I have already voted for Helen and Jamelia because their experience is nothing like as extensive (or recent) as Jay's imho. Jay is like Natalie Gumede for me. I enjoyed watching her dance, but never voted for her.

I am stubborn!


You know? totally respect you. I understand your point of view and its consequent. Like the point of view of others that precisely like that are people with previous and that elevates the whole program.
In a way, ultimately depends why we are tuning in to watch it. Some just like entertainment of any kind, others like yourself like to see a person learnt a new skill (if they already are competent the joy of discovering and falling in love with dance is taken away as they already had seen that), others like myself I just love dance so people who are very good.

This program caters for all, and gives choices so we can all support whatever we like.
So, yes, I respect your point as it is a mature one and well thought.

If Anthony had said this further on in the competition I could have some sympathy but not a lot. In the early stages he was also up against Carol (who was below him on the leader board), Jeremy, Ainsley, Kirsty who we are pretty sure didn't have any experience and he didn't beat them so I cant see any logic in his gripe.

I enjoyed Natalie too, but I cant recall if I ever voted for her. I could never connect with her as much as I tried even though I was (still I am) one of Artems biggest fans.

Some of what they've written is just not true. It says that Anthony has replied to everybody's tweets except Jay's - but this is not correct, he did reply.

You can't see any logic in saying it's difficult as a complete novice in dance and performance to be expected to compete with people who have a large amount of experience in dance and performance, in a dance and performance based competition? It seemes entirely logical to me. That he also got beaten in reality by other novices doesn't change that.

There's enough celebs there not as good as Jay he could compete with. At the moment I doubt anybody could do a better jive than Jay.

BIB - I think that's a key point. Dance is subjective, why people like or dislike someone is subjective. Discussion about why we prefer X over Y can be stimulating and interesting but it's all only opinion and no one person's opinion is more or less valid than another's (unless someone is quoting something factually incorrect as evidence, obviously!)

The BBC set its stall out from the outset. It's not a pure dancing competition, it's an entertainment show based on celebrities learning to dance. Back in series 1 they invited someone with dance experience to take part and it's been that way ever since, they've never sold it as 'complete beginners only'. Some people might prefer it if it were, and so they've got their novices to support. Others prefer a mix of standards and don't mind prior experience, and they're catered for too. From a practical perspective, it is reportedly proving harder for the producers to find the right mix of celebrities in a roughly even gender split every year, with the sort of profile and reputation they want, who are available for up to 3-4 months and who aren't too experienced in the world of dance - if they were also trying to ensure the exact same level of dance experience one way or the other, they'd be lucky to get enough people for a series to last a month.

For every person who would feel annoyed/disappointed/betrayed if Jay won (and that win is by no means certain anyway, based on the fate of previous celebs with prior experience) there is another who hates the fact that certain series were won by someone generally acknowledged to be less talented than one of their peers. It all balances out in the end.

Ultimately it's Saturday night fluff and should be enjoyed as such - and by and large, I think we do. As said above, a good debate is great fun if it's conducted in the right manner. If the balance the show currently has is upsetting people to the point they have to resort to vitriol or they're so over-invested that they feel 'betrayed' by their perception of Celeb A as opposed to the reality, then it's probably time they reached for the off switch. It's a tacky glitterball at stake, not the fate of nations.

hang on a bit ..... There are a heck of a lot of people who just tune in because it's a nice Sat evening prog. We don't know who half the people are, we don't read up about them or follow them on social media. We don't know anything about their background.

I just dip in and out. If I miss a bit it doesn't matter, I'm not glued to it. I only googled Jay whatshisname because I had never heard of him or his band and of course then all the info came up about him having years of dance experience.

I will still probably watch it as and when I feel like it, but it's not the be all and end all. I won't vote for anybody though.

I expect what was reported is not exactly what he has said but what I am trying to say is that, at this early stage of the competition, there is no point in blaming the more experienced ones for your early demise. This situation has happened every year and I don't remember the likes of Greg Wallace, Judy Murray et al complaining about the more experienced dancers in the competition. They go on there to learn to dance, the money and the exposure in most cases.

i love how every defence of a ringer has to include an opt out clause for why it doesn't apply to Denise Van Outen.... Her 'previous' was always at least as clear as jays - actually much more so as she'd been in a hit west end show - but she is alleged to have attempted to obscure it because she said something about 'just sitting on a chair' and for this reason, its ok to hate Denise even though on the whole one defends the presence of ringers for the quality of dance they bring.

