She's clearly not putting the effort in now.
Only John has trained less than her this week and he must be twice her age, the poor sod.
It's not as if she's very good and can afford to take it easy and unlike the lovely Christine she dosen't have a full time job. She just does a little singing from time to time, so no excuse there either.
Taxi for Heather!

I rather like Heather.

Someone has to be bottom of the training-hours-board. I shall reserve judgement as to whether more hours would have made a difference when I see her perform tomorrow night.

I think there are weaker links in the show though. She has a few dances left in her yet.

Rather harsh! She's by no means the weakest dancer left in the competition. Plus she's a mum and all mums on this forum will know that your kids take up a lot of your time. I'm sure she's doing as many hours as she can!

Unless you know Heather personally, I do not think that you are in any position to judge her for not training enough. She is constantly on tour and has a couple of gigs booked in the coming weeks and she's a mum to a 9 year old boy. Now, being a mum might not be as well paid as presenting The One Show, but it's a pretty tough gig with no flexi-time!

well said !! Just because Heather has had less training does not mean she has to be the next to go

I like Heather - she's one of the quiet ones but a very talented lady.

Who knows why she hasn't managed the training this week - we can't see behind closed doors; whatever, she's a natural for latin and Saturday's samba could be quite exciting.

Louisa did very little training but she was outstanding.

There are times when less is more - I'm not sure if this is the case with Heather, time will tell.

IMO, Andrew, Mark, John, and Don are all worse dancers (IMO) than Heather, and she's on a par with some of the others. Just because she hasn't put in as many hours as some of the other couples, doesn't mean she's not trying. She will undoubtedly have other commitments she needs to fulfil and this will clearly affect the amount of training she will able to put in, but she's showed quite a bit of potential to do quite well in this competition, and is certainly not time for her to go.

There are plenty of men that should go first

Heather is ok for me

The good thing about Heather is we haven't heard her constant whining about not having time to rehearse or how unfair her scoring was last week. I'm sure if some other members in the competition would be constantly whining if they didn't have time to rehearse. They've all signed up to SCD and know they have to put in the hours or they'll go out but sometimes there are other demands on their time. Who knows what situation Heather is in this week - I don't think her hours have been constantly lower.

She comes across as quite dedicated to me.

Who knows why she couldn't put in more hours - she certainly wasn't spending her time signing endless books like Gary or I'm sure we'd have heard about it.

We have no idea why Heather hasn't trained as much as the others - she may have other commitments that we know nothing about.

But to say she must go because of it seems a bit harsh IMO.

Edited due to caz's edit.

On topic, Heather isn't one of my favourite contestants at the moment, but I certainly don't think that she should go this week. I think the samba is a dance that will suit her temperament (from what I can gather or it from the television) and I am looking forward to watching it.

edited.

Heather isn't my favourite but I feel she does well keeps head down and does really well. it was an unfair dig

Me too.

I tend to agree with you about it being an unfair dig. I am a bit bemused by the very vocal enthusiasm of some of her fans, but I certainly don't think she deserves this sort of flak. Her salsa was great fun and I really am looking forward to her samba (along with at least two others, I should add) .

I wish that ITT would stop showing us this particular League table every week.... when it gets to the later stages and it's more of a jokey thing ...more along the lines of "OMG you've spent 200 hours with this person" then fine ....

Number of hours trained doesn't necessarily indicate the level of commitment or concentration ... and it rarely predicts whether a couples performance will be any good.....whatever the number of hours training the celeb does ( be that 5 or 50) it will be obvious on Saturday night whether they are prepared or not - surely that all that matters.

How can we second guess the level of hours that need to be done ...

I'm guessing the pros have a much clearer idea than us what will work....there's a whole gamut of things to consider, fitness levels, injuries etc.... 3 hours of focus might be better than 8 hours of low energy faffing.

I'm sorry to be grumpy but every week this "number of hours" thing comes up.

Mark trained the most two weeks ago and he was still in the bottom two, so however much you train has no bearing on performance level.

I don't think lack of training hours is a reason for her to go - unless of course her dance turns out to be awful. I know this doesn't always happen - but the person who goes should be the worst dancer on the night.

I didn't know who Heather was before the show started however, I have found I like her more than some of the other celebs. She just gets on with it and gives it her all, she also appears to suffer more than the others from nerves which must make it very difficult for her. I hope she stays in for a few more weeks as I feel she has more potential than some of the men.

Bit pointless actually having the show really.

They should just tot up the number of hours trained, adjust with an age co-efficient (so that genial John gets to stay), give bonus points to anyone working 'full-time'...and then kick out the couple at the bottom of the table.

It would save a lot of fuss and bother wouldn't it?

Well you may not like her or think she's good, but many of us do.

And you may not consider it to be work worthy of the title of a job, but Heather is a mother who seems to actually want to spend time, bringing up her child.

And of course, she is a singer/recording artists of not inconsiderable repute; with a very long, successful and distinguished career, a career that is still very active . From what I've gleaned, she been doing a mini tour this month, some dates in the first week of October (London, Manchester, the midlands) and some more dates next week. And guess what, she can't just rock up to a venue in say Manchester or Glasgow a couple of hours before the gig and do a quick run through!! She actually has to spend some time preparing for them!!


Oh and as others have already stated, number of hours trained, a fine dancer does not make......

Mi' Lord, the defence produce Exhibit no. 1 Mark Foster 75 trillion hours trained....... nice body, nice man.......bad dancer...... shame about the footwork......and posture....and musicality or lack thereof....etc, etc.

I saw Heather live sing "Proud," at the closing of the Manchester Commonwealth Games - that song is iconic, as is Heather.

I have to believe this is said tongue-in-cheek. For the record, Heather is 43 so she's not half John's age unless, of course, he's 86!

I disagree. She's much better than some of the men left in the competition - Mark, Andrew, John and Don should all go before her.

Let see how she dances tomorrow. I have high hopes for her samba.