Strictly 2017 - Nearly Show-Time!

[CaveMum]

The couples have been announced and rehearsals have started. So strap on your dancing shoes, it's time for Strictly 2017 💃🏻🕺🏼

Ruth has a terrific figure. A lovely looking woman.

Really enjoyed that and went v quickly. Most surprised by Debbie who was better than I expected. The Rev made me chuckle. Shaping up to be a fab series and my Saturday nights are sorted

Debbie McGee went to the Royal Ballet School and subsequently danced professionally as a ballet dancer, so I am slightly surprised she was allowed on the show after all the fuss about whether Danny Mac was strictly amateur because of some dance training last year. Maybe the early training isn't considered quite the same as it otherwise could be because she is older than the average contestant - but many older ballet dancers have still danced well in all but the most athletic ballet. But congratulations anyway if she does win - I think I am slightly going off Strictly.

Molly did a lot of kisses to the camera but it felt like the rest was a bit underwhelming. Aston meanwhile was hot, loved the one little wink to camera at the end 😊

ooo... I, on the other hand, am having hot flushes remembering Danny's bottom dancing.

pp who missed Simon and his lack of caping
vids are now going up on youtube

@holz657

I absolutely adore Caludia's jumpsuit

I loved it

I really liked Alexandra with Gorka. I felt so sorry for her about her mum.

Liked Joe and I love Katya.

I love Oti but Jonnie needs to relax and express his personality more.

I thought Pasha came up with a great routine for Chizzy.

Debbie just seems so lovely, I don't mind the amateur semi pro mix.

I liked Susan and she has made me almost like KFG.

Aston was great.

I wish that Neil Jones and Chloe had partners this year.

I like the new judge, she seemed knowledgable and tactful. Bruno should lay off the coke if that's what makes him so over the top but I just love it all.

I think Gorkas arse wins the night for me.

I loved Susan Calman, and was delighted wardrobe decided to make her actually look nice. Because. And I know it'll just be assumed I'm trying to be trendy or whatever. But dont you think that KFG and that moustache and that weird hair makes it looks like he's doing a pastiche, or even a mockery of whatever style he's dancing? No matter how seriously his partner is taking it his 'I'm mad me' persona undermines it. That's what I find so unlikeable about him.

Loved Debbie.
Consider Katya a genius and like a PP was distracted by her partners short short legs.

Oh lord, Simon rimmer.

I loved Claud's jumpsuit too.

Very pleased to see Susan do well obviously, but she'll need the votes if she's in that iffy lower-table-but-not-eye-catchingly-bottom danger zone by the end of next week.

Re Debbie, I Cannot believe that the Telegraph et al are behaving as if the fact that a former professional dancer can still dance really well by comparison with amateurs is some kind of shock.

Quite happy to ship Alexandra and Gorka.

My thoughts:

Gemma - didn't straighten her legs enough & lacked foot pressure. Good sense of rhythm but dance lacked Cha Cha content for me.
Brian - heavy footed (trying too hard to get the heel leads). Never a fan of pop music for Tango.
Alexandra - not bad, nice movement across the floor. Camera work made it hard to tell but I didn't see many heel leads.
Simon - Gave it some welly (technical term!), but too "on his toes", Paso should be very grounded. Lacked shaping as well, and Paso is 90% about the shaping, but not really bad.
Charlotte - divine music! Doesn't quite finish her arms and some gapping, but promising. Pleasantly surprised.
Chizzy - Fun and rhythmical but lacked foot pressure and straightness of legs. Also a bit too "contained", she needs to attack a bit more.
Jonnie - Needs to tuck his bum in! Splayed fingers and. Little flat-footed, but can be forgiven given the circumstances. Not a bad effort.
Joe - Bit flat footed and lacked some true bounce action. Good sense of rhythm and timing but that was a very fast Jive for a Novice to attempt.
Susan - very sweet. A bit skippy at times and needs to work on posture but she's not half bad.
Debbie - beautiful arms and leg extensions, a little too on her toes for Paso, but you'd expect that from someone trained in ballet.
Davood - lacked straightness in his legs but good rhythm and timing. Needs to settle a bit more into his hips and I did think the choreography was a tad Aliona-esque.
Ruth - pulled round the floor a bit, and lots of gapping. Not a bad effort, but needs to project more confidence.
Rev Richard - no straightness at all and quite stompy, but he gave it a bash and definitely has some rhythm.
Mollie - quite stiff and lacked bounce action, her action looked to be coming from the hips rather than the knee which is where it should come from. A bit disappointing.
Aston - he's got style. Lacked sway but a good performance.

Loving Shirley, proper constructive criticism and talking up the technical aspects of each dance with specific advice. Also love that she corrected Darcy when she gave incorrect advice.

Surprised by the Judges scoring, in a good way. They must have been told to tone it down to start with this series.

@CaveMum
Cave, can you answer @RTKM 's queston about kicks please?
they want to know which dance are toes pointed in and which dances have kicks at a right angle? i have no idea

sorry forgot

I'm sad to admit that like a pp, I think I'm going of strictly... I was bored tonight.

I loved it all, think they all gave it everything they could, thought it was a great start

Looking forward to next week already

I hadn't but heard of Susan before, but she seems lovely. I loved her reaction to being paired with Kevin in the launch show. Debbie was a surprise, but then maybe not having been a ballerina.

