I agree with you all that Natalie has perhaps had more training than is fair for a contestant on Strictly, however, I do appreciate that she didn't do a DVO and say "all I did was sit on a chair." According to people who saw her in the role, Denise did a lot more dancing than that in Chicago and was very good at it. Natalie may not have been fully open and honest about the type of prior dance training she has but at least she held up her hand to having had extensive training in a form of dance. Like others have said, I don't mind so much if a contestant has prior dance training as long as they tell us and don't try to pretend that they haven't.

I dont think anyone is confident about the actual level of Natalie's training tbh, but she has stated as fact that she has NEVER done dance with a partner.....so unless Ballroom can be danced solo then I dont think she is lying.

Is it easier to crossover from ballroom to Latin or Latin to ballroom?

Anton a beautiful ballroom dancer yet hopeless at Latin for example.

And Brendan, a Latin specialist, seems to have become a really good ballroom dancer.

In Kara's dyslexia documentary she explained that it wasn't just that she had difficulties with reading and writing, but it affected her ability to learn to new things and that her memory was really, really poor.

She had developed a tortuous method of learning lines for her EastEnders scripts - basically reading each line over and over again as she tried to memorise each line at a time.

This also had an effect on how quickly / well she could learn her dance routines.

I prefer his ballroom too

Yes, I remember that. We saw Kara and Ricky Groves learning lines for a scene at the same time as each other, to show how much harder it was for Kara in comparison. Ricky had his lines down in a few minutes, while Kara sat writing out each individual line dozens of times to try and get it into her memory. Even he saw shocked at how hard it was for her to learn her lines as he'd never actually seen her do so before. It was explained that dyslexics can have problems with their short-term memory, something that we saw was definitely an issue for Kara. This would have undoubtedly affected Kara's ability to learn and remember a new routine each week.

I remember Artem saying he had to come up with different ways of teaching her and Kara saying she couldn't concentrate for more than a couple of hours at a time before her brain was fried, so they worked training around that. (More time to canoodle over coffee, too, I suppose!)

I do agree it was good of Natalie to hold her hand up, but you know I don't think she should have been put in the position of having to do so.

As much as I may dislike someone so trained being part of the celeb line-up, it is the production teams place to defend or explain it, not Natalie's. And by defend or explain, I mean their stance in general, their criteria based on the show they wish to deliver, not the singling out of a particular contestant who is only there on invite. If any contestant feels they have to publically justify their inclusion on the show, then production has failed them.

Oh, I so agree but that's never going to happen. It's highly irresponsible of the production team to put the celebs in that position but they seem to prefer to let the celebs suffer, presumably because it generates headlines :devil:

Learning lines would undoubtedly be affected by dyslexia because receptive language skills as well as reading are affected. However, I don't believe spacial awareness and motor processing are affected nor sequence memory per se by dyslexia so maybe she had other learning disabilities.

Dyslexia is not a one size fits all condition, it affects different people in very different ways. Even how the written word is seen or understood is different for each person affected.

i like a mixture of dancers and abilities, i basically watch because i love dancing though, so i prefer that those who progress in the show are also those who are progressing with the dancing and enjoying the experience.

but that doesn't mean they have to be the best though - mark benton for example i would gladly swap for ashely as mark is not only a better dancer at the heart of things, but his enjoyment of dance and progress in ability has been far more enjoyable to watch than anything ashley has produced.

she has never admitted its any advantage though :s ... this is someone who wouldn't even admit that acting experience might be helpful in getting into a dance character...

As much as I like Mark, I enjoy watching Ashley far more and to be honest, all I will remember about Mark's time on the show is how awful most of his routines were and how well he and Iveta got on together. I did not like the way Mark was 'themed' almost every week (not his fault) and I don't think he was nearly as good a dancer as a lot of people make out.

BIB Quite. There needs to be a Ringah every year. No chance of winning though but will get to the final as the best dancer.

Though as for "highly irresponsible of the production team" they are doing it deliberately and few had heard of the so called celebrity anyway before the controversy. The celeb has an agent and a team of advisors.

I really don't think it's possible or even necessary to have a 'fair' contest on Strictly. Some celebs have some dance experience of different sorts, e.g. Fiona had ballet training, Patrick and Mark have been in musicals which require them to dance, etc etc etc.

It is always possible to argue an unfair advantage for anyone who you aren't very keen on....Ben had an unfair advantage because he was so strong that the lifts were easier, Patrick, Ashley, Natalie, Fiona, Mark etc had an advantage because acting experience helps performance which the judges keep telling us is very important. Patrick has an advantage because he has done a lot of stage work and is used to live performance. Susanna had an advantage because she was physically very fit to start with.

I could go on and on.....until we reached the point where Tony Jacklin had an advantage because Len was already a big fan and Dave had an advantage because he had more hair!!

I believe it's impossible to decide what is a 'fair' and what is an 'unfair' advantage, just sit back and enjoy and don't take it too seriously

Make it like the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and get people to vote for candidates who put themselves forward for the show. And the Top 10 get in - plus a handful of Ringahs to boo and hiss at.

It Takes All Sorts In A Sweetie Box TwinkleToes

It certainly does Terry . Twinks

The Green Face Is Back Twinks lol

Yes excited! Did you see Anton smash the pro challenge in SCD take 2. Was going to start a thread about how excellent he was but couldn't take the inevitable backlash . Anton is still fab