enjoyed the routine but was surprised Craig marked it higher than Frankies Quickstep

tonight Ellie my tip would be don't buy anything with a all sequined bodice. I wore a halter neck tonight and the bodice is heavily sequined. I was attracted to the unusual colour which is somewhere between grey and purple.

Anyway those sequins have scratched my underarms - triceps (OK bingo wings) area to ribbons. To be fair it would probably be alright in ballroom. It wasn't too bad for my first gig tonight which was AT so in hold with the arms away from the body quite a lot. But for the past 4 hours at a salsa gig the arms are up down, by your side, all over the time and every time my arm passes against my body it gets scratched.

Wicked night though. Worth the sore arms and at least they match my sore feet and tired legs

So was I, it was not as good and Frankies QS. A case of Kevin keeping the choreo simple for her but doing it very well.

Oh this is intriguing. I am reading through all these little titbits trying to work out what was hot and what was not.

Thanks for all the advice, chaps. I'm not really going for sequins - it's stones all the way for me. Glad you had a good time tonight, and hope your arms feel better soon.

anti spoiler bump

What do you think is the best way to strengthen your core? Planks? Yoga?

Yes, either or those and Pilates is very good too. I have always done a lot of stomach crunches,situps and general gym work so am fairly strong in that area. I;m sure others will come up with other ideas plus, if when you practice ( and in lessons) ensure you keep really toned in that area, up towards your partner in Ballroom, over time you will naturally build it up.

I love Pilates personally,.

Third vote for pilates here, it's excellent for core strength and very enjoyable too! I also had a good head start from doing ballet for years. Neither are quick fixes, but I don't think there are any for core strength.

Fascinating to hear about the dresses!

If you read my post 252 I think I answered your question about spotting in VW.

I am sorely tempted to post a question to jason gilikson on ITT - and ask why he only uses dancers from BTF irrespective of suitability for SCD or DWTS ) oh and does he pick the dreadful music

You can post it bendy but I doubt very much it'll get asked .

I saw interesting questions about the music on the BBC website for ITT but they wern't chosen .

Was looking at pics of some of our pupils today and what they are doing now one of them is in BTF and on his cast pic 8 or 9 are either on SCD or DWTS and that doesnt include a further 4 regulars on SCD the JG takeover which James sort of hinted at on Big Brother when he started to say Strictly Burn oh Come Dancing am going to go on and ask re the music

I don't mind him using BTF dancers providing they had a good training in ballroom and Latin before they went into the show. Robin Windsor and Kevin Clifton, for example, were both very good competitive ballroom/Latin dancers, who just wanted a wider experience than competition.

But I object to them taking people from SYTYCD who have not had formal BB/Lat training. How can they teach what they don't understand themselves? I quite like Janette as a person, and she is brilliant at the "party/club" dances (Charleston, salsa) & her Latin is OK, but her bb is dreadful.

I agree with your comments. I feel they have well and truly gone down the "entertainment show" route rather than keep to the roots of SCD, ie Ballroom and Latin, more's the pity.

I must have missed that Kaycee. I will scroll back. thanks.

The thing is, Jen, the bbc have always regarded ballroom dancing as a bit of lightweight, something-to-be-taken-the-micky-out-of type of entertainment. The fact that, as well as being a great social hobby activity, it is also a very serious sport, is completely beyond their understanding. The way they had the presenters present the original Come Dancing proved that, and their their antics when, in the late 80s/early 90s, they filmed the UK Championships from Bournemouth were so bad, the UK dance powers-that-be banned all television filming for ALL future events, a ban that remains in place to this day. So they were never going to treat Strictly with any respect for the dancing itself.

I think the show is long enough and big enough to combine good dancing with the entertainment side - i.e keep the 10 main dances as they should be danced, but let them have as much fun as they want with the other dances - Charleston, salsa, etc.

What happened?

In terms of dancing "Cheek to Cheek" on BBC4 was a pretty good event.

And with youtube plus Chromecast the BBC is a outdated as a concept.

I kind of agree, but all us Swing dance historians/Salsa dancers/ Argentine Tango purists will still suffer :P


Here's a dance question, on ITT this week Sunetra explained that musical counts or step chanting didn't help her, but if Brendan 'sang' the rhythms she could understand it
(ie, using a 4/4 swung rhythmical basic as an example it could be 123a4, 567a8 or back step triiiple step, step step triiiple step or oo ah EE baba, hoo ha DEE dada).

The programme made this out to be an oddity, but as a dance teacher who teaches large groups, who tries to adhere to proven theories of teaching, I always use all three, along with demonstrating and trying out. This means there is something for all types of learners, including those that learn almost entirely visually and those that can't understand a thing without engaging their own proprioceptive sense.

If I were teaching just one person (I don't teach privates but I do take them as the student) I would emphasise (or even just use the two or three) the style that suited the student best.

Most international Swing teachers pretty much only sing the rhythms, as Brendan did for Sunetra, partly because it's a universal language and these are people that travel globally (Swedish teacher in Japan? No problem) and partly because 'scatting' is part of Jazz music anyway.

So my question is, it it an oddity to teach this way in Ballroom or Latin or was ITT's presentation of it incorrect? If Ballroom and Latin teachers don't usually use this teaching method, what do they do/say?

I am only a teaching assistant but this has been my experience. I find that it helps to explain things in different ways to different people. And it doesn't just apply to the rhythms. I have found that describing the same thing but with different analogies resonate with different people when explaining posture, hold etc too.

I also find it can sometimes be helpful to find out a bit about the student's other hobbies past and present. I have discovered that men who have done martial arts for example respond better to describing the posture in terms of where their centre of balance is rather than asking them to stand tall, breath in, pull their pelvic floor up or to be heavy in the upper body and light below the waist etc.

That's a very good point - teachers have to be adaptable for all sorts of reasons, and I think that is especially so with adult beginners! Last year I felt Brendan's teaching was letting Sophie down somewhat, and I've heard this levied against him this year too, which is one of the reasons I wondered if it really is unusual for Brendan to change his teaching style (and how that compares to Ballroom and Latin for real) or if ITT was making a deal of it for telly only reasons.

I took two adult beginners Ballroom/Latin classes a couple of years back (my Tap class wasn't on, teacher on holiday) and I was shocked at how they taught, basically just wafting through patterns on the floor, solo (all the women had to sit down while the boys did their wafty side-together-side-turn and then the men sat down while the ladies did it, then we joined up and did it together) there was no leading or following and I couldn't see how anyone made the leap from 20 second choreographed routine of the night to actually social dancing, even though they had a social dance later on in the evening.

Of course, I may have walked into a totally rubbish scenario/school/teacher. Or maybe there is some benefit to doing it that way that I didn't understand, and it would have made sense later on.

That's what's spoiled it for me. I'm a complete layman, but I found myself entranced with the glimpse into the world of ballroom that SCD afforded me.

I've enjoyed - to some extent - the introduction of AT, Charleston and, on occasions, rock n'roll, Lindy hop (was it??) - so why not have one week, even two weeks, where we have a break from the ten dances and all contestants dance one of the 'foreigners' that have been bolted on to the show.

After that we can get back to the real business (and all those lovely swooshy ballroom dances)

Lots of teachers develop all sorts of "chants" (for want of a better word) for teaching different steps/timings, etc., especially with beginners. Don't know why is works, but it does; as one eminent coach once said "you can count it in oranges and lemons providing you count it in time!" I think it's fair to say that once dancers get more experienced, particularly if they are competing, then timings need to be counted correctly so the choreography is correctly phrased.