It reminded me yesterday when Khoreography Korner Karen said that Pasha left Carol on her own for too long and asked her to do much stuff without his direct support, that this was also a criticism made when he had Rachel Riley. After having spent most of his time with the better end of celebrity, talent-wise, it makes me wonder if Pasha can't adapt his teaching style to someone less gifted and come out with the sort of results that other pros might (although who amongst the male pros has historically been good at getting ropey female celebs to improve?). Or maybe it's admirable that Pasha isn't content to just have someone, say, stand there in a starfish shape as he wiggles around them, relying on personality points, and instead wants someone to push themselves even if they're not the most talented? Or maybe Carol and Rachel were just crap at dancing and this is excuse-making for them? Or maybe I just wanted to make an innuendo?

Is your thread title a euphenism?

Pasha only had one duffer, his latest Celebrity Carol.

but i think Carol needs to enjoy some more.

at least Jeremy was having lots of fun

He was too busy shafting Rachel Riley to teach her to dance.

And in Carol's case???

Rachel's paso.

If ever a pro misjudged what their celeb was capable of, this was it.

[though in retrospect, the fact that he choreographed a routine in which he was caged by a writhing, dominatrix-esque RR may suggest that his brain was not the controlling organ of this particular number]

In fairness he did admit that sometimes the routines for Rachel were too complicated, particularly that their quickstep had far too many steps. I would imagine he has learned from that. Still I admire that he has given Carol a proper dance to do rather than give up on her early and make her look silly in a comedy routine. She says she is having lots of fun too. But I think it's the case that he pushes all his partners a bit in order to try to get the best out of them. Ian Waite remarked last year that some things looked a bit complicated for Caroline, and Caroline herself said on several occasions that routines were really hard but Pasha was having none of it. She went on and won. Not saying I think Carol will do the same but he will get her to do things she didn't think she could. 'Shoot for the moon...even if you don't make it, you'll still be among the stars'.

With Rachel Riley, his Ballroom with her was generally quite good - even the Quickstep. I think she liked the fact that he tried to teach her the dances properly, so she got the Strictly experience as she had imagined it.
Rachel wasn't so good at Latin and I do think Pasha did ask too much of her and could have simplified it more with better results.

Carol surprised me in that she didn't seem to have learned much in the 3 weeks training. That may be down to Carol or Pasha's teaching, but it didn't look to me like he was asking her to do too much.
Maybe she will be much better at Ballroom?

It seems to me that he's still in the learning process on how to choreograph for someone who is not a very gifted or decent dancer. He hasn't learned his lesson with Rachel Riley. I totally agreed with Karen then ( when she was given him the same criticism with Rachel ) and now. ...

Btw I like Pasha so yeah just trying to call it as I see it

N1 rule : well something I've learned from watching choreography corner over the years . When your celebrity is not that good, don't choreograph a lot of solo pieces ( unless they can pull off the little bit that you show them ) because all it does is expose them. Idk...you just have to figure it out and watching him this weekend, it looks like he still hasn't figured it out.

I honestly believe that a very gifted choreographer can make ANYONE look good on the dancefloor....well 90% of the time

I'll ignore the innuendo since I can't think of a witty response .

Nope, didn't see the interview with Karen and so may be misinterpeting what she said but generally students don't want to spend all of the time in the day with the dance teacher (not even Pasha). The brain gets befuddled with too much information. Sometimes you have to go away, get a bit of space, think over what you've been taught and practice on your own. Repeat over and over again until you have it in muscle memory. That's quite normal.

There is a risk that you leave someone too long or if they haven't understood the teaching points they practice the wrong thing and make things worse. Pasha has to make that judgment by asking Carol to summarise what he's said and getting her to write salient details down so that she doesn't forget, or better still videoing parts of his lesson. .

But perfectly normal.

One thing I always remember with Pasha (I will now be corrected if I'm remembering it wrong!) is when Chelsee had a move she got a bit wrong in the semi-finals, a sort of running splits thing, I don't know the term, and then she did it again in the final and got it right. I always thought that said a lot about Pasha that he put it back in the next week - there was no protecting Chelsee in that (and I loved it, I thought it so brave!). Personally I don't like it when the pro just tries to dance in front of the celeb and shelter them from everything and distract us, so I've no criticism of Pasha for not doing that. But I'm hoping for Carol's sake, she has a much safer ballroom this week where she can hang on to Pasha and get a much more positive reaction to her dance.

