While I agree, I also think its true that with a more traditional pro she may not have stood up as much and who knows? She may not have made it this far.

For all the criticism towards Gleb concentrating on smoke and mirrors, is precisely through smoke and mirrors that people think she is a good dancer and that she has been underscored. I think she is both helped and hindranced by being paired with Gleb.

My other half said 'it's like watching someone trying to recite the 9 times table - they know there's a trick to it, but they just can't quite remember what it is'

Do we have to had a Darcy moment - the boys are right

That's a brilliant analogy. The rationale is to teach them to fake it I suppose on the assumption that it saves time. In my experience it doesn't save time . I have helped teach AT to performing arts undergraduates and initially we did set out to teach them just enough to fake the performance.

However with a few hours it became obvious that it was easier and quicker to teach them the rudiments to apply to freestyle choreograhy than to teach them to fake the style to a fixed choreogrpahy. To be fair though these were people with prexisitng musicality and dance skills.

I'm so looking forward to Helen's paso.
Her faces in training look like a kitten fighting its siblings for a particularly exciting piece of wool

Have to say your OHs take a lot more active interest in Strictly than mine does. Mr Alley sits in the corner with his beer and keeps quiet

On ITT most of the celebrities are saying how they are relating what they have learned for previous dances & applying it to the current dance. Or that they recognise various movements and how they translate to particular dance styles.

Den katalavaíno Hellenica!

I really like Helen, but that's spot on about the faces we've seen

I think she has been short changed of the whole 'Strictly Experience' by Gleb. I think the others in the top 6 would be able to take the skills and dance a dance outside of Strictly and be passable. Anita, not so much. She's been taught a routine and how to be a prop for Gleb to hurl himself at, but that's about it.

See now Mimi I am small and cuddly , have a face with dainty features and large eyes, people underestimate me over and over again, to their cost.

Kittens have very sharp claws and are after all descended from the same stock as lions.

I am told in full flow there is the equivalent of a lion on show 😃 again I am 50/50 on Helen and the paso, there is potential there for disaster or wonderful ness

Women with nice legs wearing skimpy costumes - what's not to like for him

My husband doesn't even know that I watch Strictly. He works on Saturday early evenings and hates anything to do with TV. I mean he knows I like it but I very much doubt that he knows how obsessed I am.

We have a winner
That's so it.

That explains why my husband sits around watching, but runs off when Casualty comes on.

But then no one's saying that he should necessarily ditch the staging & themeing, but that if he taught the technique & steps properly then she could be outstanding.

I'd not really paid much attention to it before this week, but what struck me was Anita's comment about starting from scratch each week compared to Aliona's comment about how Jay was finding the rumba easier as he'd already learnt the steps in his earlier routines (or something along those lines). I'm sure that in the past, other pros have said similar about dances being easier to pick up later in the competition for that reason too.

I dont know if Anita really wanted to learn to dance, I get that she wanted the Strictly experience and the benefits it brings, but, really, if you want to learn to dance you do before not when you are 38 and on a TV program.

Probably not.


I do not understand what an EOU means; but "post box lips" for me means very thin lips.

True. But I don't think she could have ever been outstanding though, though better definitely.

To me, aside from the feet, I find her lacking in what I call musicality but I may be wrong in the use of this word. By that I mean an innate ability to interpret the music with your body.

I said that last week I like your OH

Mine doesn't even sit in the same room.

But if you are a teacher and love your subject, and have a captive student - for a quarter of a year - wouldn't you want to actually teach? By signing to the show, the celebs indicate they are open to learning a new skill, whether they've had the urge in the past or not so for the actual teacher that's at least half the battle!

Mine is trying not to blurt out comments about Aliona.

Ah, right. Thank you.

EOU - I'll unappreciate anyone/thing as the whimsy takes me.

And completely change my mind 2 days later. I don't think I've ever spent more time driving down Strictly cul-de-sacs of unappreciationto then abruptly reverse straight back out again.

Can't remember who said it, possibly Ian Waite or Matt Cutler, but they certainly made comments that they spent a lot of time in the first 3 weeks of training teaching their celeb the basics of a few dances, not just concentrating on their first dance, which seems a very sensible way to go, getting the foundations down.

In the mythical place that was the first few series' of SCD, they did seem to take waaay more time to teach the basics of both ballroom and latin before they then moved onto the actual routines.