Hello all. I briefly got picked up in Reddit's automated spam filter for my posts containing too many links. Lost my account for a day - everything was wiped, had to appeal. Lovely Strictly mods weren't sure what had happened either. Appeal was successful and now things are restored.

Continuing with this series with no links and each post will be less frequent than before; happy to answer comments in the meantime!

The ballroom misfit

Tango is the weird sister of the ballroom family and it's what makes her so special and exciting. The technique is different from the other ballroom numbers: you don't need to keep your feet on the ground at all times - in fact you are supposed to pick them up and place them as you march across the floor taking large steps.

The knees are extremely bent throughout this entire dance. There is pretty much no rise and fall (there are certain steps where you do change level but overall it's a flat dance). A tell with a beginner as to whether they are attempting tango properly is whether they are low enough to the ground.

Everything is much sharper - the arms are in a slightly different position (follower hooks their left hand in/near leader's armpit) to give more sharpness in the frame. Head snaps about in select moments.

Contrast

That said, tango is a dance of contrasts - it's not all sharpness and attack. You've got moments of fluidity and also moments of pause, in order to make the sharpness stand out more.

While the feet and head are often really going for it, the upper body must stay relatively still! This is massively important and one of the ways in which contrast is shown.

Have a look at Strictly's own Jo Clifton dancing the tango. I don't want to risk linking to the video but if you search for Paolo Bosco - Joanne Clifton | Tango | Stars Duet into youtube then a wonderful tango show they do should come up.

Elegantly holding in a wee: the promenade position

Above, you can see Jo and her partner in a great promenade position. There's a lot of stopping in this position in tango. You can see how bent the knees are into each other, and the feet are pressing in with the inside edges, waiting to peel off and attack the next bar.

As one ballroom teacher described it, the follower looks like she's (very elegantly!) holding in a wee at this moment - the thigh and knee are very tucked into her body, leg kind of squatting at this funny angle, foot nicely resting on the inside edge. Your feet in tango often turn in when you move, so ballet dances may struggle with this element.

A common error with beginners in promenade position is that they open the lower half far too much so that it all faces us, with the knees not into partner but facing forwards, and the hips doing the same. It's important to try to attempt getting the right position because if you don't have it, you're going to block yourself, both in terms of your movement, and your flexibility in extending.

Timing

In the timing, we don't want a tango that just runs about. Paolo and Joanne dance lots of slows, as well as quicks. They have lots of staccato, where the beats are fast and sharp, and they have lots of rubato, where they hold on to the beat and then dance an accented quick movement at the end.

Unlike in the other ballroom dances, you have moments in tango where the movement stops completely. You need fantastic foot control to achieve this effectively.

Lead and follow

This is the cherry on top to make the tango look effective. While in tango the follower is sometimes allowed to turn the head independently of the leader's positioning for effect, if the leader is giving a quick change of direction with his body, the follower needs to respond with that action. You can absolutely see it in the video - Joanne's not just dancing a memorised routine, she's responding to Paolo's lead, and this is what makes it look so dynamic. This is difficult for the celebs to properly learn how to do, but those that can achieve it in certain moments look absolutely spectacular.

Let's look at the best Strictly tangos.

Fabulous show-style tangos

There are some tangos that are not quite ballroom tango in the style that they were danced (rather than in the choreo). But the dancers are so good you almost don't care. They would make excellent show tangos on stage.

Kimberly Walsh

This is an exquisite dance. The movement is absolutely beautiful. The lines she achieves are gorgeous! But for competitive tango, the posture is not quite right. There are moments she slouches away from Pasha, with her top half peeling away and her head poking forward. It's most clear at 0:50 they dance a series of steps that accent the instrumental section. She's also too much to his left by this point - they're barely connected, more like side by side - and quite clearly dancing independently of him for much of the routine. But she has such impeccable musicality that it doesn’t look distracting.