Karen meant he left her alone too long in the dance and had they danced together more, she might have drawn some reassurance/confidence from that.

I definitely thought he left her standing like a lemon in that bit at the start. She looked so uncertain, but then I guess it's a trade off, and he chose to waste a bit of time so she had less dancing to do.

Oops sorry, I think I got confused by Monkseal's reference to teaching style. I definitely agree with Karen on that! Connection from a more experienced dancer can provide reassurance that you're not alone, help you remember a routine and add a dynamic prompt to get on and move yourself.

Carol was interviewed on Saturday brekky TV by phone. She said she was happy with the routine in rehearsal it was just showtime nerves that made her forget bits.

In hindsight everybody is clever. Based on their training sessions he might have thought she would be alright, but it's quite a different experience in the studio, lights on, people looking at you.

Greg Wallace said the same thing last year. It often happens. I think the professionals should see it coming and play cautiously if the celeb is not an experienced stage performer.

I remember that too, and thought Chelsee must have done it perfectly loads of times in practice. Pasha gave her the chance to show she could do it, and she did; I applauded them both for that.

I was wondering whether the time-wasting at the beginning of their cha cha cha was down to some of the original routine being cut for whatever reason (maybe it's true Pasha had to that to simplify how much Carol had to remember). However it seems she could do a lot more than she actually showed, but she admitted her nerves took over and she forgot what she was doing; that happens. I agree with Karen in that sense that more time on hold would have helped, but that will happen in the foxtrot.

Given Rachel was young and fit, the assumption was that she would be able to dance. I think (can't remember for sure) he gave Rachel a relatively simple dance to do first and was told it was too easy for her. Pasha was then stuck either giving her something she could do and being told he was holding her back, or giving her something the judges wanted which was beyond her. We may well see something similar with Kirsty, though she started awfully. There is an inclination to think younger, fitter celebs can't be duffers but that's not true at all!

Pasha entering on a thunderbolt was probably the biggest stunt of the weekend and I wonder how much of it was his idea. Much like Frankie and Kevin entering on surf boards last year when given the music Surfing USA, I'll bet it was the producer's idea.

I agree. Likewise I don't think Brendan Cole foresaw Kirsty Gallacher getting as nervous as she did on the night. Sometimes it works the opposite way. Jake Wood was known for his nerves backstage but then would come out and be amazing. It can be very hard to tell.

I doubted that thunderbolt was Pasha's idea!

It's true, a contestant of any age can be good or bad. Christopher Parker and Pamela Stephenson are two cases in point proving not all the young ones are good and the older ones bad.

Succinctly put.

Carol actually said on Breakfast on Monday morning that she got stage fright for the first time in her life - so I hope it was the nerves on the first night and that this week she will be better. I think she'll be more comfortable in Ballroom to be honest.

I liked the fact that Pasha actually makes whoever he has dance instead of dancing around them or putting enough props and gimmicks in that they look like a broomstick walking. That being said I agree with Karen that maybe he should have done more dancing together on Friday to help Carol's dancing and confidence but then again they are dancing ballroom this week so they will be in hold and it should be better.

I don't think Rachel Riley was actually that bad; she wasn't great but she could keep time and make decent lines. However, Pasha gave her far too much to do so yes, I do think past experience suggests he isn't great at adapting for the less than stellar partner. Carole really is a duffer but even her routine could have been simplified and given clear 'punctuations' to let her catch up and re-time into the routine - Erin used to do this in her Latin choreographies (and they were there in Anton's Jive for Katie). I think Darren Bennett was good at this too and worked good improvements in his average partners - Leticia Dean was no great natural dancer. To be fair most of the 'old style' pros - Ian Waite, Matthew Cutler etc - showed the ability to vary their choreography in a way the BTF lot seem to lack, maybe because in those days more of them had to teach as a side line money maker than they do today?

Yes I think he doesn't always think it through, unlike some others who give them what they can do well and even if it is a bit more simple, at least they can build their confidence.
He needs to look at this really.

Another thing with Pasha is, and I love it about him usually, but with someone like Carol or Racheal who are not so great, he needs to tone down his facial expressions and the way he dances the dance as it highlights the fact his partner doesn't do as much.