I don't like him either but in all honesty how can you hide her feet in an Argentine Tango?? It's focus is on the woman and her legs and feet. Totally exposing, as is the rhumba, hence why she has had 2 bad weeks, he couldn't hide her anymore!!

Work on her technique, even a little improvement in her feet would have made the judges happy, don't throw her around in moves that just show how badly placed her legs and feet are, try and instill a little grace into her, hard things to do but things that he should have been doing from the beginning.

Being pigeon toed doesn't physically stop you pointing your feet though. They might sickle when you point them and so you'll be picked up for having a sickled foot, but for much of Saturday's dance Anita's feet were flexed - it was particularly noticeable in a couple of the lifts, and made her line look ugly and unfinished.

I accept Gleb may be limited in what wonders he can work on pigeon toes, but either he isn't telling Anita to point her feet or she's incapable, after 14 weeks of intensive instruction, of remembering such a simple and non-specialist-dance-specific instruction (by which I mean you don't only point your feet in one dance out of the many learnt on Strictly so it's not a specialised step she's only had four days to try to perfect). Either way, one of them isn't doing a very good job there.

That's where the dry ice and uber full length dresses come in.

I thought her feet were most obvious in the solo section she did with backing dancers. It was a combo of them showing her up and being out of hold. That was down to Gleb's choreography.

Well I think she is tremendous and I admire her enthusiasm to perform, even when she is competing with those already 10 steps ahead of her in every aspect.

Gleb is showcasing fresh routines and Anita is the perfect compliment to his work.

Their Paso was the best dance this year. (yes Jay's Jive is alongside it.)

He does have a long, successfull competitive Latin record though - just as long as many of the other pros, so I'm a bit confused as to what kind of background pro dancers are expected to have?

I know being able to DO isn't the same as being able to TEACH but I don't think any pros have been engaged on their teaching record, at least, not until they've retired from the competitive part of the show and settled into ITT (i.e. Ian Waite and Karen Hardy).

I totally agree that Gleb is currently displaying a lot of distracting flash, but I'm inclined to think that it's designed purely to get Anita further than she deserves, based on her ability and raw talent.

As a (admittedly, only) community dance teacher, maybe I'm a bit more realistic about what you can achieve with certain raw goods in a certain time frame?

I also remember the Aliona/Harry thing (I seem to remember Craig bringing it up when judging their Quickstep and Aliona being pleased they'd managed to get that far without it being mentioned, as she had personally clocked it on day 1 in the training room) but there are a bunch of variables that come into play - for starters, men build muscle easier, so 12 weeks of exercises designed to fix this issue (not my area of expertise but I presume it begins at the inner quads?) will probably make more impact than 12 weeks of a woman doing the same thing? And maybe Harry went home and did corrective exercises three hours a night and Anita goes home and runs the choreo through instead? Or maybe it's as simple as corrective ortho inserts are easy to use in man's dance shoe and impossible in a ladies latin shoe?

Ultimately, time is finite, and teachers are not miracle workers.

The AT was, for me, the first time Anita's ability to sell a Gleb show stopper routine didn't work because I was too distracted by her feet.

I think it was Becky mentioned earlier that her feet looked too big and I have to agree. When I was looking at her feet it looked like her shoes were oversized (they're clearly not though otherwise she'd not be able to dance) so it just emphasised the wrong placement and lack of finishing.
Usually I've enjoyed her performance enough to either overlook or not even notice her lack of technique etc so this time I have to blame Gleb for choreographing a routine which exposed Anita.
Obviously the AT is a difficult dance to "hide" in but there were things he could have done to mitigate instead of all the ridiculous amount of lifts and steps which drew attention to her feet.

He is about to do that, but I'd say that's as much down to Anita. She could be even better and receive less criticism from the judges about basic techniques. And Matt's early boots were not as good as Anita.


According to Wikipedia they were the second elimination. His degree is extremely relevant when it comes to to choreography, but not necessarily for teaching dance.


