With a whole big discussion breaking out on forums and people asking my thoughts of ‘Lift Work’ being over used on Strictly Come Dancing, I thought it would form the basis of my next post.
Reflecting back over my dancing career the words ‘Lift Work’ never even existed or if so were the forbidden words from ‘the dark side’…..but more importantly, I remember that to my partner, it was an instant and absolute ‘NO’ should the discussion even attempt to raise its head at training. Lift work would never be considered within our dance performances! My great professors and my partner were very clear that lifts were forbidden, as quite rightly, it was all about the art of Ballroom dance and not tricks… or I guess it could have been about my weight!!!
Interestingly though, during my competitive career there were one or two occasions when we did attempt to go to the dark side and include ‘a lift’ if you could call them that! The highest I ever got was hanging down the back of my partner’s back feeling like a duck strung up in a Chinese takeaway window, being carried on to a dramatic and intense Paso Doble piece of music. We felt it would make a greater impact to the audience by entering the floor and offering them the element of surprise (interesting eh?!) – it had become all about the surprise of the lift instead of the greatness of the dance! There was this one other lift we did in the Rumba. I had actually convinced my partner to let me put my left arm around his neck whilst his knees were bent and as he straightened his legs he would ‘lift’ me a whopping ½ a meter off the floor…oh and he’d turn around whilst I was up there! And yes, that for us was a frightening and daring lift!!! We only put it near the end of our routine in the belief that we would have wooed the public into believing our dance was so great that the lift at the end was more of an encore to demand applause especially when our goal was always to try to get a standing ovation from the Japanese audience. The hardest and most demanding audience in the world…and up they rose like a breaching whale.
Well, you can imagine my horror when I was to join Strictly Come Dancing… welcome to lift central and so to a typical Monday morning at our professional rehearsals that would go something like this:
“You want me to be lifted….. you’re having a laugh right????” I would openly express my thoughts to all 13 other professionals.
Full of shock and horror I would continue with…
“Uh….Flavia and Lilia are surely the ones who get lifted?”
Clearly not. Lifts were soon to be just part of my everyday life with all the Professional group dances. I would take a journey from the sublime to the ridiculous. Quite often I would find myself being propelled by Brendan Cole with possible brute force, not that he ever said anything except for me noticing the enormous exhale of air out of his mouth each time I was being propelled north to some landing point somewhere up round his nostrils! It would then be my turn to exhale air but mine would be vocally…
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I’M A MOTHER….. what the Dickens and Jones am I doing up here????”
“Oh my God woman just get …up….there…!!!” Brendan would politely request!!! 
With my inner thighs latching on to some upper part of Brendan’s torso all that was left to do was lift my arms high and wide, with a huge great smile….dunnnaaarrrr…
I could hear a different noise this time from Brendan’s lungs this time it was an immense sigh of relief that I was actually up there.
However, once up, I felt on top of the world. Amazing, breathtaking, just like that moment on the Pepsi Max roller coaster at Blackpool where you are at the peak and looking out over the endless sea line and the wind is gracefully blowing in your hair and for a moment you are breathless, free, and flying…
Then suddenly reality hits, as just like that roller coaster within seconds you are on your way down!!! Similarly to the release of the ring on a can of a shaken Tango drink, that instant of utter and total disorientation all around, with my legs and arms seemingly being thrown everywhere, my inner organs feeling as though they are being processed for the Sunday chicken stuffing and together with my negative thoughts of uselessness, I am soon being thrown into a frenzy of tugging, pulling, dragging, heaving, shoving and finally the graceful landing and god forbid I forget the convincing smile of ….”I DID IT”….written all over my face in the target finishing position!
Making the grand finals with Mark Ramprakash on Strictly Come Dancing and can you believe this … I now felt I wanted to be the first to bring some of the biggest lifts yet seen on Strictly Come Dancing – I had crossed to ‘the Dark Side’. That year I knew I was going up against Matt Dawson and Lilia and where Lilia had won Strictly the previous year with Darren Gough and really pulled out such amazing lift work, I knew these lifts had to be A-MAZ-ING…
Not believing I would ever be able to do any of them but knowing how close to winning that trophy we could be, I had to be sure I could convince you all that our show dance would be the one that would make you pick that phone up and vote for us one last time. So our lift work had to be incredible and I would do whatever it would take! I called a good friend of mine, who had initially been one of my competitors when I was in the competitive circuit, Hannah Karttunen and Victor Da Silva. Hannah having given up her competitive career and gone into ‘show work’ were rapidly becoming ‘THE’ couple, bringing to our world of dance, incredible, mind blowing lifts and ones that they would also invite to perform live on Strictly.
