Keeping it all under wraps.....clever Aliona

Maybe see more for the Friday panel, just a few teasers


Blows everyone out of the water Saturday night

She's been talking to Baldrick (and it's a cunning plan to get all Jay's fans on tenterhooks ready with their mobiles, laptops and phones )

So would you say that they are all on a 'journey' and making massive progress across the week, regardless of previous experience?

A big chunk of that side by side training footage is Aliona teaching Jay his parts in hold. She always trains it side by side as Jay has to lead.

The male pros probably find it quite easy to train in hold, but Aliona can't lead Jay around the floor to give him a feel of the moves. He literally mirrors her doing the male part before they dance together in hold.

Yes - Aliona described Jay as 'like a mountain' for her to move around and said she had injured her elbow trying to move his arm into the right place. She cannot move him, but she could lead him once he knew what the moves were that he was supposed to do.
When Jay talks about Ballroom, you can see that he has no idea about any of the dances until Aliona starts teaching him each week.

The interesting part of the training to me was Aliona teaching Jay how to use the bottom part of his body to get the flow and drive of the VW.

We haven't really seen much of that type of training, although I remember seeing Aliona teaching Tony Jacklin to Waltz and she had to do that in a very step by step way - very different to Jay.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/strictlyc...7-ed638eadc4b1

I find them by far the most fascinating to watch. The girls are almost always in hold just practising the dance you see on Saturday less perfectly than it ends up. When you watch Jay and Aliona it is like watching a dance lesson.

Yes absolutely. Most have had some experience albeit from different genres of dance, but NONE have experience in ballroom or Latin which is the important thing. they are all progressing but some quicker than others.

This really isn't the case. Aliona has to teach him his steps, she also has to teach him the direction in which to take the steps. She will also teach him the shaping, hence the side by side mostly in front of mirror, so he can copy her as best as he can. This is nothing to do with teaching jay to lead which comes only with a lot of experience

This is absolutely correct. The lower body, legs and feet are very powerful in all ballroom dances, and this is essential to VW. As you see beginners dance, everything is really steppy - as I see in the celebs on SCD - there is no power from the standing leg. In this instance, in VW when coming forward as man or lady you need the drive, then the linear swing in naturals, no intentional rise and fall. Very technical dance with very specific foot work. I'm sure Aliona will do a great job.

I don't think the post you were quoting mentioning teaching Jay to lead - it mentioned teaching him his part that he will be in hold for?

The following comments also indicated that Aliona can back lead him once he knows what he's doing - but she can't physically make him move in the right direction until then because he's just too solid to push - so teaching him the moves in mirror then lets them work in hold.

To be fair, I did say lead, but I meant the male part as opposed to teaching Jay how to lead her.

I had an issue with the poster that I quoted (not Jennifer F) claiming we didn't see any "in hold choreo" when it was clear that Aliona was teaching him his in hold part side by side.

That's how she teaches it every week. We even saw a training VT describing it.

It's fascinating to see how different the training methods are, that Aliona uses with the different celebs.

Harry was a beginner, so Aliona trained him a bit like Tony, but faster to learn, with natural balance and timing, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1akCRAwHcYg

With all her celebs, Aliona has varied her methods to suit, but always based on teaching the correct technique.

I think the words used by the poster were " Aliona always teaches it side by side as Jay has to lead"...
from that my interpretation is correct, that the poster feels the side by side teaching is because he has to lead ? It is nothing to do with whether he is leading or not, he has has to learn the alignments.

No-one would dance in hold until they knew what they were doing, in particular for the man as he has to get the direction right, whether down lone of dance, diag to wall etc.

This is the sign of an excellent teacher.