If they'd promised at the weekend that ITT would be showing that, the viewing figures would have trebled; imagine how much carnage -and unintended mouthfuls- must have gone into learning that move. Poor Ola...

I want to see the bit where Ola says 'right, and then after that I want you to run and jump at my head as fast as you can and knock me over with your crotch. Ok? Shall we give that a go?'

They could show it to show, but then they'd have to kill you.
It's the secret martial art The Way Of The Exploding Tackle.

The way the show is going, we could end up with flying crotches replacing ballroom.

I wouldn't be surprised if Len thought this was an Argentine Tango move.

NSFW maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssNOIUAVlR0

Two consenting adults ok, but in the privacy of their own home?

Bizarre.

I thought that move was the oddest thing

Strictly Come Wrestling is under discussion as we type.

I get that Ola was supposed to drop out of the way at the absolute last second, but seriously, it did look like she got it full in the face both times

I think the key is that Ola grabs Ashley's right leg with her left arm and that is what takes her backwards and stops her hitting the floor. The aim is to avoid getting hit in the face, but the timing has to be perfect.

I'm still stuck with the very basic question: Why?

I thought that it was a cock-up (if you'll excuse the phrase) the first time round, so was very surprised to see it again...

I think Ola wanted to up the difficulty level. You can see at 38 seconds in this Salsa by the then World Champions that it was a crowd pleaser, so it is a Salsa move.

You can also see the overhead to splits move that Aliona put in her Salsa with Harry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRDD9YTV8ts

Thanks for this. Having watched the pros, as a 100% non-dancer/dancing expert it looks like A&O didn't make a bad fist of it. Should have probably come with a 'don't try this at home warning' too.

But the pros mix in the silliness (IMHO of course) in with a lot of dancing. SCD encourages the silliness at the expense of a lot of dancing. And the whirling dervish cameraman helps by avoiding the feet.

Yes, but if the pros regularly include the 'silliness' in their routines in competitions, then the 'silliness' is dancing.

A question of balance of acrobatic silliness compared to feet movement.

As is clear I would prefer no or minimal acrobatics - even by the professionals; and you and the SCD producers are happy to dominate the Salsa dances with lifts - Ben was perhaps an extreme case.

Get the basics in and right before attempting the distracting crowd pleasing silliness. But distraction from mediocre leg movement and timing is the point isn't it? And the whirling cameraman helps by avoiding the feet.

I appreciated that it was quite clever and needed perfect timing and that they did that very well, but I thought it looked awful - I can't imagine why Ola put it in the routine. I thought it looked really aggressive, not like a dance move at all, especially a party dance like the salsa. I don't want to be at a party where men jump at women's heads like that!

I would say it looked like a dominant more than aggressive move, I think it worked well as the main criticism of Ashley and Ola was that they never really had a "wow" moment until then.

I am pleased that my lovely Ola is OK!

oh dear, I would rather NOT see training footage of that thank you very much, it was bad enough having to see it twice

I think for the move to really work without looking a bit weird, the male has to jump nearly over the female, while the female grabs one of the legs, with her head next to the thigh (top to middle part of thigh). The move has to be performed a little quicker as well. Having now seen how the experts do it - I can appreciate it more.

But lets not forget also the amazing floor to shoulder lift at the end - that was incredible for an amateur male to perform - Ola was seated on Ashley's right shoulder - the balance and strength was mind-blowing. No way was Ashley going to repeat that manoeuvre in the dance off - he would have been completely exhausted having already performed the dance an hour earlier plus the swingathon 30 minutes earlier.

From what little we saw, A&O also had some neat lifts and tricks in the Swingathon. In all honesty, he went out on his best week, which is a shame, but it was the quarter final

I wonder if the crotch face drop affected floating voter who were so stuck going WTF was that, they couldn't see the rest of the routine.

Agreed- basically, I prefer dances that look as though they could have been done Freestyle, and I can't imagine the signal the man would give that that move was coming!

Ola and James spent a couple of nights working on the concept.