Whilst I enjoyed Jake & Jannette's Salsa as a whole, was three lifts a little too excessive for a Salsa I'm no big dance expert but I thought lifts were not allowed, yet no mention from the judges, let's play by the rules to a point!

thaaaaaat's showbiz!

Salsa, charleston, argentine tango and american smooth lifts are allowed.

it's the ten dance dances where you can't have lifts.

I blame Janette for putting in 3 lifts . She should not be entrusting a newcomer to such dangerous lifts, especially that last lift, where she could have been crippled for life if it went wrong .

Jake is far too good a dancer and she should be showcasing his dancing talents not his weight lifting abilities .

It used to be salsa was no lifts, Argentine limited to three and American smooth was two and two only!!! I remember Kelly and Brendan did three and was penalised.

Now if you are allowed lifts you seem to be able to do as many as you wish.

i think it's devaluing the lifts IMO. I think when they were rarer they had more wow, now they are in dances every week and it's all been done now.

Previously, I thought the limit was two lifts for the salsa.


Then again, rules about 'faffing abaht'' seem to have flown out the window since the producers decided props were essential to every routine,
and you can seemingly spend most of your ballroom out of hold (A & A's foxtrot), so who the hell knows anymore?

I used to watch Dancing With The Stars the US version(RTE showed it for a few years). I was really surprised at the dances in Lindy Hop and Jive, Charleston(which suddenly appeared in our version a few years later), also the amount of lifts they did in dances. They never got marked down and now in our versions more lifts are in than in previous years(I mean going back to Arlene's day), oh and suddenly the props used.

Thanks for that And everyone elses input

In my opinion the three lifts were a tad overkill and that the last "multi lift/drops" would have been more than adequate

On the well-understood basis of self-preservation, I am pretty sure that if she felt that there was any real danger to herself or her future career, or if she felt that he was not up to the task, she would not have entrusted him with those lifts.

Great post and I fully agree. Sadly I'm really losing interest with this show now.

Strictly speaking lifts have no more place in salsa than they do in a foxtrot. As they never tire of telling us salsa is a club dance and for obvious reasons a dim view would be taken of feet swinging around people's heads in a busy salsa club.

Did I notice both feet off the floor in one of the ballroom dances last night? Or did the female celeb successfully maintain contact with one foot? Sorry I am still trying to figure out who is who with the new batch so I can't remember which couple off the top of my head.

Ha! I was just about to create a thread "Too much Faffin' Abaht" when I saw this.



Yes indeed too many lifts. It can only get worse if there are three in the second round.

It was great to watch Pasha and Caroline dance as mostly in hold. Refreshing contrast to see real dancing IMHO.

I am going to have a go at Beginners Balboa this afternoon. All hold and no lifts I believe.

On points raised here:

1) On the number of lifts- 3 seems to be generic now. As someone said above, American Smooth used to be two, is now 3, Argentine Tango, Salsa and Charleston were unlimited, but 3 now seems to be the unspoken rule so that there's more dancing and the woman doesn't spend 90 seconds with her feet off the ground! 3 in Jake's salsa is perfectly acceptable.

2) As for "faffing around" the two most prominent, I felt, were Alison and Judy's routines. I suspect they would get away with it more than the likes of Frankie or whomever has a chance at winning the title, simple on talent level. It's week two, and they're two contestants not expected to do well.

3) As for hold- Alison might have gotten away with it simply because in America they have slightly different rules as to hold in the foxtrot. Usually that's what SCD has the American Smooth for (basically American rules Foxtrot but let's throw some lifts in there so it's not just a second Foxtrot!) I agree there was too much out of hold, but it took it until it was Natalie Gumede in week 4 or 5 for Len to crack down last year. When Pixie or Frankie do a routine with not enough in hold, expect the rules to come down on them like a ton of bricks since they could feasibly win the competition!

4) Sack the props department with immediate effect.

Pixie did some of her Waltz out of hold, but that's Trent's fault. A lot of the dances seem to be going this way and its getting to the point when I won't be watching any more. Its getting too gimmicky, too many props, too many sob stories, too many journeys and rubbish music not even in strict tempo.

Pixie & Trent, I thought the same too.

I detest the faffing abaht.

Hate the out of hold.

Hate lifts everywhere all and bloody sundry.

I want to arson the prop department.

The music chooser needs to be hung.

But on the specific question of the salsa lifts, nothing compares to Ramps and Karen's joyful no lift salsa which is still just as good no matter how many millions of times you watch it, and I would love less lifts or no lifts for the purity of darnce darling. But on Jake, it was rather funny how it was a lesson on how to do a lift heavy salsa with chutzpah, and get away with it, brilliantly it has to be said, I am not a fan of Janette's ballroom, but she did pull that one out of the bag, and I was comparing it to how not to do a lift heavy salsa at the start. Using Ramps music as well. Which should be forbidden. Totally.

Iveta's face in the Claudia room after Jake's dance, all through the rest of the show '9s...should've belonged to meee...beeetch.'

Yes that was the one. I have just gone through I player to check. To be fair I can't tell if contact was lost or not and I did enjoy the dance, which I thought very pretty, so am happy to give the benefit of the doubt.

But it wasn't salsa.

And Jeanette knows better than anybody on the show what Salsa is. She is going along with the producers.

But I can understand her perspective. SCD has turned into show-dancing and it will get increasingly more so.

Oh God, I forgot about the music, especially Tango music! I'd pay good music to have at least 1 proper Tango song :'(

Pixie's Waltz was a bit out of hold, but they normally allow about 20 seconds (split between beginning and end of the dance) out of hold for intro and/or outro (Pixie had very little outro so most of the 20 seconds seems to have been used at the beginning.) Once she got into hold she stayed in, which is the rule. Also, her "faffing" was actually still Waltz, whilst Alison's was just shimmying and character, whilst Judy's wasn't even that, it was God awful! (I normally defend Anton on this forum, but that Cha-Cha was dreadful!)

On a slight tangent, I actually liked Judy's Cha-Cha once it got going. Not great, but she got her hips, slightly, rotating, and had a lot of energy. It just took half the dance for them to get there with the messing around with the Tennis stuff at the start!