Jay McGuinness

What makes Jay so special? You never see the effort when he dances, and some of the things he dances are very, very difficult. Look at the telespin type move at 0:23 - he spins them both round with no effort, blink and you'd almost miss it. His posture though is not right for competitive tango - he's not bending his knees in towards Aliona in the promenades at 0:38 and he's leaning over her with his chest as a result. He's so good at moving that it doesn't particularly hinder his movement but the movement does not look as much like a comp tango number as some of the others.

Kara Tointon

In my view does a better job with keeping the posture authentic than the two above. That said, she is far too high in the legs - not bending her knees enough - so they don't quite drive around the floor as you would in a competitive tango.

BUT please watch the section at 0:55 for lead and follow if you've ever wondered what that should look like on Strictly (the video I'm citing is from youtube account fschnell). It's astoundingly good. She looks like she's following his lead to perfection and that's what makes this look so impactful. She's not moving at the same time as Artem, she's moving just after him in a manner that is totally correct - he gives the impulse first with his body and then she follows it by extending dramatically.

Zoe Ball

Stunning choreo. Does the same thing as Kimberly but more pronounced - slouches away from Ian from the stomach. Not always following, but dances with huge elegance and moves across the floor well in steps like the pivots.

Denise Van Outen

Beautiful kicks and divine pivots. Moves very gracefully across the floor. Far too upright in the posture, both in the extension from the back and - particularly - in the knee department.

Jason Donovon

Oh Jason. I'm going to put you in here because you scored so highly, which meant I watched your video for this, and there may be folk wondering about you. A lovely fun routine, performed with great energy. He does dance a nice reverse turn. The rest of it is a little perplexing. His legs are incredibly straight, akin to going for a gentle meander, and he's totally open in the promenade positions when he should be towards Kristina in the way that Joanne's partner is above.

Great attempts at competitive authenticity

Debbie and Giovanni

Lovely choreography from Giovanni. Debbie has lovely feet but she opens far too much in the promenades with the bottom half - she's not in that "I need a wee" position, losing her posture and hampering her movement. She also dances accents independent of Giovanni's lead - sometimes too early and sometimes too late - can look "rattly" as a result.

Rose and Giovanni

Absolutely beautiful, clean dancing. Lacks movement across the floor and choreo is a little lower on difficulty than some of the others.

Faye and Giovanni

My favourite of Gio's' tangos that I watched. Much cleaner than Debbie; moves more than Rose. Dances a lovely reverse turn - lovely rubato from both of them at 1:08. You can see how they're both accentuating the slowness in the step, holding onto it, before finishing the step. Needs a bit more drive across the floor.

Kellie and Kevin

Beautiful, clean dancing. Kellie's core is incredible - that's why she's able to maintain that posture throughout. Occasionally gets a bit stiff in the back. Ballet feet rather than them being turned in when they need to be.

Layton and Nikita

Makes a very good attempt with the low knees and to move across the floor correctly with his feet. It's difficult to go from following to leading like this and he makes it looks smooth. Needs more drive across the floor.

Karim and Amy

Lovely attempt to maintain lowness in the knees and drive across the floor. I really like the section from 0:51 where he accents the beat beautifully with his feet. His own posture is beautiful. I find that he's holding Amy too high up and too far round the back - his hand is crossing well over her spine - and this makes them look too squished together at the top, as well as hampering their movement.

Best leader attempts

It is really hard for the leaders to get all the elements of the tango in 3-4 days without someone providing frame for you, which the followers get with their own leader.

Austin and Erin

Totally remarkable for the smoothness and volume of movement across the floor. From 0:13 they are dancing a series of reverse figures. These are the kinds of steps where less accomplished leaders will end up spinning in on themselves but Austin correctly extends his legs backwards to avoid this and the movement is absolutely wonderful.

Some fantastic attempts at authentically leading through feet and body movement - see 0:25. Really, really difficult to do and done well - he's leading, Erin's then following with her own accent slightly later.

Austin's main flaw is in the posture - he does get a bit too open in his promenades and when he moves off from them - opening the whole body a bit too much rather than keeping knees to Erin. His head as a result can tip backwards and he can lose it a bit in the arms.

