Laila Rouass & Anton du Beke - Salsa

They’ve not impressed in the Latin so far this series, the training looks good but can they ‘bring it’ on the night?

Why Laila, why always the mistakes? Especially when you’re apart from Anton it just makes it so obvious.

Emma asked me yesterday my prediction for who was going out tonight, I predicted Laila last night and I stand by that tonight after seeing that performance.

Unfortunately Len’s right, they want to be in the final but they rarely manage a flawless performance and I can’t see them progressing further than tonight.

A real letdown and I’m going to have to say a 5 (possibly the lowest score I’ve given all series – I’ll have to go back and look!)

Ali Bastian & Brian Fortuna - Samba

The bogey dance so far for most competitors, and I don’t think the Samba will prove to be her dance tonight either.

Still looks too ‘nice’ and on a couple of moves Ali doesn’t appear to finish before she’s on to the next step and really needs to dance from the floor.

I don’t think the choice of music helped, I do think Samba really needs to have a bouncy feel to it to really bring out the performance.

An ok performance but should get 8’s.

Leaderboard

1 48 - Ricky Whittle & Natalie Lowe
2 42 - Ali Bastian & Brian Fortuna
3 41 - Chris Hollins & Ola Jordan
4 33 - Laila Rouass & Anton Du Beke

Fairly predictable so far...

Ricky Whittle & Natalie Lowe - Foxtrot

Please Natalie I hope you’ve sorted out Ricky’s odd head movements as they really do grate for me and often it ruins the whole look of the routine.

Significant improvement in the head department, though he has to avoid looking down at the floor.

Can’t see his footwork but a very good performance, not perfect but I think it will get 9’s.

Chris Hollins & Ola Jordan - Waltz

A dance that needs elegance and romance, and I think Chris has what it takes to pull off a good one, but let’s see what happens.

I’m not personally happy with his head position, it’s stretched a little oddly but the dance is looking good aside from that, although he really does need to incorporate some shaping in his hands.

A nice Waltz that I think should achieve at least 8’s.

Laila Rouass & Anton du Beke - American Smooth

I was really enjoying the start, up until the slip in the spin. She really does have to watch those shoulders too. The dance does look like Anton is throwing her round quite a lot, and I don’t just mean in the lifts!

Started with lots of promise but I don’t think it delivered and I’m only going to give it a 7 I’m afraid.

Ali Bastian & Brian Fortuna - Tango

Another dance where Ali won’t be able to ‘float’ round the floor so will be interesting to see how she copes with the passion and aggression required in this dance.

Slight slip in the spins at the start and they appear to be incorporating rising into the dance at points.

Ali is looking quite unsteady at times.

An ok performance but I wasn’t too impressed so far, will have to say 8.

Sorry for the delay

We were away for the weekend, and even though i'd dutifully taken my laptop with us so that I could blog during the show, it turned out that the forest in Cornwall had zero phone reception!

I would have posted yesterday if we hadn't have got stuck on the M4 motorway, stationary for 1 1/2 hours :-(

So finally I've managed to find time to post this before I start my long day of teaching, the only positive from the delay is that I've been able to include the videos straight away.

Paso tips from Vincent Simone

Looking to improve your Paso Doble (albeit we don't teach it in our classes!)?

Here's the top tips from Strictly Come Dancing's Vincent Simone:

Week 11 in 60 Seconds

If you missed Strictly at the weekend, or haven't got time to go through my comments from the weekend (individual videos now added), here's a 60 second run down: