There definitely needs to be more of a balance for the females between being lifted and on-ice skating. You'd think T&D would have learned from Suzanne's experience that neither judges nor public are going to award the marks/votes if the celeb is off the ice for much of the routine. Bonnie looked fab in the air but like a frightened horse on a frozen lake (or an ice rink if you will ) as soon as her skates touched the rink surface. Yet, as we have seen, she could skate perfectly well once she'd practised so the lift prevalence wasn't for lack of ability necessarily.

Whether it's fair or not, many viewers regard lifts as the easy option. I think it's partly that, while they acknowledge that there's skill involved, it isn't necessarily skill (or not obviously so) that requires a great deal of skating ability. That is to say, if Jennifer (being a possible case in point) performs a beautiful and complex lift during her routine, there's a tendency to think - well that's very impressive and I can see it's difficult but she's a trained dancer, of course she can do that sort of thing. Going into and coming out of a lift may be tougher than it looks but it's never going to look as difficult to the majority of viewers (even if it is) as a male celeb skating and lifting their partner although their lift may be much easier.

In short, the women need to prove very good skating ability and not just with regard to transition in and out of lifts. If they don't satisfy in this respect, they can say goodbye to winning. In fact even if they do it may not be enough but without excellent on-ice skills that basically smack the viewers in the face with their excellence they're toast, unfair though that may be.

It's what Len would call, "Too much faffing about". I totally agree, it's an unwelcome and unnecessary idea. It's called Dancing on Ice, not Dancing About On the Steps before even getting on the Ice!

Great summary and i am one of those viewers who thinks like that. When judges praise those with dance training for having lovely lines I am sat there thinking 'well they're a trained dancer so they bloody well should have'. Ultimately they have to display skating skills to get my vote. Jorgie is a lovely performer but she hasn't wowed me yet and will have to display more skating abilty to do so. I do think she has potential to be another Suzanne though and T&D have acknowledged she needs to work more on her basic skating skills so hopefully that will come.

I actually think Jorgie will be even better than Suzanne by the final.

And during the routines there's more dancing in place, walking on the ice, dancing on toe picks and other ways to put dance content into routines without skating or even being lifted by a partner who's skating. Even the more capable celebs such as Jorgie and Matthew are getting a lot of it in their routines.




Not if the choreographers keep giving her so little skating in her routines.

I also think they're wasting Chemmy's potential as a skater by making her spend too much time on unsuitable lifts.

Both Katarina and Robin tried to warn against it, in different ways, but Chemmy didn't seem to get it -- someone needs to tell her that skating is a challenge too -- and Katarina was booed by the crowd!

Not entirely sure if this is something to be proud of or not, but they quoted me in the Daily Mail today:

And StrictlySid, as he calls himself, said: 'Enjoyed movie week but agree with @Katarina_Witt - more skating on the ice & less emphasis on lifts please!'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...#ixzz1kObSs9Ir

Silly buggers slightly misspelt my Twitter name though

Fame at last. Think there is a couple of quotes there from here too.

Talking of mistakes I did laugh at a Sun article that called Karen Barber Karen Hardy.

Oooh Tiger I think we've just connected in the world of Twitter

Shouldn't be too surprised the tabloids make mistakes. They're not exactly known for their attention to detail

Wow, you're Digital Spy royalty now

I think I should have got some royalties from the Daily Mail

At least they knew your gender! The Daily Mail quoted me for Britain's Got Talent and called me a he.

Haha good on you for being quoted, I hope they listen!

You can't by definition though please people who think both sexes are there to do the same thing. Even if the good girls do more skating, they will still be doing less than the males as move around is all most of the males can do. The comparison will still be there. They also can't concentrate on their skating when they are perfecting lifts and other moves more than the males. Meanwile, if they do less tricks and lifts, their team will look dull compared to the pro girls who are really turning on the tricks for the celeb male teams- while their males often do very little.. The celeb girls are in competition for votes with what the pro girls can achieve with restricted help from a celeb male. its not a race to see which celeb can skate fastest or furthest , or pass a technique course. The girls will always lose that race against males, just as they would lose a 100M race - and in this race they are also up against some trained sprinters in the pro girls.

There's also no similarity between the best and average female skaters. Jorgie is already doing a good mixture of solo skating, dance moves and tricks like jumps, which none of the males is matching. She did two of the usul skilsl tests in last week's routine well before they are scheduled. She 's doing difficult lifts already that no one else there can do, and may never do, and which I doubt if any of the males celebs will manage to get up in the air.There's no comparison between that and the females who are being carried around because no one can think of anything else for them to do. The reality is that some females won't do much ever - just as its reality that most males never get to do much either.

There has to be a balance - but the point of Suzanne winning wasn't that they cut out the lifts. Music I think had 5, and she won partly because she put some of the more spectacular ones into her final Muisc and flying routines , and made them progressively more difficult and more dynamic. What they did stop doing after Nicky complained, was giving her the duller time filling, carrying lifts. They kept the difficult vote winning ones and developed them - but added more dance moves, used her acting ability more, and gave her good routines to strong music. They seem to be doing exactly the same already for Jorgie so far. All of the judges are already making the point that her routines are complete and two are putting her ahead of Matt overall (though Katerina just said it and marked them equal )

It remains to be seen whether T and D can keep the choregraphy balance right and the impact up. Even the best people don't usually get that many good complete routines. If they can, and Jorgie continues to progress, she can win in the same way as Suzanne did- and Matt looks duller and weaker than Chris to me. If Matt can improve, he ought to be in with a chance too. If the vote goes on attractiveness, or people vote less for Jorgie because they can't understand the different roles of the sexes, or can't grasp thet the routines are T and D's not hers, Matt may win regardless of how well she does.

imho if they insist on having lifts then they should be limited to one or two a dance. Some of the girls spend more time in the air than on their skates!!!