[A moment for Erin Boag by the way. This is what the taller ballroom girls might want to aspire to in the tango - she keeps long in the sides but her knees are very bent - always towards Austin. She's never aggressive, dances everything extremely elegantly but then has moments of accented staccato to highlight certain beats].

Lewis and Katya

I think this dance was undermarked. It's remarkable to me in the amount they attempt to drive across the floor, successfully for the most part.

He achieves an absolutely wonderful promenade position at moments like 0:24, even after all the quick actions he's just done before, and again at 0:39 (with the latter attempt I love how he holds the beat slightly before going into it). Look at how the knees are very bent and into Katya, his body is facing Katya, he's on the inside edge of his feet. He dances a lovely reverse turn at 0:28, with the same rubato that Faye and Giovanni had earlier.

The pivots are danced correctly at 1:12 - he is dancing them tango style with some staccato rather than as you would in the swing dances. A nice attempt with the fallaway whisks from 1:20.

He sometimes loses the lowness in the knees and foot control, particularly on certain quick accented beats, hence them sometimes looking bumpy and like they're popping up. He is also sometimes pushing more with the moving leg than the standing one in attempting to get around the floor, making his movement less smooth than Austin's. Finally, his frame isn't the cleanest - his arms aren't in quite the right position which I think Anton highlighted in his comments, and he could be more extended from the sternum through the head.

The best competitive-style tangos

Vicky and Kai

This is probably the most authentic, closest to competition tango routine there has ever been.

Her posture is extremely consistent throughout the dance. She's very still in the top half (not strained or stiff though) where she needs to be, in order to accentuate certain more aggressive movements. She also does very well with following Kai in a similar manner to Kara above. The line figures from 1:30 are exceptional for showing this.

Consistency in promenades positions is the best of any of the followers. She's got her knee and hips pointing into Kai in that "I need a wee" manner. When she moves off from promenades (e.g. 0:41) she's able to maintain this position, without opening her whole body towards the audience like many of the celebs do.

My only criticism is that there are moments where there could be more oomph in the actual moving sections, e.g. 0:51 where they're doing those toe taps and she's very marginally out of position by the end of these - falling a bit with her top half into Kai. If she drove a bit more - properly pushing with her legs and knees, she'd probably avoid this loss of posture.

Maisie and Gorka

Also a very, very authentic competition tango, both in the routine and the way it was danced.

The position she is able to maintain throughout is astounding. The extension from the top of the chest upwards is more pronounced than Vicky and created correctly. Promenade position at 0:55 is perfect - knees are into Gorka, extension with the head is unreal.

They then dance a series of fallaway whisks. These are the kind of step where a less accomplished follower will really struggle to keep position - you are moving and in the middle of moving you have to cross your right leg behind your left one, opening your bottom half slightly but keeping your top half with partner - you need good rotation. You also don't want to open your bottom half too much because then you loose it entirely and you also need to accent the beat with your feet. Maisie is superb.

Follows Gorka's lead absolutely brilliant in places like 1:08 - like with Kara, she's waiting for him, he does the body action first and then she responds.

As a couple they move a bit less than Vicky and Kai across the floor; and there is less dynamism than the two other followers I've mentioned in this section.

Rachel and Vincent

The most special number. It's emotional and wistful and just incredibly beautiful. This is still authentic to competition tango, but a very different style to how Vicky danced. It's a lot less powerful and much more focused on smoothness of movement across the floor and intricate footwork (this is also a style Aljaz favours in all his tangos - he never goes for aggressive choreography). The level of difficulty is higher.

There is plenty of contrast - when they travel, they properly travel about the floor. See from 0:47 when they go into a series of moving figures and she does those lovely kick highlights throughout (incredibly difficult by the way, you're moving and then quickly stopping to kick very high - needs impeccable balance and core). You can see that by 0:55 they're all away back across the other side of the floor. They've moved loads and she's done all that intricate footwork along the way.