I don't know much about dance. I watch Strictly for entertainment.

I wasn't surprised by Debbie McGee. Stuff the ballet. She spent decades being the assistant of a very driven magician and that means she's had to be very flexible and supple to work a lot of the tricks.

She keeps going on about the ballet, but I suspect it's magician's misdirection.

I hope she does well. She looks like she will be fun.

Ok ok ok ok! I'm here!!! Bit late I know but we had a power cut! So I couldn't watch live! Catching up and reading the thread through in time with the show

Here are my thoughts;

Gemma: expected her to be pretty awful, and that I'd find her irritating but actually she did well but needs to learn what a straight leg is and relax through her back and shoulders more

Brian: better than I expected. Still an obnoxious twot though

Charlotte: FAR better than I expected. More musicality there than I thought there would be.

Simon: oh god. Everything I expected him to be and worse. An early departure I expect.

Alexandra: not as good as I was expecting given all the 'ringer' calls. Her musicality is obviously great.

Chizzy: handled that wardrobe glitch extremely well. Danced ok but needs to work on transferral of weight to make her steps quicker and be able to actually step instead of placing.

Jonnie; really cute. I've a soft spot for him but was still impressed. His posture and positioning and his hands were bit dodge.

Joe: god I love Katya's choreography always. Joe danced well. I'd have like the feet a little more pointed at times and he stuttered on his timing a couple of moments. (Not an 8)

Susan: gosh. So much better than I had feared! Really rather a nice waltz. Posture a bit dodge but it's harder with the height difference to get that frame spot on. Bit clumsy out of hold too. (Love Susan)

Debbie: good I thought. A prop in week one is rather good. Back a bit stiff and shoulders tight but she's, I think, going to do rather well. (Also I really love our Joe Varney... do other people think he's terribly attractive too or have I just spent too much time around Italians?) (bet Anton's pissed he didn't get her)

Davood: (DS is in love with Nadia) something about his feet irritates me. Also there was a lot of flap and flash and not a lot of him doing much cha-cha.

RTKM no dances should have kicks with toes un-pointed. Apart from possibly the Lindy hop. The toes have annoyed me a fair bit this eve.

Ruth: danced nicely enough but it was a bit dull, I think she stumbled a couple of times, maybe forgot what she was doing, and seemed very tense. I think once she'd had a couple of hiccups she clung on to Tony Beak for reassurance. Hopefully the nerves will improve over the weeks.

Rev Rich: oh bless him. What marvellous arms. Stompy at times but a think the main problem was concrete hips. Good timing. And actually extremely enjoyable if not technically astute... his enthusiasm is just so contagious.

Mollie: the preview VT made me cringe. AJ is just still immature enough not to realise it's not all about him. Mollie did well but I got a bit bored not sure AJs choreo is up to the task tbh.

Aston: that was a great dance! I wasn't convinced he'd do too well at ballroom but that was lovely.

Lots of the scoring might have seemed a bit at times but the thing to remember is that it's ALL about ranking kit the actual scores. So for example it doesn't matter if Craig gives a 6 and Bruno a 9 if they both gave their highest score of the night to the same dancer. Does that make sense? In this way Craig is often far more balanced and well considered than some of the others. But equally if Bruno is higher than the others it doesn't matter, so long as the order/ranking works out right.

All in all a lovely evening I think!

@soupforbrains thank you very much

So in tonight's dances should all have pointed toes rather than in right angles (sorry don't know technical term)

It was the fast dances that the feet looked strange in the kicks but did not have enough knowledge to be sure if they were doing it correctly or not

Thank you everyone for explaining and giving reviews for us all

Greatly enjoying Shirley.
I very much liked the predatory quality to Debbie's dance, which was so different to her on stage persona as a lovely, passive magician's assistant. Ir was amusing that she had not rehearsed the kiss at the end - hence Giovanni's stunned expression-though if, say Brian Conley had done similar it would look appalling.

Alexandra was very watchable and sensuous. The waltz was supposed to be a very sexy dance but it is rare that this communicates itself in the Strictly numbers. The costumes helped.

I love Susan and Rev for entertainment value and they can both dance well enough to stay in a but.

I wasn't looking at Davood at all, the choreography reminded me of Ola.

Chizzy did well, moved ably and was very watchable and more likeable than Tamara.

Aston is rhe one to beat, very musical, physically fit and supple, and lots of cheeky charm.

I think aston will be in to the end but is the ringer so won't win. It feels like a really open competition, lots of people have potential for a "journey"! I really like Shirley, she got why dances that weren't technically great would have been enjoyed by the audience but still gave great feedback on how to improve. I do wonder whether she was annoyed by bruno's pawing though!

Sorry, missed the question about kicks. You should always be "using" your feet, so shaping them. Be it pointed in Jive flicks, turned out for checked Rumba walks/Cha Cha locks, etc.

For Jive, my teacher always told me to imagine you're standing in something sticky and that you have to peel your feet from the floor, with your big toe the last thing to come off. It's a good visualisation to use and helps achieve the "pointed" look.

Mechanically you achieve the use of the foot through your ankles, which is why you will hear a lot of the Celebs complaining how much their ankles hurt!