They should have one week at least where no lifts are allowed and they have to impress us with their skating skills alone.

AND stop all this faffing around off the ice. Its Ice dancing not faffing around at the edges with a bit of skating at the end!!

And - maybe its time for the pros to do the choreography like on SCD and then it makes it more competitive and makes the pros more integral to the competition.

I can't imagine why


It'd also freshen things up a bit because there is a sense of déja vu with T & D's routines.

I was really surprised last year though, when I think it was Chloe's partner (Michael?) said he had never choreographed a routine before, when faced with coming up with a Bolero! I wonder how many of the other pros have no experience choreographing?

Tbh I found that a bit crazy, because surely if you love skating you would mess about with putting different steps together occasionally? At least to the extent that you could manage a routine for DOI, obviously it doesn't have to be of international competition standard!

That was Laura's partner Colin.

They gave her more skating.

The point was not that they cut out the lifts: it was that they cut back on the amount of time spent in lifts and put in more skating.

I feel that was essential to her winning, because otherwise too many people would believe she was a poor skater.

A similar thing happened Sunday when both Katarina and Robin indicated, in different ways, that Chemmy had spent too much time trying to master an unsuitable lift when her strength was skating.

Unfortunately, Chemmy seems to have developed the belief that lifts are a greater challenge.


What they're doing with Jorgie, imo, is neglecting her skating and taking advantage of her dance skills in ways that won't strengthen her skating.

I suppose she might win in that Hayley-like fashion, but I doubt it.

It showed as well didn't it - Laura's Bolero was a sad disappointment compared to Sam's and she was just as capable of the kind of lyrical performance that Bolero demands

One thing nobody's mentioned is making sure that lifts come at the appropriate place in the music - if you're going to do a big lift, then build it into the performance and make it dramatic. Ones I remember are things like Chris Fountain's 'Rule the World' routine where he did a crucifix lift at the point where the chorus begins, or Sam's drape lift of Brianne to 'Stop and Stare' last year. Lifts done like that fit with the music and suit the programme - but otherwise I agree they're a good skate spoiled.

Oh yes, thanks.

That was a real shame, I agree they suffered for that bigtime in their Bolero.

1. Do the female celebs spend more time in lifts than the male celebs spend lifting, or less, or about the same?

2. Are the lifts done by the female celebs crowd-pleasers? (I mean with the whole audience as the "crowd" not just the ones there where the show's made.) T&D, and so also the show's producers, seem to think so, or else they wouldn't put so many in.

Here's my all time favourite (at around 2m57sec)

http://youtu.be/-XaEwkuoqFQ

Nicky spoilt the party by giving them 5.5 when everyone else gave a 6.

Some do - some don't! For some of the weaker women eg Charlene/ Rosemary... being lifted allows their partner to make them LOOK as though they are doing a performance, and they fill up time to minimise the amount of skating they need to do. These two are lifted by their partners and don't seem to have much to do to get into or out of the lift... ie Mark and Matthew lift them up and put them down. Some like like Jorgie and Jennifer have to participate iin the lift as without their input the lift they are doing wouldn't happen. Chemmy was trying her best with the lift she was given - but she mucked up the entry so never got the balance needed.

Likewise with the men - Mark and Corey were too busy just staying upright to be able to do anything other than the most basic of lifts in their routines - and to be honest - if i was a female pro - I wouldn't WANT to risk my livelihood being lifted (OK I mean dropped ) by someone who could barely stay upright themselves. In Corey's case - he didn't look to have the strength needed to lift Brooke into the overhead lifts anyway. Matt on the other hand has the power and technique to lift Nina and make it look easy.

The male pros are all used to doing lifts and have the upper body strength and the stability to lift and throw rookie partners about effortlessly - not many of the male celebs will ever get to that stage

What I'm trying to say - its easy for a male pro to do spectacular lifts cos they have been doing it for years - its nigh impossible for a male celeb to be able to pull off similar ones! And its easy for a female celeb to look good in lifts if she has had any dance training which has taught her how to hold herself whilst being lifted as well as being able to assist her partner in getting in and out of the lifts too! those with no dance training are at a disadvantage!



Judging by the reaction on here to the preponderance of lifts I don't think that they are really crowd pleasers... What might look fantastic in the studio/ rink won't be as amazing to us because of cr@p camera work..... I think a lot of the audience also realise that for the women loads of lifts in a routine means that they can't actually skate when put down on the ice (Bonnie being a case in point!).

The main problem for me is that a female celeb can have a lot of her shortcomings hidden by a good male pro lifting her and pushing/ pulling her around. The feamle pros have a harder job making their partners look as good because they can't hide behind lifts (unless of course - they attempt Marika Humphrey's "Gender Bender" lift from series 1 where she lifted Sean Wilson!

I like Clare and Andrei a lot.

However, I think Nicky was right, in a way. Or perhaps ahead of this time. I don't think that routine looks nearly as impressive now as it did then. Even though it was from the final, it doesn't look that much beyond what Jorgie can already do, and I think even Jennifer might be able to match it weeks before the final.

Claire does a nice bit of solo skating starting at approx 3:23, but at other points her skating seems tentative and even a bit unsteady. Even in the nice bit, she looks very nervous at the end when she takes Andrei's hand and we can see her face. So it must have been right at the limit of what she could do.

And the routine is packed with (imo too many) lifts, most of them not especially impressive. The headbanger (or similar) at the end is good because she does it from a standing, moving start.

I agree that the big lift came at an appropriate point, but it was mostly just a balance high in the air sort of lift.

It dosen't always seem to be about how tall or stocky the male is. Ray wasn't particularly big or tall and he managed all the lifts he was given?