Great post. I expect the pros to be able to teach the basics of each dance and that includes the basic foot techniques for both Ballroom and Latin. This is where the Burn the Floor pros struggle on the show and some are better than others.

You have raised an interesting point though. Maybe Gleb doesn't think it good use of their time at this stage in the competition. Anita only has to make it through this weekend and the judges no longer matter.

You're right about the previous celebs too with similar problems because IIRC, apart from Alesha who sometimes sickled her foot, the rest are all male.

Plenty of Strictly pros with a Ballroom and Latin also taught/teach outside the three months when the show is on. They have websites giving details, so it's definitely not the case that they might offer lessons or classes once they're no longer doing the show. That said, I think a pro has to learn to adapt their teaching to suit the format of Strictly. It's all about getting the celeb to learn a new routine every week and some pros struggle in their first year and then catch on (e.g. Aliona), others are great from the start (e.g. Kristina). Some use the same techniques every year because they work (e.g. Ola).

I think you could be right about Gleb.

Yes, agree with a lot of this, especially the last line.

I keep reading Anita would have been better off with Anton or Aljaz etc. I'm not convinced. They're not miracle workers and other pros come with their own pluses and minuses. I think Gleb's done ok by Anita. Maybe he has devoted more time to memorable choreography than foot-straightening - but they've made the semi-finals so it seems to have paid off. As for Harry Judd - pointed or sickled feet - he still largely bored me. Dancing's about more than just that.

That's very selective of you - Janette took plenty of criticism on here for Peter's failure to improve. She had much less training time than Anita and Gleb seem to have, but yes, she probably should have done better. But Peter didn't outstay his welcome on the show in terms of ranking by dance ability, even though some may argue he stayed in a week too long.

The simple fact I cannot get past is that I can't see that Anita's improved much at all since week 1. That's Gleb's responsibility, and his choreography has not helped.

Anton would probably have strangled Anita by now. Or the other way round, more likely.

This! Chelsee was robbed that year.

I thought it was awful - way too over the top for me.

Sorry, but not quite the right analogy IMO. Teachers in other subjects may offer adapted resources etc but to get to the root of dyslexia's impact on reading, writing, speaking and listening would require a specialist tutor.

So in dance terms it would perhaps mean trying to adapt the footwork possibly above all else, hardly practicable in the circumstances.

What do you expect from a Paso, subtlety?

It was incredible and deserved 40, if anybody else had performed it like that they would have.

Yes, it would. But I didn't think that level of details was necessary in a thread about pigeon toes

i was developing your point about effective teaching though

Thank you

You're welcome

I doubt it. Anita got a generous score as it was, probably because (as everyone loves to remind us) she has no dance background. If any of the others had performed it like that they would probably have been told it was below the level of technique and actual paso content that they expect from them and marked accordingly.

What it had going for it was the music and the staging. Helen's by comparison was inappropriate. Neither of the girls was IMO best suited to the dance itself though.

The latter! He and Kate are great anyway.


Chelsee...one in a long list of "wuz robbed" contestants She sparkled while Harry was just so....nondescript. But hey ho.


It was over the top. It didn't deserve 40. But boy did I enjoy it.

We were both wrong, it was week 4 I knew I'd definitely watched more than 2 dances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV7NhHEC4BY

I brought up his qualifications as you mentioned something about his Russian celeb being involved in the choreography hence them finishing in second place, my point was that he has the choreo chops himself, agree that that doesn't necessarily translate into teaching ability though.

Just re-watched Ian and Denise's paso (Series 2) from a link on another thread. If you want to see how a Paso can be both charmingly understated and powerfully acted/danced, watch that.

On just one series, I think it is hard to tell whether a pro has helped a struggling celeb look better than she is, or whether the pro took a promising celeb and under performed. It is hard to tell whether the celeb would have been better technically with a different pro and retained the performance skills and still become a favourite through flashy choreography.

If you were to look at this series in isolation then it would easy to say that Aljaz took a promising celeb and never sorted out her latin problems and didn't hide her faults with clever choreography. Once you take his previous years into account he just looks like a good pro.