It was always absolutely evident to me that she said that as a joke, and people chose to take it as some sort of 'lying' about her experience because they didn't like her. so if you want 'just an excuse to attack' there it is.

its ok to not vote for someone because you don't like them, or don't want to, and the whole concept of 'best' in dance (as in any other art) is subjective anyway.

i think jay is a great technician, but he won't get my vote until he connects on a human / emotional level and i feel like i'm watching something more than an forensic dissection of the steps performed by a geeky adolescent with his maiden aunt.

I think it's just that I'm not taking it as a complaint or a gripe. He's just saying his experience of the competition. I think expecting him to understand that he's not *really* competing at this stage against anyone other than the other people at the bottom of the leaderboard is expecting more understanding of the sophistication of the structure of the competition than I'd expect from someone who was only there for a pay-cheque and a bit of a laugh and has probably never even watched the show before. Not everyone has a rotafile of all past ringahs etc on hand like what half of us obsessives do.

Just a little comment on the 'previous experience', didn't one of the judges mention that because of her previous ballet training Helen George was having difficulty in one hold or something? It seems unless the training was specifically latin/ballroom it might not always be a massive advantage as some suggest?
Just my tuppence

I agree wholeheartedly

Ballet is going to help you in all dance, that's why most western dancers do it as basic.

http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/a...y_1507293a.jpg

Just kidding.

My problem with Denise van Outen was that for a ringer she was could be fairly crap - party Latin in the main, plus rumba. Her jive & Charleston were excellent though.

The point is you (generallly not you personally) can be upset if they have lied to you on the program. But they havent. So, while you can be disappointed because you thought he was a beginner, you have cant be feeling duped because they haven lied about it.

I honestly dont mind and I understand people not liking him or the fact he has previous experience. What irritates me, is that they say they have been duped! When clearly they havent.

I agree. Even if you mainly do another form of dance, your teacher will tell you to go to some beginner's ballet lessons. We've all been there, done that , thought 'omg I'm so rubbish' and 'omg they are so thin' ......

It wasnt meant as an attack on Denise, more of an example of what not to do if you are a ringer. I was terribly bored that series with Strictly and didnt watch much of it. My point was more about attitude, whether it was a joke or not it didnt do her any favours. Her personality overall (aside from that joke/comment) didnt help her and that is fact as many were put off by her attitude.
Natalie the following year embraced it from the off and that made her slightly more popular.

I often wonder whether she'd have done better (aka been more popular) if she hadn't been paired with James Jordan. He's a narcissistic a**e and I think that would have affected anyone he got.

I don't get the whole duped thing. The only thing I knew about him before he started was he was in a boyband so my immediate thoughts were that he's going to have some rhythm at least and will be able to pick up choreography as he has had to learn routines for videos and stage shows. Surely everyone would have been able to work that one out?

And experience can cover a multitude of skill sets. You have to have the innate talent to begin with or the experience is useless.

Look at Take That, for example, Gary Barlow would be absolutely useless on Strictly because he was always the worst dancer in Take That, whereas Howard or Jason would probably excel. They've all had the same choreography training, but they wouldn't all be brilliant on Strictly.

They were definitely a perfect storm of obnoxiousness. They both have tendency to arrogance in my eyes, so the two of them together was always going to be a dahnce disastah for me

I have supported various people on this show from the people with lots of training to people with none (and one or two with no natural ability either) - if I like someone I like them. I wish that the show (the Saturday night show not ITT) would really deal with this in the launch show, and ask each contestant clearly what they've done before, and we'd all knew where we were (and if it turned out later that they'd done more than they said people could honestly say they were duped). I can't help feeling that they don't because the show likes all the newspaper 'shock horror' and need a 'villain' every year who has done an 'unfair' amount of training - only one, even if lots of people actually have.

This is part of a general issue I have that I wish the press department of Strictly would stop trying to copy the X Factor and start trying to lean from GBBO that most people like a general level of 'niceness' in a competition.

I think in the end if you like the dancing you don't care about the training. If you don't connect to the dancing and personally prefer someone else, then it feels unfair.

I do not care how much dance training any of them have had...because at the end of the day the public will vote for whom they take to there hearts....Darren Gough could not dance and the public loved him ...Chris Hollins could not dance yet again the public loved him.

It seems that Jay is the nations favourite as he seems a sweet shy guy.

I love him and no matter what people say about him having dance training I will carry on supporting him.