It was like watching a monkey on a tree.
Somewhere in the definition of dance has got to be a mention of moving your feet.
...... mind you, at least when it comes to the jive he'll be able to hand jive.

It is true that his Salsa was lacking in content, but I don't think it's fair to say he doesn't have *ANY* dance ability.

His Rumba last week was pretty good (always the hardest dance for male celebs to pull off) and actually had quite a lot of content.

He is clearly growing in confidence every week and does have *SOME* dance ability with the potential for week on week improvement.

If he get's the "journey" meme going I can seeing going a long way in this competition, while obviously not being the most naturally gifted dancer in the show by any means.

It's possible he could be the Darren Gough/Louis Smith of this season, IMO.

Probably the most annoying contestant and that includes Julien. Basically just there as the token beefcake. Ridiculously overmarked he has hardly improved much from week one. It is just a case of Kristina doing exceptionally well in consistently disguising his lack of ability. Last week he was in-hold for the vast majority of the dance and this week it was all about the distraction of the lifts. Hardly surprising that a rugby player can manage lifts is it? And that rushing up to the judges looks so contrived. Looking forward to see what Kristina has planned to 'hide' his numerous faults this week.

None !!

Isn't that what she's supposed to do as a choreographer? Choreograph something within their partners limitations. Pasha (while usually brilliant) didn't do that tonight, and that was why Rachel was in danger.

Why not play to Ben's strengths? I thought the little bit of salsa he did do was decent enough and the lifts were incredible.

She really is something else, flinging herself at him from all angles . He was nothing more then a totem pole .

Shame, shame on those judges for not calling him and Kristina out on such gimmicks and time wasting .

My thoughts exactly. I like Ben but I was amazed at the lack of criticism of his routine from the judges when they've criticised those who've done the proper dance with hard choreography!

It wasn't very salsa-ish in my eyes either, and I know that people will say it's typical Kristina, but I think she does this sort of thing to try to cover for inadequacies in her partners, or lack of training time, as with Colin last year.

I know many weren't fans of Jason, and I'm not saying he did this brilliantly well, but compare the amount of content in their (unperformed) salsa, interestingly enough to the same song as she and Ben danced to on Saturday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mp3k1

I like Ben, and he did what he did well.

Not a lot of salsa though, in fact hardly any, so overmarked.

Typical Kristina where she spends most of the routine wrapping her legs around someone's neck.

I think Kristina is a very clever choreographer, she is showcasing herself and Ben in the best way she can.

And even though there isn't enough dance steps, he is enjoying himself so much, you can see how much he has come out of his shell the past two weeks, so I think it has worked.

I agree, and he's now got the confidence to really improve.

I do hope so. Despite my earlier post appearing to criticise Ben I really want to see him succeed and believe he can too. I answered the question how much salsa did he do and the answer was diddly squat. Had the question been was he capable of dancing salsa I would have said 100% yes. I think this chap has potential.

Nothing in Strictly gives me more pleasure than seeing a BSH of a man learn to move fluidly, gracefully and rhythmically and I believe he has a dancer in him. So Saturday for me was a disappointing waste.

My other problem is the corruption of salsa as a dance form. It is probably the most accessible dance style in the UK so it bugs me that most of the GBP form the opinion that what they see on SCD is what salsa. All the focus on lifts and tricks I imagine will put off many and if they do come to a class they have such inaccurate expectations.

Yes. But as a teacher she is also supposed to teach him to dance. If their limitation is that they can't move and can't perform the basics of the dance that is major problem not an issue that a bit if wriggling in front of can disguise.

In fairness to Kristina, from what I remember of Week 1 she was the only one who bothered to choreograph a cha cha that looked like a cha cha as opposed to jabbing your fingers at people or gaying around on a pretend catwalk, so maybe she's owed a week off where she can say "sod the dance" and just have a big muscly oiled up guy throw her around in his underwear.

She had a good night, really.
One minute being thrown about by a garage mechanic, the next burlesque-ing it up in a Babycham glass.
Did she expect to be knocked out this week so she thought she'd get all the daydreams over and done with in one go?

...we have two dances I can remember now.

First it was Chelsee who's car broke down, and she begged Pasha (the mechanic) to fix it for her. They did an amazing charleston with and even attempted off-beat dancing to that. However, I seemed to recall some posters here moaned about the excessive props used. I felt it was not taking anything away from the dance but it told a good story.

Now we had almost the same premise (a bit sexist, to be honest, hapless and useless female had a car that requires fixing, cue in macho male mechanic for the job!). Ben is the mechanic and decided to fling Kristina around (subtext too graphic for me to describe here, lyrics of the song didn't help).

My questions to those who critique the car prop used in Chelsee's Charleston. Do you find the car prop equally inappropriate in Ben's Salsa? Should Ben just 'get on' with the Salsa, and if he wants to strip then just strip anyway mid-dance?

Where do you sign up for that?

it is entirely possible he's proving a slow learner, in which case a bit of adaptation to ability is probably all she can do. Better one stands largely still than they both do

But some of us on here go to Salsa classes and are aware of the differences (as you mention) so we're not all judging SCD Salsa as the most authentic version. Also, I'm aware that some of the Pros themselves wouldn't call Salsa their speciality dance and some have had help over the years on the show (when that guy and his wife helped choreography the routines). So we are aware, some anyway, that the Salsa is a tricky dance for even some of the Pros over the years to put together. However, most of us can say Ben didn't do a Slasa (whether Salsa expert or not) on the basis that he didn't really look to be dancing any specific type of dance, let alone a Salsa. He could easily have just been doing any freestyle dance.

It's an old-world Fannius Kristinastrictor boa and just wants to be warm. Can be bought at the local reptile world for a monkey, or some magic beans.

Kristina gets a bloke to fling her around while she flashes her knickers. Same old same old.

I don't recall her doing that when she was dancing with a more able celeb male dancer (i.e. Jason). It's only when the male celebs were not up to par that she started to 'do the Ola'.

Plural?

Sorry, just one.

Grayson was the only one she didn't need to flash her 'two-a-penny'.

But people commented on her slap-arsed face and desperation to win, so they have targeted her upper half and disregard her lower half when she was paired with Jason.