With respect and not meaning to offend, do you think perhaps you may be over analysing his performances.

I agree. He is over exagerating on purpose to get the marks.

I am hardly analysing his performances at all. Naturally, I have to try to explain myself in a thread, but it starts with how his dancing seemed to me when I watched. I don't watch in an especially analytical way.

Dance experience will help him with a lot more than balance. It will help him with interpreting music and expressing emotion through movement, for a start.


DOI skating is somewhere between ice dancing as it's usually done and pairs skating. DOI even allows lifts, such as the "headbanger", that are illegal in international pair skating.

If Ray is weak on lifts, then that should count against him as it would against anyone else; but it would not matter much for my own enjoyment.

FWIW, I am not a fan of ice dancing or of pairs skating. What I like is (ordinary) figure skating.

All I know that when I saw Ray skate last week I got a chill down my spine. I thought he was great the first week but incredible on Sunday. I have rewatched it about ten times now and I'm still awestruck. He really is fearless. I don't think he's flashy and would love him to win but no doubt Todd will

Hi - I think this may be what Veri's getting at, Chris Dean has said in every show that they need to reign him in a bit and Maria, being a coach, is possibly trying to do that. There's no doubt he's very talented but he's not leaving himself anywhere to to go and he's only skated twice, just my point of view of course.
Anyway good luck to him, I hope he makes the final.

I think Ray will continue to wow us every week and will win the whole thing.

He's smugger than Smug John McSmuglison, winner of the Smug competition. The public will see through him

He's the best celeb skater there at the moment and may well win it

But Coleen's my fav

Kyran Bracken could only do two lifts it didn't count against him because his skating was so good, the same reason it shouldn't count against Ray.

Ray is a joy to watch I agree with others who say it's his interpretation of dance that so good to watch.

I reckon Ray will surprise a few with his ability to lift - should he put all his eggs in one basket at the beginning or save the best till last?

This is my main concern with him - it's not his fault but there's not much height difference to work with and I doubt he has the strength of Kyran (s/p)? - I just hope he's not pushed into lifts he's not capable of controlling just so the public can see progress being made

That's it in a nutshell for me.

I had exactly the same reaction.

He is the first skater ever on DOI to make me sit up and really love what I am seeing. Kyran Bracken was good and I liked him skating and I thought that Gareth Gates had a nice style on the ice too - but Ray is in another league altogether.

Whether Ray wins or not - the joy for me is in watching him every week - hopefully he will stay in till the very end!

I wonder if it's a matter of technique as much as strength??

I know it's different on ice, but I distinctly remember Austin ( Guns ) Healey struggling to lift EB in the AS this year, yet Matt di Angelo managed to lift old Flavia the year before without too much difficulty, and I'm sure it wasn't necessarily all down to their close personal bond

That's cos Austin was doing overhead lifts, Matt was doing lifts at waist level which don't require the same brute strength.

That's why Ray will be able to do the lifts he can now. I don't think we'll see him do the sit lift, drape lift or the table top.

How do you know it didn't count against him? Why wouldn't he have been even higher-rated if he could do lifts?

If DOI doesn't care about the men doing lifts, they should remove them from the show; otherwise lifts just work against the women (who have to spend time on them rather than on learning to skate better).


And, having watched it, I disagree. It was all standard dance stuff, nothing interesting.

(BTW, I didn't like Kyran's ice dancing either.)

Hi Jill1812

I do take your point, I did manage to find a clip of Matt hoisting Flavia above shoulder height albeit unconvincingly!!

Matt Dawson although a rugby player of a less muscular physique than Austin, managed to do it tho, so I think although strength is clearly a factor, I must go back and bang on the technique drum a bit more

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgE7cIESeo

( just so you can see I'm not making it up )

His best routine got 29.5 how higher rated could he be? (the 0.5 he missed out on had nothing to do with lifts.)

That dance is one of my favourite dances on Strictly ever.

Matt never lifts Lillia over head height - the only two on strictly to do that have been Austin and Kenny Logan. Both with incredible upper body strength. Though your right there is technique to it too. Matt made it look easy which is the difficult bit.

My point was that Ray is nowhere near as good as a professional, and so any claims that he is as good are overrating him.

I've watched Sunday's dance again, and Ray was worse than I'd remembered, and the skating moves easier.

Which is not to say his skating was poor. It was good by DOI standards, especially for only his second week. But not nearly as good as some are saying.

I said deliberately "rated", not "marked". Marks in shows such as DOI are often pusher up to show someone was better than someone else, without moving all the marks down.

(The DOI scale is lower than in professional (or high-level amateur) competition anyway, or else no one would ever get a 6.)

Personally speaking I really like Ray,I thought he was great on XFactor even though his music was not to my taste and maybe because I like him I find his dancing to be very interesting,he has great musicality and movement and his interpretation is fantastic,he was the same on XFactor,I remember being in awe of his Elvis style rock and roll and I am really looking forward to what he does next.

Technically, he's much better than the other skaters and he knows how to perform, but it's a bit rough and messy, I think he's just a little bit out of control still and sometimes he goes faster than Maria. This was a problem with Chris and synchronising with Frankie, although I think Maria and Ray have a better partnership than Chris and Frankie. But it's skaters like him and Chris where you think they'd much rather be on their doing solo skating. Pairs stuff doesn't work for everyone.

I really don't understand why miserable people watch at all if all they want to do is pick holes in the most exciting participant we've ever seen.

So what if he doesn't skate like a pro in his second outing on the ice? He's great to watch and is giving pleasure to millions. Get over it.

He also lifted Maria above shoulder height in the first week when they were all introduced, and he's done lifts in dancing, he can lift, he just isn't doing it in the routines at the moment.

Do you have anything positive to say about either of Ray's performances?

Do you study to find fault with every other celebrity performance as you do his?