I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you say this because you don't dance a lot and not because your favourite dancer is female and you're out to prove that she's had it as hard, if not harder than the boys?
Because if you do have the experience and know about the role of men and women in dancing and still choose to ignore for the sake of your favourite and frankly insult women by saying that Karen and Camilla are not qualified to be judges just because they are women, then maybe it's a sign that you're getting too personally involved in this show, which is
just an entertainment!
Originally Posted by Monaogg:
“ Both Karen & Camilla have the viewpoint of training a Male celebrity and need to justify some reason why it is harder for the men, especially when some dances involve more work by the female half of the pairing.”
Or perhaps they are giving their points of view as female dancers and professionals who have been dancing since an early age and know what is involved in dancing for both men and women?!
Originally Posted by Monaogg:
“James has also commented on how hard it is for the woman to do some dances, yet no one seems to be calling for James as a judge.”
So how come you think Karen and Camilla have female bias, but James doesn't have male bias?!
James has previously claimed that a certain step in Cha Cha which requires straight legs shouldn't be danced on straight legs, and one should not point his/her foot in jive kicks, all to defend his celebrity. His word isn't exactly gold!
And was James saying that all dancing is harder for women, or just a specific part?!
I am a woman, and do you know how I learnt the salsa? A few years ago I went to a salsa club and danced with the first man who asked me. That was it. I had previous dance experience in other styles, so had a sense of rhythm, but didn't know what the basic steps for salsa, mambo, batchata, etc were, and to be honest hadn't seen much salsa before. But all it took me to learn salsa was to dance with a man who could lead me. I dragged a few of my non-dancing girlfriends to the salsa club, and they too learnt it in the same way. It took them a little bit longer than me, but they didn't need to be told which steps to do either.
My boyfriend, who was my ex dance partner and is currently a highly ranked competitor, I also took salsaing with me. He had to stand around and watch some guys dance for a while before he could start dancing with me. Had I taken a guy less accomplished than him to salsa, he would've had to go to classes before being able to dance.
It doesn't end there either. All through my dance life whenever I and any of my parters needed to get a new routine, our coach (whether male or female) would teach me by leading me around the floor. Whereas my dance partners would have to be taught by a combination of leading and telling them what steps they need to do, and often times what steps I need to do. It was generally easier in Ballroom because most steps in ballroom have a clear name and sequence or are derived from a simpler step with a name, and also the connection in ballroom is such that leading and following is easier. So never in my whole career did a teacher had to tell me what step to do when teaching me a new routine. Even in Latin where there are a lot of separate steps, because a lot of girls' moves come from the leader' body movement I had very little instructions to guide me through my new routine, it was again usually done by leading.
And when it came to learning the routine, I normally learnt them faster than my parters, because they needed to learn their steps and be aware of my steps so they know how to link our steps together, or the direction of the dance.
Kara's Salsa from last year and Robbie & Ola's samba from this year both contained the same move. But Kara does it better than Ola, simply because of the lead she's getting from her professional partner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhXolH3Tof8
around 00:56
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kno9THkcuAY
around 1:09
It's the step where the girl stands on the right of the mand and does a head whip while there is a handshake (right hand to right hand) connection between them. If you look you can see Artem's body (mostly obvious in his chest) moving in time with Kara's head, and that's actually where Kara's movement is coming from.
Or another example is pivots. Seen a lot of them done in many dances, both Latin and ballroom. Both Chris Hollins and Harry had them in their rumbas. The difference is that Chris is just doing pivots, whereas between each pivot in HA's rumba Aliona does a spin. If there was no help from Harry during these, Aliona would either not be able to finish the spin on time or it would look very messy. But Harry is both pivoting, a skill that's quite difficult to acquire, and leading Aliona through her spins. And by adding these spins Aliona has made the routine more interesting and has shown off her celeb's leading abilities to those in the know (e.g the judges). But the viewers at home who don't dance themselves jump to the conclusion that "Aliona was doing a lot of faffing about while Harry had simple steps."
Dancing is about showing off the woman. Even in Paso which is more or less a man's dance, the women still need to decorate the dance with spins and extreme shapings. A man who does more steps than his partner or draws attention to himself is dubbed "selfish" or "self-centred" in the dance world (unless his name is Slavik!

) . This of course means that women have another difficult part to fulfil. Because how much they're on the show, and because their outfits show their legs and feet and arms, and their movement more than men's, women's dancing need to be neater and more precise than the man's (by that I mean the man's problems don't get noticed as much as the woman's). But these are skills that are thought in all dace styles, and more so in styles such as ballet. Which means that women who have had previous training in more classical styles such as ballet (like Jill, Rachel, Pamela, Kara, Chelsee, the girl who danced with Jared last year), don't really have to worry about it. At least not in the scale of SCD. For girls like Alex or even Alesha who haven't had these trainings before, I agree with James that dancing becomes very difficult. Because these are skills that are very hard to acquire in the 3 months of SCD, because they are more physical (they're about ability to control muscles). Which is one reason why for example James did so much fitness training with Alex.