How to win Strictly Come Dancing

“Sportsmen don’t dance. Robbie [Savage], bless him, he’s obviously put in the hours but he tried almost too hard [in week one] – all those facial things and acting. You’ve got to do what comes natural. At the time I didn’t realise it but I was scared to death the first week. I had sparklers on my arms and cut-off sleeves, and I was dancing the cha-cha-cha to Hot Stuff and I didn’t really get it. Once you get past that first week it’s like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders.” 2. Try to choose your own music “If you get a good song, like I did in my second week – I got Robbie Williams’ Let Me Entertain You. I like Robbie and his music and the way he goes about things so it brought out my natural personality. If I was any of them on the show then I would try to get your professional dancer to pick a song that you might like, not what they like. [The professional dancers put forward a few songs and then the producer picks from them.] It should be about what you want to dance to. I think a bit of luck in a song matters.” 3. Get involved in outfit decisions “I didn’t do fake tan, and I hardly did any make-up. I soon learnt my lesson by not getting involved with measurements and going for fittings after week one when my dance partner Lilia chose my outfit and I said ‘That won’t happen again – I always want to be involved in what outfit and what colour I’m wearing.’” 4. Build your training up slowly “You’re always gonna get niggles on Strictly. You suddenly go to doing six hours a day. So build your training up. Start doing two hours a day and then build yourself up as you go along. Most of [this year’s contestants] are pretty fit. By Wednesday you will know the routine, by Thursday, step off the pedal. I used to like to leave a little bit by surprise and not do as much. Friday you just have a run-through in the studio, which totally confuses you because you go from a big gym studio to then having a little dance floor. You’ll think you’re back to square one and that you’ve lost it. That’s where I got the edge. I used to go into it having not over-rehearsed and leave a little bit to chance. I’ve always lived like that." 5. Practice in your dancing shoe “The girls will struggle with their feet and blisters with the heels they have to wear. It’s not nice for the girls to have to wear some of the things they do just in order to look glamorous. The guys, we wear a light slipper – the hardest time is when you're doing a latin dance because you have a bit of a heel on your shoe. If you’re gonna go over on your ankle it’s when you’re practising those dances. When I first started I wanted to wear trainers. It’ll not be easy when you first put them on, they're like Simon Cowell shoes, y’know they make you feel taller.” 6. Adapt “You need to find [a dance partner] who suits your personality or is willing to change. It’s about one of you adapting. Sometimes you’ll get two of you the exact same but that’s very unlikely. I’d seen Lilia dance the year before and she was quite strong-willed and quite aggressive with her teaching methods, and when I got partnered with her there was no way that was going to work with me – I go the other way, I shut down, I can’t be doing with people bossing me around. I’m a very relaxed personality, I like fun and as long as fun was involved in my training, I’d train for hours and hours and hours. She soon realised that and changed.” Brendan [Cole, this year partnered with Lulu] tends to be the one who falls out with his partners the most. He works hard and he wants everyone to be as good as him. Another one like that is James Jordan [this year partnered with Alex Jones], he’s quite an aggressive teaching manner who wants to win so bad. And then you get Vincent Simone – he’s hilarious and so relaxed in character and personality. And then there’s Anton [du Beke] who’s the perfect gentleman – he opens doors still and he an old-fashioned gent. I love him for it. 7. Switch on/switch off “In sport it helps – we have switch on/switch off moments. You have to relax but when you’re on you have to be on the button and that’s how we train our brains in sport. Leading up to the dance you think ‘I can’t remember this, I’ll never be able to do that’ but as soon as that music starts it just becomes muscle memory. You just go off and do it. If you’re one of these people who can’t switch on once the music starts then they’re the ones who tend to mess up. You’ll find Audley [Harrison, heavyweight boxer] probably won’t mess up, you’ll find Robbie Savage [ex-footballer] probably won’t mess up… they might not be very good but they won’t forget their stuff because of muscle memory and their sporting achievements and that’s where it helps them.” 8. Keep calm and carry on “When you mess up you have to carry on. I was dancing with Lilia in the semi-final and her bra strap went. I held the bra strap down while we were doing the routine. I still don’t know how I managed to do that. I think I got through because of that – I think people saw it and voted for me. I was more bothered about her being embarrassed than stopping. Mark Ramprakash [England cricketer, winner in 2006] stopped one of his dances and they allowed him to do it again. I was really surprised by that. Because if you mess up on the live stage then you have to carry on no matter what happens.” 9. Listen to the judges’ criticism the next day “You get all sorts of advice – I didn’t really listen to them. I was more proud that I’d achieved, in a week, to learn a dance. I never even thought that I could do the Bus Stop – remember that dance? – but suddenly you’re doing dances that you see professionals doing, to a decent standard, after a week. I answered back [to the judges] a couple of times, but mainly I shut my ears off. I listened to the criticism the next day when I’d calmed down a bit. Take it as a positive leading forward. And prove to them what they say you’ve lacked. For me it was always my hands, which I worked and worked on and by the final I’d fixed it. That’s one of the reasons I won it: I’d listened.” 10. Use your personality as a weapon “It’s not always the best dancers that win, I’m a perfect example of that. By the end I was pretty nifty but I’m not a natural dancer. If you’ve got your personality, use it! The only one that’s doing it so far [this series] is Russell Grant. He has used it from the start, and people are talking about him in the street and they like him. I think Edwina Currie used her personality.”