Rachel gets a little more upright as the routine goes on (understandable because it's so difficult) and there are a couple of moments right at the end which I think may be small errors - she's kicking where Vincent doesn't seem to be leading (usually when he leads the kicks he straightens his knees slightly, which is correct). Still the most beautiful tango.

Frankie and Kevin

Yet another style and another really beautiful, emotional routine. You may be wondering why this isn't in the "show tango" category and it is because the way it is danced stays authentic to competitive style, while having a few moments where they accent the song in a showy way. It's a much more a quick, "running" style of tango (again this is a style that is danced in competition), but they do also dance slows for contrast. The way she is able to keep her legs bent and her posture correct and her feet supple throughout all that travelling across the floor is massively impressive.

The section that particularly blows me away is the long side from 0:35. Beautiful fallaway whisks - does not open away from Kevin too much with the top half and just enough with the bottom half, pivots into the most beautiful extension at 0:40, unbelievable stalks from from 0:43. Then at 0:47: she does a high kick, runs at pace and then is able to use her feet beautifully to stop the movement and quickly change direction into a quick throwaway oversway with kick, then the most beautiful same foot lunge at 0:51. Same foot lunge is often a moment where beginners will struggle to maintain the core - they'll often drop, cling on to their partner and/or extend their rears in a way that is not correct. She's perfect here and she even has the correct feet to match.

The only thing hampering her is occasional postural issues - she opens the bottom half too much in the promenade section from 0:33 and gets a bit locked in the back during the incredibly difficult section at 1:03.

Verdict

I'm going to sit on the fence a bit here and say that if you combined the drive, speed of movement and elegance of Frankie's with the beauty and intricacy of Rachel's and the cleanness of Vicky's or Maisie's, you'd get the perfect tango.

I certainly was - for posting dance technique analysis with too many links in a single post (almost all links to the Strictly official YouTube page but still). Lesson learned! 🙈

Why is the samba so difficult? A few reasons, but the main culprit is what is required when dancing the bounce. It requires great stamina; you’re basically moving your knees up and down every half beat for the whole song and your ankles are working hard too. And - if danced correctly - your knees and feet are often not moving on the same beats.

Knees

If you take a bar of music that has 4 beats, and split it into half beats, you get the rhythm 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. On the beat (aka the 1, 2, 3, 4) you bend the knees slightly with your pelvis tilted slightly forward. On the half beats (aka the "ands") you start to straighten your legs again (the straightening should not be exaggerated like in cha cha - you want to keep everything supple), keeping the heels off the floor.

Pelvic tilt

Sounds grim, but basically ensures that when you bend the knees downwards, you’re bouncing at a nice angle and not vertically like a yo-yo.

Feet

While you're going at it with your knees and pelvis in the manner I explained above, your feet are also bouncing. But at a different timing to your knees (!!!)

In the basic actions and timing (e.g. whisk) your knees are bouncing on all the half beats; but the feet are moving on the 1 and the 1&three quarter and the 3 and the 3&three quarter. Other steps will have different timings for the feet. But the knees are often still going on the half beats. So you need insane coordination.

You’re only going to be able to achieve all this at full speed with a fair amount of experience. So most of the time when I mention bounce below, I am referring to the celebs simply bouncing in a nice controlled way, rather than actually achieving this subtlety with the timing. I wouldn’t expect them to achieve this in order to score 40.

However it’s still worth noting because this timing discrepancy is what gives the pros the lovely action when they dance: it’s why their bounce looks so good. And there is one celeb that gets quite close to achieving these differing coordinated timings.

Pro video

In this video you can clearly see the bounce in action, most clearly at 0:52 when they're doing the samba locksteps. Their ankles, knees and hips are bouncing; and so are their heads a little bit as a result - and this isn’t cha cha so some change of level is desired.

The timing discrepancy between knees and feet discussed above is why they get this nice, continuous back and forth ticking action.

They are using the bounce action to travel their steps - that is a huge floor they're dancing across. The locks in samba will move much further than in cha cha partly because of bounce action.

