about the subject.

No they don't appear to look down. The focus seems to be more on topline. However to be fair to Len it isn't just about the footwork in itself but also how it affects the rest of the body. Failure to do a heel lead in ballroom probably means you are not swinging the leg under properly and rolling through the foot and using the ball of the foot to maximum effect to propel forward smoothly. Similarly going backwards, where you roll through the foot and use the heels to push off. Failure to press on the balls of the feet in Latin means you don't get the right hip action.

Which I think was what Karen was saying on ITT the other day about feet powering movement, except she didn't really explain things properly at all and consequently it all sounded a bit meaningless.

The judges watch the cou[ples farthest away from them. The dancers who think that if they dance right in front of a judge it will help, it doesnt. They can see the whole picture from someone dancing a bit farther away.

My dance teacher and his wife are both judges. He says nothing is more irritating than having dance couple right in front of his face and he will step to one side to avoid them.