Thanks for clarifying. It saved me the trouble.

Oh c'mon! It's pretty obvious, core is the centre of the body and strength is er strength!!

Not the way certain posters use it.

X is having problems? No core strength.

Y is having completely different problems? No core strength

Z is flying round the dance floor like an uncoordinated leprechaun on speed? No core strength.

See where you are coming from on this one!

Sounds like finding core strength is a cure to a multitude of issues. Is the last one copyrighted by the way as I'm sure Craig would like to use it

How naive are you, please do not call my original post appalling ........, fabulist is spot on! Dance judges have always been fickle..... And how they can be so kind to certain celebs is baffling! They dismissed abbeys dance, and she really worked at it, whilst Sophie was excused as offering a cool relaxed effort.........they are having a laugh at our expense....... Oh and whilst you mention Chris Hollins he could only dance the charleston, probably, again like Sophie, because it is not a ballroom dance, and should only rear it's ugly head as an option in the final stages, if it must be included!

How can you say that when she spent the first 30 secs faffing around a bench

An 8 from Len for their jive was ridiculous imo.

It has to be pointed put if we are talking about those who deserve more because they "really worked at it" that Julian trained the most hours this last week , so he deserved by your logic more marks than Sophie .

You use the wrong word or phrase over and over and then get upset when people don't understand you.

Sophie did a lot better than Abbey , whose jive was heavy footed and , if you watch her feet compared to Aljaz she has litte attack and lands her feet heavily and very carelessly , she was done a great disservice by wardrobe by having on those white socks and high heels which just drew attention to her poor footwork .

Ben did a suprisingly sweet rumba where he actually moved his hips and did not look embarrassed, but in the scheme of things we have to see if this was the only dance that he was able to do realitively well .

Sophie has done a great Chalreston and reasonable waltz and samba. None of which have proved to be her swan song since she is still in the competition and learning another dance this week . If this is her last dance this will be her swansong.

Foxtrot for Sophie this week. Expecting a good one.

And here I was thinking you weren't bothering any more because it was the 'Natalie Show'.

Her samba was bad. But she may just not suit or get that particular dance and the samba isn't that hard but it isn't as closely related as the other dance styles are and isn't as common a dance style to encounter so it seems so to many.

Worst flounce ever!
2 out of 10

That's a bit generous!

Do you think I should start giving lessons?

Flouncing lessons?
Deinitely not- your flouncing was of truly epic Olympic standard- mere mortals could not even aspire to attain such perfection, and you would only serve to highlight their deficiencies

Way to exagerate dude! She was a tad over-marked and over-praised but the worst you could say about the dance is that it was competent - a good stab at a dance that didn't really suit her and isn't easy. There was some good footwork - there have been a lot of truly awful sambas over the years - Dennis Taylor, Kate Garroway, Kenny Logan, pretty well most of series six contestants barring Tom Chambers and Rachel Stevens - Austin Healey's was ok but probably still worse than Sophie's, most of the series seven contestants barring Jade - Jo Wood's stands out as a particular horror but I think Craig Kelly had a fairly inept stab at it as well, the Widdy, Scott Maslin doing a good routine pretty badly, and a whole lot of meh from the previous two series - although Pendledrama did a lousy job of one last year which stilcks in my mind.

I completely disagree about it being a weak cast as well - once the inevitable happens and Julien leaves (which I think the writing is well and truly on the wall in six foot high letters for next week) then it will truly be a shame to lose whoever goes next - I like this cast of characters - most of them have potential and Dave is endearing and hiliarious and appears to be having the time of his life.

I thought the judges have been overly kind to Abby for the past two weeks as a result of them being a) sympthatic to her being obviously nervous b)dazzled by her waltz quite understandably and ergo seeing she can dance generally just perhaps not so much those ones c)the fact that the beeb possibly don't want to pee off a Premier League football for some reason.

You killed my father, prepare to die



I thought I would dislike Sophie, but I actually really like her. Don't think she is rubbish at any of the dances, and I'm actually looking forward to seeing her progress.

There's a reason the Samba is known on Strictly as "the dreaded Samba." Frankly, even some of the pros struggle with it, so it's not surprising that Sophie might also struggle with it as her first proper Latin dance. On the other hand, getting it out the way early is probably a clever more. I'm not going to write her off as a dancer until we've seen her do another Latin and ballroom dance.

Simple! That is her pro partners fault....... Not how she works or performs the routine

You are entitled to your view, but Abbey is way better...... End of!

I thought Sophie's samba was quite good - a 6.5/7 from me. In terms of 'cool' sambas, Jade Johnson did one with Ian Waite and it was good. So that sort of attitude can work in a samba. I'm waiting for Sophie's jive. Think that will be great.

Overall I preferred Sophie's samba to Abbey's jive.

Yeah a jiving Sophie will be a sight for sore eyes!

I don't see how you can announce that yet. Abbey's waltz was better than Sophie's but she's yet to produce another dance as good whereas Sophie has done the charleston with aplomb and the samba, which is more difficult in many ways than the jive. I think Sophie's jive will be better than Abbey's which was poor. Abbey might do a good samba, it's hard to tell especially given her relief to be back in hold with Aljaz on tonight's ITT. She doesn't seem as confident about lone dancing as Sophie.

Hopefully for both time will tell but neither can be pronounced as definitively better than the other at this stage,

Why is this thread still active?

Has there been a big turn against Sophie? Are people who prefer other contestants smelling blood, for some reason?