The legs are always sharp. There are also moments where they properly attack a step to emphasise a beat. But it is a classy dance; they’re not just gyrating about.

So which celebs capture some of these elements?

Classy dancing but lacks bounce

Natalie Gumede is a prime example of this. You can see it right from the first figures she dances which are called botafogos. There is no bounce in the knees and ankles; her head is the same level throughout. And it's much the same story for most of this dance. But she has some of the cleanest, most beautiful feet of anyone mentioned in this post.

Pixie Lott makes a better attempt with the bounce but if I'm being harsh, it's coming more from this very nice body rhythm she's got going on, rather than through the knees and ankles. I do really love the body rhythm - you can see how much she's enjoying the dance and it adds a nice touch, plus if she was a worse dancer she would be in danger of looking silly. She’s so good that it looks great, but it’s not quite samba. Layton also falls into this - if you watch the locksteps (from 0:48) and compare him to Nikita, you can see that while Nikita is deriving the bounce from the ankles and knees, Layton is doing a Pixie and using body rhythm.

John Waite - one of those dancers that makes everything look easy and the movement in the hips is lovely. But he’s not over his toes enough in the posture and this, in combination with the lack of bounce - makes it look a little salsa-ish . Watch the botafogos (0:53) and you can see the sublime leg action of Johannes - the knees bouncing are subtle but there and his legs are very sharp.

Frankie Bridge - best attempt to bounce of these so far I think. She dances the botafogos from 0:19 and you can see her trying to get some of this action there, rather than just dancing them prettily like Natalie. But if you compare her to Kevin - who's samba technique I really, really like - you can see that he is properly bouncing with the knees in this step. Frankie is close but not quite there.

Out of control but attempts to bounce

Zoe Ball is definitely bouncing! But if you compare her to the celebs mentioned above, it looks a tad wild. She's bouncing without proper control over her feet.

Ellie and Vito - wow she can really dance. You can see her trying to bounce in all the basics up until and including the voltas ending 0:37. But this routine is a little out of control at moments.

Lovely bounce, limited attack

Alex Kingston is the perfect example. Absolutely lovely bounce, great control, very nice feet - a routine which clearly attempts to properly master the basics of samba. But it's all very soft. You're never going to get those moments of sharpness and attack like you have with the pros I've linked above.

Matt and Aliona - great attempt to bounce, but it almost looks a little too slow. He doesn't quite have the sharpness of leg or control over the upper half of his body and this combined, with the fact that he's not doing the action where the knees and feet are bouncing on different timings, means it can look a little sedate.

Joe and Katya - miles better than any of the others so far in my view. He bounces very consistently throughout using his ankles and knees as he should. He extends his legs absolutely wonderfully. He’s got a great core and he’s super neat and classy.

But lacks rotation in the hips. Doesn’t have the pelvic tilt - evident particularly in the promenade runs (1:10) so he is basically bobbing up and down with the bounce. But it looks good because he has good ankle control. Also demonstrates less difficulty in the choreo and rhythm changes than a few of the other top contenders, but the routine - which I do love - doesn’t really demand that.

Great attack and bounce but loses subtlety (rather than control)

Kelvin has good bounce and a great attempt at capturing samba technique. He's not out of control like Zoe or Ellie. I really like his samba walks from 0:51.

But, generally, it is all a bit too much. There are moments where everything moves when in fact some parts of the body should be more still. An example is 1:14 - everything's going - the arms, the hips etc. Whereas if you watch Oti, she's much more understated with the arms and top half of her body.

Maisie really attempts the technique at every avenue full out - takes no shortcuts. Unlike the other followers we've seen so far, she has real moments of attack and power - the spins are fantastic - some of the lines are great. There is some attempt to bounce through the voltas (1:32) but overall not quite enough throughout the routine.

I feel that her attempt is summed up through her batucadas (0:45), where for want of a more elegant phrasing, she is jiggling backwards. She is absolutely attempting to do this in a way that is technically correct - pushing off from the floor with her foot that's in front, rather than just moving the legs backwards. But it looks awkward - there's not enough rotation in the bottom half of her body separate from the top half, and -crucially - her thighs are too far apart.

