Two things:

I haven't insulted anyone and you are not my superior. :sleep:

Stop being so precious.

I cannot fathom why the judges are being so harsh on him either, I would be gutted if I was Nicky and Karen, especially when other dancers with less ability (imo) are getting treated with kid gloves. It seems wrong. Didn't like Karen at the beginning but I think she is working really hard with him and deserves a bit of credit.

For me it looks like Karen has only been teaching Nicky the routines and none of the basics, which is where all the problems stem from.

Craig's mark at least brought the score to a more realistic level for that odd rumba.

A couple of points. Firstly, I'm not sure it's Nicky they aren't keen on or Karen, who they seem to have taken against.

Secondly, had Len got a comment last night, I think he might have balanced it a bit more. The Rumba is, I think, very hard for any male celebrity to shine at. Female celebs have more success because a great deal of it seems to be the woman dancing around the man.

I didn't think Nicky's Rumba was exceptionally good, but it was considerably better than the judges' comments suggested.

If you don't like him, then fine...but don't level unfounded criticism at him for the sheer hell of it.

I don't know him personally, but it is loud and clear to me that he is a perfectionist and his own harshest critic. He wants so badly to learn to dance and is doing is utmost to improve. Though he is not great, he is making strides..which NONE of the judges pick up on. Being deflated week on week is going to do very little for one's confidence and enthusiasm. Under the circumstances, I think Nicky is taking their comments/criticisms very well.

Hang on in there Nik...surely your Michael-moment is not too far off..!

As for the 4 from Craig, well! Robbie Savage believed Craig constantly picked him apart because he fancied him but couldn't have him. Is it the same deal with Nicky??

I watched his rumba with the sound off earlier today and it was heaps better than it felt last night.

You'll note that I said "it looks like", which is another way of saying "in my opinion".

I don't see a perfectionist, sorry. I see someone who says on ITT "I don't think there's anything wrong with my posture, I can't see a problem with it, and I don't know what else I can do to work on it". That hardly makes him his own harshest critic, does it?

I think you have misunderstood what I said. What he danced last night looked fine, because it was a series of poses. The few basic rumba steps that were included in the routine were done incorrectly, because he did not do any hip action. The hip action comes from the correct shifting of the weight over the feet - so if his footwork didn't move his hips, then it was done incorrectly. On that basis, I thought he was very lucky to get the marks that he did.

In my opinion, the only improvement he has made is in his posture, which is still not very good. His 'Michael' moment will never come, because unlike Michael, he is not willing to put the hours in. If I recall correctly, the only person who has done less training than him is Dani.

Robbie Savage is a delusional twonk with the dance talent of a hippo in wellies.

I decided not to dignify that part of the post with a response.

Cross out 'Robbie Savage'. Type in 'Craig Kelly'.

But Mr Savage is so easy to bash. It's a reflex response. Like breathing.

I thought Karen was doing a very good job of trying to position him correctly whilst in training and he was attempting to mould himself to her bidding.

I think he's OK and is improving. The judges probably expected too much of him. He's hardly a favourite of mine but I wouldn't knock him.

Nope. Leave Robbie Savage. Add in Craig Kelly .

Craig Kelly!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

You can see the training hours from ITT here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/strictlyc...tistics-Week-4

He is hardly unwilling to put the hours in - and that goes for all of them, in the weekly chart in particular there's very little seperating them apart from Michael. Given that Dani is bottom overall but consistently dancing well (and has outscored Nicky every week to date), I don't think that's the problem.

I am just thinking along the lines of if it was me, and I wasn't happy with my performance, and I discovered that 9 out of the 10 other celebs were doing more training than me, I would start to train more often.

But I don't think that has occurred to Nicky, because he is happy with his performances (as he said on ITT).

Three sevens for that rumba was too much encouragement.

I agree with this post. 4 of the 5 weeks he's got poor comments and even week 3 they weren't overly positive, that isn't going to do anything for someone's self esteem and I think he's taking it very well and is obviously trying to improve on the things they point out.

It's obvious from the training footage that they worked really hard on his posture and lines this week and there was a huge improvement! I think it's a bit unfair of the judges to constantly pick out and highlight his posture and when he massively improves it to simply not mention it.

I thought much of the criticism was aimed at Karen and the lack of content - I thought he did an ok job with what he was given - not brilliant but ok

And don't forget the utter oants that was Gary Rhodes.

how can Nicky improve if he thinks there's nothing wrong with his posture, doesn't put in the hours and doesn't respect Karen?

One of the better male rumbas seen on SCD,imo, I thought it was going to be a 'dance disaster darling' but actually I thought Nicky did a pretty good rumba!

I agree. Usually the males look awkward but he didn't. Harry Judd got 4 nines for his rumba. He did have more rumba walks to do but for me Nicky looked more comfortable and more natural. Karen Hardy said he danced beautifully and Camilla Dallerup said they had lots of basic rumba steps in the routine. For me 2 pros would know more about it than a choreographer. I would have liked to hear from Len. Bruce forgot to ask him.

The number of training hours is not really important. It is how you use the time. Some people waste more time others focus on the job better and how do you know he doesn't respect Karen? You cannot blame them for feeling the strain when Craig tells Victoria she coped quite well for that terrible samba and says nothing positive to Nicky.