“Hannah and Victor, I need three of the biggest lifts that you think we could handle…” Did I actually say that, the mother who was being lumped around not long before by Brendan Cole… what had I just said!!!
“No problem said the gorgeous voice of Victor with muscles positively popping out of every orifice of his Popeye T-shirt. There was such a calm and ease about Victor, one that made me feel I wasn’t about to board the Pepsi Max but rather ‘The Cinderella’ ride at Disney.
“Ok Karen just keep your core strong. I will place my hand under your coaxes and up you’ll go”
“Oh Yes Victor no problem” I could hear myself saying
“Anything you say”
“OK are you ready?” said Victor
“Woah, stop wait, that is it, just keep my core strong?…. Hang on a second Victor… are you serious?… Oh my god you are… NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!”
And there I was up in the air just sitting on ‘ONE’ of Victor’s hands up above his head…. yes UP ABOVE HIS HEAD on just ONE of his hands!
I was in fear of breathing, I daren’t move but a single eyelash for fear of rocking ‘my core’ and I come tumbling down like a deck of cards. Time stood still for a second and just one second later I was back on the floor. Speechless, blushing, shocked and literally dumbfounded…
What had just happened? Of course it was a walk in the park, something I do regularly, just being lifted up into the air by my crutch with one hand! (Actually slightly distracting from my story… just think how easy it must be for Victor and Hannah to springclean cobwebs in their home…)
Anyway back to my story…
Now it was the turn of Mark and I and I hate to say it but somehow I didn’t have the exact same faith in my celebrity partner who was slowly dwindling away from the long weeks of training. Also Mark’s arm muscles, even though he could whack a ball 70 meters into a crowded stadium, looked like he needed a ton of spinach before I would go anywhere… just how the dickens was he going to get me up in the air… with ‘ONE’ hand??
I was instantly demanding…
“Mats. Mats I need crash mats and lots of them!! Valium and a great deal of prayers please”
SO we were now in position, come on…. the instructions were easy, I just had to control my core and Mark just had to put his hand under my coaxes and up…. up… errrr… UP, Mark… COME ON UP, PUSH for God’s sake…. heave …. what… hadn’t he had his Shreddies for breakfast?
So it didn’t quite go as easy as it had seemed with Victor and I could see the camera crew first in fear then in utter hysterics! Talk about Brendan exhaling a gasp of air when he was lifting me, Mark let out a bloody great fog horn making it apparently clear that this was not an easy lift. So like lifting Bambi, with legs and arms going everywhere, it was part hilarious and part frightening as Mark attempted to raise the Titanic … again…. and again….. and again!!
For the sake of you all falling asleep, as I had meant to keep this blog short, I eventually made it up there and we even mastered two more death defying lifts. If you get a chance go and look at Youtube you will see our final showcase dance to Shout by the amazing Lulu, currently dancing on Strictly now. They weren’t the most graceful of lifts but let me tell you the adrenalin rush of that show was second to none. Mark and I couldn’t talk to anyone and we even had to ask production not to let us see the final story line they had prepared of our long journey together on Strictly, as I knew I would get all emotional and upset and if I went onto that stage crying from all the amazing ups and downs I had enjoyed with Mark during the show, I would never be able to handle the opening lift of our final dance together.
With the dreaded ONE handed lift being so hard I had choreographed it to be right at the beginning of the showcase dance and therefore also allowing Mark to have maximum energy to get me up there! We were also to start up on the stage right in front of the band, so this now meant the feeling for me was even worse as I was now seemingly even higher in the air and… this time – no crash mats! I think in the entire week leading up to that final night, we had only managed to get it right 8 times in total, as we were also having to rehearse four other dances for that grand final.
Well, the history books have been written, as soon our last dance of the Strictly season was over. The audience were up on their feet screaming and cheering (and from memory – so too were the judges). History books had once again proven… leaving the best to last, with the element of shock and surprise the addition of three great lifts would get people on their feet. I had always thought that pleasing my Japanese market had been the hardest thing to do. Yet years later pleasing you all at home and getting twelve million people jumping out of their seats, the day before Christmas Eve, would prove to be so so so much harder to achieve and… to me personally it proved that greatness still comes from the dancing but with an icing of lifts at the right place and at the right time the performance will be complete and the artist will have carried his role once again.