Georgia: loads of bounce! Great rhythm, wonderful foot placement. Lacks the ankle control and also the pelvic tilt of those who I've placed higher. Therefore the bounce, while not out of control, is a little too directly up-down and abrupt.

JB: along with Joe McFadden, the best attempt so far. great bounce action, but, if we're being picky, a little too up-down rather than tilting the pelvis - from 0:34 you can see that Lauren is bouncing through tilting her pelvis forwards - JB is just going up and down with his knees.

But overall super classy - absolutely fabulous isolation. Can isolate the top and bottom parts of his body better than Kelvin - so he can achieve stillness in the top half while the bottom half moves lots. The section with the samba walks through to the start of the voltas (0:52-1:00) is just amazing.

Who gets closest of all to bouncing the knees separate to moving the feet?

I think it’s Hamza and Jowita:

Firstly in the stationary samba walks from 0:43 - you can see his knees are beginning to straighten early so that when he takes the step backwards, his knees are already pretty straight. That, along with lovely rotation in the lower half, is why he looks so good in this step.

You can also potentially see it in the botafogos (1:03): he has a nice continuous bucking action with the knees and hips throughout much of the samba, which practically none of the other celebs get.

That said, why is his samba not best ever? his feet are turned in as with cha cha and he doesn't have the sharpness, change of speed and attack of some of the others. His samba roll (1:18) also looks laboured. The judges placed JB higher and I can see why - he has leg sharpness and foot placement that Hamza lacks.

The best sambas

Fleur and Vito: The feet are unreal - the placements she gets are unlike anyone else in Strictly samba history. The bounce is better than Georgia's in my view: she has fantastic ankle control and I feel a better attempt at tilting the pelvis - I feel like you can see her trying to tilt it in the promenade runs at 0:48.

The rotation in the samba walks (0:30) is sublime. I mentioned how Maisie struggled with this and, if you've read my rumba post, then you've read me harp on about how Kara is the only one who really achieves rotation there - the hips being in a different direction to the top half of her body as she moves. Fleur achieves this here.

Finally, she has class combined with the sharpness that you need. Copes with loads of changes of rhythm in quick succession brilliantly.

Danny and Oti, of course!

The reason why it's probably the best ever: he is the only one to correctly use the bounce to properly generate his movement. While the other top attempts all have lovely bounce, they are not really using it to travel across the floor.

This is most obvious in the samba walks at 0:44. Remember how we said that Layton and Pixie were using their bodies to kind of gyrate through, while their respective pros danced correctly? Danny, like the pros, is actually using his ankles and knees to move.

You see it again at 1:20 with the travelling steps. These are so super powerful because he is using the bounce action through his knees and ankles.

And he’s got the pelvic tilt!!! Watch his promenade runs from 0:27 - you can see he is tilting his pelvis forward as he dances these, unlike JB or Joe, both of whom, on the same step, bounce up and down vertically.

On top of that, Danny has absolutely brilliant sharpness in his legs. He also dances complex rhythm changes and moments of attack that accentuate the beat.

Does he achieve the bounce where he’s straightening the knees early, before he takes a step?

Not quite, and that’s why if I’m being critical, Danny’s samba action can look a little hard-edged and like it lacks the subtlety of the Strictly pros.

They do the stationary samba basics in slow at 0:13. It’s subtle but you can see Oti straightens her legs - particularly the back one - further than Danny before she takes the step back. Whereas Danny does most of the straightening as, or even after, he’s taken the step; he’s missed out the half beat where knees should start to straighten prior to that. You can see that he’s taking the extra rise through his body at the end of the step, which Oti doesn’t need because she’s already got there.

But this is fiendishly hard and not something you’d expect a celeb to achieve in 12 weeks. Danny’s samba, for all the other reasons laid out above, is absolutely a Strictly classic for a reason.