I agree, the flapping jacket was a bad idea. It was also a bad idea in the Jive IMO.

Seems to me that Anton is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

When they did the cha cha....think it was, he was slated for not putting in enough content, now he is slated again for the salsa which had more content, personally I think that although Kate is really good at ballroom, she isn't at latin.

Any pro can really only work to the ability of their celeb surely.

No I am not having a go at you personally. In general there are a few people on these pages that seem to spend some time knocking Anton's every move. It just so happens I posted after you. We are all entitled to our point of view and I was making mine. But yes I do believe that he helps to keep SCD in the ratings.
I know from previous years you are not his greatest fan and except that will not change as hopefully you will understand that it will take alot for my support of him to stop.

Anton is a God. I adore him. His Latin isn't as strong as his ballroom but he isn't incapable. There are other pros whose ballroom isn't as strong at their Latin.

Anton is very good at working to his celeb's ability. He doesn't try to outshine them like some do (Kevin from Grimsby I'm looking at you, also a little bit Kristina who often has her celeb standing still while she dances round them - something Anton was criticised for with the ChaCha!)

He probably does help the ratings to a degree through his sheer popularity.

His outfit on Saturday was awful. I was hoping for a Gleb style shirt.... Oh yes.....

Ok I'm back.

People say he'd fail with a competent dancer due to Latin but we haven't seen him with a strong Latin partner. People say Laila but she wasn't that strong. Her paso was good, and her rumba had promise just a shame about the injury, but was hopeless in the party Latins.

He may be awesome but he cannot work miracles on incapable celeb's.

I do think the upcoming paso will be amazing though - I think Katie will pull it off well.

Must admit I think Anton (or whoever decides on the dances each week) is actually playing this pretty well. The Party Latin dances (except Samba which I suspect they won't do) are now out of the way while there were still plenty of dancers in below them.

It might be an idea to tell Anton to stop knocking his Latin technique

His description in the Claudiatorium of how he and Katie will tackle the paso made it clear that he didn't take it seriously. I suspect this communicates itself to his celeb partner with certain inevitable consequences.

My dancing expertise is confined solely to my having watched virtually every episode of Strictly Come Dancing so... no, not an expert at all. But I do like the professional dancers on the show to be, well, you know, professionals. Experts. I like to think that they understand and can dance all the dances featured, and that they can teach their celebrity partners to dance a 2 minute routine well enough to satisfy a Saturday night TV audience. If they can also choreograph a routine, all the better, but help should be on hand for the dances they might not know so well - Salsa, Charleston, Argentine Tango. In short, I expect them to earn their fee.

What I DON'T want is for a professional dancer to sneer openly about his dislike of at least five of the featured dances, to be unable or unwilling to choreograph a decent Latin routine that isn't a comedy one, and to broadcast his dislike so openly that it infects his celebrity partner with the same malady.

It's absolutely fine if you like the man so much you are prepared to overlook all the above. I also recognise and acknowledge that Strictly is primarily a Saturday night family TV entertainment show, and only secondly a dancing competition. I do hope Katie was warned that, if she really wanted to dance with Anton, she would be agreeing to learn to dance reasonable ballroom but only comedy Latin and that, by doing so, she could be scuppering her chances of winning.

I'll stop knocking Anton's Latin when he actually does some.

I thought the biggest problem was Anton's jacket which as Sandra Bee said restricted his movement. I would have been OK with the trousers and just the shirt (which I understand are usually joined together for dancing), but the jacket looked ridiculous and got in the way of the lifts. I thought he would take off the jacket before they got into the dance. I thought Katie did a decent job and the choreography was fine, it was just the jacket causing problems.

The judges were out of order though, making out it was dreadful, when we've all seen worse - much worse. Darcey really disappointed me with her comments and attitude. It was not nearly as bad as they made out.

Anton's Latin is fine for the standard needed for Strictly.

BiB : Sorry but the biggest problem was Anton's feet! Flat and stompy whereas at the very least he should have been wearing Latin dance shoes, and got his weight off his heels.

Yes, we have all seen worse - much worse - but that normally from the celebs, not the pro dancer.

I love Anton and have been rooting for him all along , but I was secretly dreading his latins . It all looks so jaded and try-too-hard and laboured . The flapping jacket was most distracting . Most of the latins are done in shirts so it looked all wrong from the start . I most certainly am not ageist and like I said I love the guy, but for me latin is a young man's dance . The women can be as old as god but if they have the moves they can generally get away with it , but for me an older man doing latin to Strictly standard looks totally off key . I suppose that does make me ageist , and sexist . Sorry , I'll get me coat .

You can tell he doesn't favour latin - I love Anton, but bless, he is not very good at it.

That's an interesting point, Heatherbell. I had never thought about it but I think I agree with you. There's something more jarring about an older man looking (or trying to look) slinky and hip-wiggly etc. I guess it IS sexism - maybe all those years growing up being warned of looking out for dirty old men offering candy Oh that's probably not it - it's just a bit undignified or silly and we expect men to somehow behave differently...

And it also seems that Anton is self-conscious about his Latin. Who the hell would wear a jacket to do salsa? He looked much better in the club, but I don't think they had the camera on his lower body. I think there's a bit of flop-sweat going on and we might be picking up on his anxiety - which, being Anton, he tries to cover with humour (except the unfortunate 'slip' when he said "she" couldn't do any better so that's why he choreographed the salsa with her standing still -- which didn't explain why HE wasn't do cha cha cha steps while she was standing still but instead was basically jogging around her.)

He might already be wishing "his year" would come to a quick end, though I suppose only samba and paso are out of his wheelhouse of dances left? Surely they wouldn't assign him Argentine Tango

ETA I forgot rumba. Is he good at it?

You know what ? I think he could pull off an AT , I really do . It's less flitty-about and more (nice)stomping and striding and twisting moves .Plus his age might be a bonus since the AT is about control and dominance . Control like that can look super in an older guy .

Rumba . Not sure on that . He might be able to carry it off since it is more showcasing the woman . All he needs to do is remain fluid and smooth and slinky and he can do that . I think .

You'd think that would apply to paso, as well. Anyway, we may have some real Latin treats to look forward to from Anton. I'm going to be very annoyed if they go badly and he blames her again.

I don't know if it was Anton or Katie that went wrong, but it certainly looked to me like a lot of that dance was just made up after something had gone really wrong. Anyone can mess up, and on form they might have been better, though probably not great.

What I don't agree with is the idea that Katie would win this with a different partner. I think a huge amount of her support is actually support for Anton, and a feeling in the audience that it would be nice to see him do well before he stops - and a wish to see more of their lovely ballroom. She's good, but I don't think that with someone else she'd be out-dancing Anita, Helen, Kellie or Georgia - jmo. I still think Anton is her best bet of getting to the final.

I also think that a lot of the voters don't mind if you can't do the hips in Latin, as long as you can do the ballroom. They think they wouldn't be able to do it either and quite like people for it. I still think they might be OK if they can dodge the samba. Though paso might also be a tough dance for them.

You have summed up my feelings so well. Other professionals with the not so brilliant celebrities seem to work in a supportive and respectful way.

I think that's a fair point. Katie might be performing the latin dances better with, say, Pasha but she probably still wouldn't be doing them that well and she also wouldn't necessarily be doing as well in the popularity stakes. Katie/Anton has a story dynamic that isn't really there with anyone else.

"Anton's latin" has kind of got to comedic proportions by now - he knows he's not great, he admits he's not great, he hasn't had anyone who could do latin to a decent standard in about a million years so he's not practiced in what he maybe could have attempted ten years ago which makes it worse.

That said, he's (by luck or planning) front-loaded the series with his dodgy dances and they still have the waltz, quickstep, foxtrot and AS to come. Either the rumba or the samba still needs to be slotted in (they need to pray Jeremy, Carol, Jamelia and/or Kirsty are still there at this point) - they should be fine with Charleston. AT? I'm not sure I want to think about that.

It did look very cobbled together , I must admit . Or like they'd not rehearsed it enough in parts and got a bit off course .
I agree, I doubt another partner could do any better . We know from the past that Anton gets the duffers MAINLY because he susses out what they can and can't do and builds the routines on that foundation . On that basis I think pretty Katie is rather less capable than we at first thought . Maybe the jive was a fluke . As for support , yes I agree on that as well . I noted in the early threads that there was a heck of a lot of abuse/disdain aimed at Katie which puzzled me since I'd no knowledge of her and wondered why on earth she drew such hostility . So I don't think she has much support personally and it is Anton fans carrying her along .
Samba will be a killer . Fingers crossed they get to avoid that . Paso and AT might be OK though . But just OK .

Completely agree with this, I think Katie is the type who would be out after 3 or 4 weeks if she had been paired with someone else.

The way the judges spoke to Katie and Anton on Saturday (and after their cha cha) made for uncomfortable viewing. Its as though they really want to have a go at Anton about his latin like its an 'elephant in the room', but can't spell it out so they take it out on Katie like she should be better than she is. The fact is, Anton didn't get hired as a pro this year by lying to the producers - they know exactly what his latin abilities are and they still hired him and gave him Katie. Its unfair then for the judges to go overboard against Katie when he isn't better.

I can't believe that when TPTB were auditioning celebs they would have decided to give Katie to Anton if they thought she had potential to do brilliant latin dances - I think she's just not that good at them and is suited to ballroom. She would probably be pretty much the same with any other pro except another pro could do more quality latin dancing around her to disguise it. I enjoyed Anton's paso and Charleston with Laila so there might be some better latins to come.

Always found it odd that a Charleston for SCD is put in the Latin category when many of the steps are used in QS. Where the AT has more connections to a Rumba with a different hold to anything else.

Wasn't the theory on here that it was put in the latin side so that Chris Hollins could repeat it in the final, back when they still had to do one of each? I don't suppose it really matters these days as they don't alternate latin and ballroom anymore and they seem to be able to do all latin or all ballroom in the final if the producers say so.

Yeah, when they introduced it they said it was "based on quickstep" and the rock'n'roll was "based on jive" but by the final it was classed as a latin dance. It just looked dodgy, especially as they removed the dance-off from the semi final but only told us during the week running up, so it looked like a lot of rules were being switched around to suit Chris.

years ago AT was classed as latin and as being one of the roots of Quickstep it baffles me they should class it as latin - I just wish they got rid of it to be honest

The man cant dance Latin and Katie nearly got booted because of it