I think the nine was exactly the right score for Jay; it was almost perfect but not quite. There were mistakes. Just like there were mistakes or technique flaws from Georgia, Kellie and Anita which, instead of being picked up on, were for the most part ignored.

I wish we could have a conversation without the unhelpful 'I'm sure you'll disagree because you love Jay' comments - especially as few on here have said that Jay is not their favourite yet they believe the same thing.

If you think 4 x 9's underscored then it's a fair assumption that you wanted those 'unfair' 9's to be 10's .
He was over marked if anything .It was a nice dance and that's about it .
Kellie , anita , katie, and georgia were under marked . They were something special and deserved 10's imo . All of them were memorable while jay was just jay who managed to smile , so he got upgraded for that . Weird . But then the judges missed helen going horribly wrong so I can't help thinkin' what the heck they were drinkin' tbh .

I have been dancing for nearly 30 years and I hold Jay's dance in high regard. However, like the judges, I don't hold it in as high a regard as I held several of the other dances last night. Others, both dancers, non dancers, professional dancers etc may disagree but Jay's leaderboard positioning last night is perfectly understandable even if it is not acceptable to Jay fans.

How dare you OMG Ickle Jay is perfect!

On a serious note, I find Jay's technique good in a lot of ways, but not perfect. His dances are fairly boring to watch - he has had a charisma bypass. He certainly isn't living up to the hype.

Indeed we will have to disagree on that because you do not want to see the sense in basic principles.
It would be far more sensible to just score each dance individually on it's own merit and not because they are leaving wriggle room for later dances. I have no problem accepting anyones opinion but when it becomes blatently obvious that they are manipulating the outcome then my trust is gone I am afraid.

I do think Jay is fantastic yes and it seems I am far from alone, I also really like Georgia and Anita and would be pleased for them if they made the final or won for that matter.

But I do not like them getting further simply because the judges are ignoring their error's. Imo it is not deserving.

and ignoring their previous dance training, maybe the judges should take that into account.

That's true . It just gets creepy when craig gives a 3 point upgrade to someone because they learned to smile . Most of us learned that in our cots . He should be grateful for the 4 x 9's he snatched .

Sums it up . Well said .

Nope ............................the one's you mark as underscored were overmarked except for maybe Katie, and as I keep repeating my self had those who were overmarked not been so then a 9 for Jay would have been fair.

I dont hold much faith in your comments regarding Jay as you have proved to be so over biased in your critique's against him that it renders them irrelevant to me.

Maybe that suggests that I'm wrong in that technique is as subjective as performance. I have always thought that technique would be easy to judge in a sense and performance can divide opinion but maybe it's the same with both?

Sorry YL I have no idea what your point is. This from a supporter of Natalie Gumede who was dubbed the dirtiest ringah of all ringah's, which for some reason you completely ignore when questioned. I loved Natalie too but I am not being disingenuous nor hypocritical about using different standards.

You can change your mind though. I have changed my mind about the ringahs and I can do that.

I suspect the judges are supposedly marking him down because he is a ringah and hasn't improved very much. It could be that simple, they were very critical of Natalie from what I can remember.

Of course you can change your mind, especially if it's convienient to do so, and Yes Natalie did get marked down too which as I recall you were not happy about either.

Indeed , but thats the way the show goes. If they want Jay to win, he will become Jude Law, and his acting will be deemed oscar worthy by the final. If he has a thumping great unbeatable vote, his story will be filled in , how he learnt to act and won - it wouldn't be the first time. If one of the girls is a runaway winner, they will just say enough to get him into the final , so it doesn't look a one sex race two years running.

Natalie couldn't get emotions over down the camera either - bizarrely as its her day job.The public didn't connect.

Jay's problem is he's up against three people who should be able to provide emotional content - one doesn't always succeed , but there's a fourth female who isn't an actor and does it better than most of them, and Katie, who can do some characters well too.

That leaves Jay up against 5 females who are better at the emotional content, and Peter who is a showman - even though his acting is of the cheddar variety.

They aren't manipulating anything. Dance competitions are judged comparatively and that is what the judges are doing. There isn't some kind of defined standard for each dance to which each couple is compared and if you were to believe that scores like 9's and 10's should only be given for perfection then they would never be awarded. In fact, most of the couples would struggle to get above a score of 1 if you were to compare them to the couples that you saw competing in the Winter Gardens in Kellie and Kevin's VT.

From a judging perspective, it isn't ideal that they dance one at a time rather than with everyone on the floor to aid comparison. It isn't ideal that they all do different dances each week because it makes it harder to compare. It isn't ideal that the judges have to score immediately after a performance rather than wait until they have seen everyone so they can make a full and fair comparison with the benefit of hindsight. It isn't ideal that they only have paddles from 1 to 10 when we start with about 15 couples. The judging system is far from being perfect. However, the leaderboard positions are generally about right.

In fairness, it is quite hard as a viewer to properly judge technique because the camera angles are usually so awful that we don't get to see enough of it. What is technically right and wrong tends not to be subjective. How much weighting should be given to one form of technical error vis a vis another is very much more subjective. Ultimately, the way dance competitions are judged and have been for as long as I have been involved in them is that the couples are ranked in order of merit. This means the judges have to make a decision as to whether A is better than B and so on.

The criteria on which they make that decision will include both technique and performance. How much weighting they give to those two elements and how much weighting is given to specific aspects of those elements is very much more subjective. Is a missed heel lead on one step, for example, more or less important than a failure to spot on a turn. That distinction is a subjective one.

Difficulty also plays a part. A couple could do the basic waltz box step all around the floor with perfect footwork and fantastic musicality but that would still be thrashed by a routine involving much more complex choreography even if there were a handful of mistakes in it.

Jay's biggest problem is that he is seriously lacking in the performance side of things and until he addresses that he can have the most complex routine out there with perfect footwork etc and it is still conceivable that he will be beaten by someone else because of his lack of performance skills.

I think Jay received a fair mark last night and the table was largely right.

Dance is a performance, the right technique is part of it but the feeling/drama is another part of it. The judges have to take both parts into consideration. Some celebs have the performance but not the technique, Jay has the technique but still doesn't quite have the performance. There was an improvement last night but it is still not quite there.

No. It isn't that subjective. But not entirely objective either.

For example there is certain footwork which you expect to see. Heel leads, toes, inside edge of foot etc.

But then there is a greyer area. How well does someone execute that heel lead. I mean most of us can walk along a street and in doing so we will be putting our heels down first, but that is not what I would expect to see if someone is dancing a heel lead. I would be looking at how the feet pass each other, brush the floor etc.

Then there would be the topline (slightly more subjective), amount of swing, sway.

And of course there is dancing in time, but then if I am thinking about musicality I might give greater emphasis and slightly more time to certain steps.

Then there would be what I value most. Perhaps I put a greater value on being in time than good footwork. Or more value on footwork than posture.

And so on........

Peter has the performance element and crap technique. Georgia and Kellie have a much better balance of the two than Jay. Georgia is developing very good technique and she clearly loves to dance; at the minute, she's my winner.

So pleased to find a post on this thread where I can agree with every word

Yeah ive thought this week and last week he was better than his score, personally I thought a couple of 10' s for Saturday nights salsa

So true....

Great post, Natalian! Hats off to you.

I think he did rightfully earn those 9s, but your comment made me chuckle.