In the forum comments on week 2, it sounded like an illegal lift should cost 1 point in the judging.

After Kelly and Brendan's American Smooth, it was sounding more like people think the cost should be 2 points or more, and the judges may have agreed. (Craig seemed to be saying it was a 10 if not for the lift, and he have them 8.)

On ITT tonight, Craig thought they should have been disqualified!

(IMO if it's really that serious, it should be noticed during practice or rehearsal and stopped before Saturday, so that they have to use a legal dance on the night.)

Is there anything authoritative that says what the consequences of an illegal lift should be? What happens in "real" dance competitions?

Not that an entertainment reality show with non-professional dancers ought to behave like a professional competition in every way, but it would still be interesting to know.

Personally I don't think it is fair that they allowed a show where one half of the couples can do lifts and the others can't. They are very showy and vote-winning and give everyone doing the AS a huge advantage of the sambas. Brendon puts lifts in where he's not allowed to because he knows they get votes and attention.

I agree the consequences should be clear and apply to everyone. I also wish that all the other dances would add a lift to the pasos and foxtrots and say they were dancing from their hearts.

In "real" dance contests dancers are allowed as many lifts as they want (within reason). The "subset" of rules for SCD are set by the judges and the pro's are asked to work within those rules.

There are many instances of rule breaking, not only on lifts, and only some dancers are penalised. The whole idea of dance design, choreography, is to create an exciting dance and that requires freedom of expression.

Brendan broke the rules with 3 lifts but no one has asked him why, other than to accept that it was artistic licence, much like Bruno's 10 was artistic licence. Len gave Kate a 6 when his peers judged the dance at a 3, so Len was using artistic licence.

Brendan has a valid point when he questions the judges rules and scores.

So if this is a Dance contest and Len, Bruno, Arlene and Craig constantly claim then shouldn't they dance to 'dance contest rules' not SCD rules then?

Quite. Well said that woman (or man!)

I can't speak on the American Smooth since I never danced it in competition, but with regard to 'real competitions' lifts are not allowed in the five Ballroom and Latin dances.

Of course the accepted criteria on what consitutes a lift allows for accidental lifts, where the lady's foot slips for example. The consequences of the judging panel observing a blatent illegal lift would be disqualification.

But lifts can be very subtle and when you have many couples taking the floor at the same time, in a venue the size of, say, the Winter Gardens and your judges are dotted around the floor - it is entirely possible that lifts may occur without consequence.

Um, so far we've had one person say that in "real" contests the dancers are allowed as many lifts as they want, ... and one person saying almost the opposite.

In SCD they get penalised quite heavily, in DWTS only the American judge seems to care and will downgrade by a point.

I believe that the person who said lifts were allowed, was commenting specifically on how the American Smooth is danced at competition level. Lifts are allowed in that dance.

The AS was never one of my discipline's so my comments are about the standard five Ballroom and LAtin dances (Waltz, QS, Tango, Foxtrot, VW, Rumba, Cha Cha, Samba, Jive, Paso). Lifts are not allowed in these dances in competition.

Hope that clears the confusion.