> It’s the first results show of the series, and our 15 couples nervously wait to find out the results. Motsi and Craig lead the pros in a high-fashion group number.

Leaderboard

Couple	Week 1	Movie Week	Score
Delta & Kai	29	30	59
Graeme & Lauren	24	31	55
Lacey & Vito	27	28	55
John & Katya	31	23	54
Bethany & Nancy	26	27	53
Tabby & Mark	22	28	50
Cach & Maddie	20	29	49
Dani & Nikita	22	23	45
Jaime & Carlos	21	21	42
Shaun & Alexis	15	25	40
Lawrence & Jowita	20	19	39
Dame Sarah & Julian	15	24	39
Will & Dianne	18	19	37
Chris & Amy	16	17	33
Melanie & Aljaž	15	15	30

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Can I just say, I’m actually LOVING the new presenters on strictly!
Emma - was always going to be great as she’s got yonks of experience.
Josh - I was unfortunately very sceptical about him…he’s proved me wrong, bloomin brilliant and I love the back and forth he has with the judges.
Johannes - I’m a huge fan of him anyway, but wasn’t sure how he’d do taking over the great Claudia’s role. I think he’s good, but I think he’s going to be GREAT! As more time goes on and more experience he gets I can see people in years to come saying he’s the best presenter there! He speaks so kindly, he’s hilarious and he of course knows what he’s talking about!
All in all I think Strictly is only going to get better.
insert Jonah Hill excited gif here
🤣💃🏻🕺🏿

To me it felt like it clicked into place on the Results show. If I were the Strictly executives I'd keep them in these roles so they can all fully shine.

Since it looks like they are planning to keep Johannes in that role, I've started to think of it as the Dance DoJoJo!

I’m so bored of reading 50 posts a day about how we don’t like the new hosting format and we don’t want Josh widdicombe (not my opinion, I personally like him), so let’s see if we can start a positive thread about some fun and exciting things we would like to see! You never know, maybe someone will see it and snap up our ideas for next year 👀

I’ll go first!

I’d love to have a proper explanation of what the hallmark criteria is for each dance. Maybe a bit less of the couples going on fairground rides etc, and a factual explanation with a demo of XYZ steps

I’d also love for them to introduce a Strictly Legends week where couples repeat some of the most famous dances from times gone by. I’m not sure what the etiquette is around using other professional’s choreography but I think it would be really fun to see dances recreated.

What fun things do you think they could try next year? Please keep it lighthearted, I’m trying to get away from just bashing the new format!

Anton and Erin dance the fallaway reverse slip pivot, followed by a series of double reverse spins

This may not be quite the post this sub is looking for, but if there’s anyone out there interested in some detail on the choreography – this is an analysis of some of the most difficult figures danced last night on the ballroom side.

While Dani did break hold a fair amount, both she and Graeme had some very difficult combinations in their routines. I believe this is the reason Anton was far more excited about Dani’s dance than the other judges, as the ballroom judge on the panel.

Fallaway reverse slip pivot

Dani danced this at 0:47; Graeme danced this at 0:43.

This step is very difficult for many reasons: the couple are driving and rotating throughout but doing various complex actions with their feet underneath. In the fallaway part of the figure, they need to drive, keeping bodies facing partner, while legs cross behind – plenty of opportunity for the hold to open up too much. In the slip pivot, they need to turn with precision while controlling the feet. At a high level, the rotary lead actually changes throughout the figure to dance this with success.

Graeme did a great job, although he lost control on the slip pivot ever so slightly.

Dani’s was also a great attempt too. she keeps the body to Nikita well in the fallaway. In the slip pivot, she needed to keep the legs more bent into Nikita and closer to the centre of turn, because her right leg in particular, took her the long way round, causing her trouble in the next step. But it is an incredibly difficult step for a beginner follower to attempt.

Combinations increasing difficulty

Both couples kept the difficulty up by including a second difficult figure after the fallaway reverse slip pivot. In Graeme’s case this was the double reverse spin; in Dani’s case this was open telemark.

If you’ve messed up the rotation in the fallaway reverse slip pivot, you’re in big trouble by the time you get to either of these steps.

Graeme: in the double reverse spin, the leader again has a difficult job in terms of controlling rotation and feet, and the leader and follower have different timings for their respective steps which can make this tricky. And, really, in order to dance this figure with any kind of success you need something called “cbm” when entering into the step. Basically you cannot enter this step straight on, your bodies need to be at a slight diagonal.

Graeme did very well; he’s missing some advanced mechanics but that’s to be completely expected, even with his prior dance training.

Dani: in the open telemark, the follower has a heel turn. The heel turn is difficult not just for balance and timing reasons but because really you need to take a huge step as a follower. See Erin in picture 3 above (she's dancing a double reverse spin but the heel turn is very similar).

Now I got super excited when I watched Dani’s rehearsal footage and saw her execute this near perfectly there. Unfortunately, while she had a great attempt on the live show, she struggled a bit more because the pair of them under-rotated the fallaway reverse slip pivot (partly due to Dani taking the long way round with her legs as mentioned above). She still does pull her feet together to do the heel turn but it’s too late – Nikita’s already passed that point in his own footwork.

Overall difficulty

This is why the combination of steps is important when assessing difficulty: given the rehearsal footage Dani would almost undoubtedly have been fine executing the heel turn if coming from a section without hold. She struggled because the step before was very difficult too, but I personally liked that they attempted the two together - it's the beginnings of proper competition style choreo.

The judges are fairly inconsistent about what constitutes a “difficult routine” and, crucially, they seem undecided on whether they want to reward this despite loss of form or not.

Personally I do rank the couples higher based on difficulty, and I will look at the combination of figures danced and where hold is broken and how much – not just the total amount across the number.  Overall, I was very excited to see these difficult combinations so early on in these two routines.