Katya Jones has responded to claims made by Kevin Clifton on his podcast this week, where he said that some Strictly professionals refuse extra help from outside choreographers during rehearsals. The Russian dancer, who is partnered with Mike Bushell, admitted that while she is a "control freak", it's essential to have a fresh pair of eyes look over her routine. She told HELLO! "I normally come in with a very clear picture of what I want, my visuals are very clear but it's really nice. We get an hour a week with a male choreographer who comes and helps which is great because you can see what it's meant to look like."
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She continued: "If we have a complicated lift you do need that support and help to explain to Mike from a partnering side. Overall I'm a control freak and I like to take control and know at the end that I've done that number and I'm very proud of it. But of course it's good to have a third eye for them to see what it's meant to look like – but I'm a control freak, yes."
Katya is a "control freak" but does like extra help
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Earlier this week, Kevin revealed that during the competition, professional dancers get offered extra help from a choreographer. And while he tends to accept the offer, there are some pros who refuse another opinion. Speaking on the recent episode of his podcast The Kevin Clifton Show, the reigning champion explained: "The way it works is, once we're training we get offered help from Jason Gilkison [a choreographer] or one of his assistants during the week. We're all basically offered one hour at some point in the week if we want a third eye to come in the room and just look at what we're doing.
Kevin does like extra help
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"Now, some of the pros, and it’s each to their own, as everyone likes to work in different ways, but some of the pros are slightly against that," added Kevin. "They don’t like a third eye coming into the room, it's very much, 'My way, this is how I've always worked and I don't want anyone else interfering,' which is fair enough. But, for me, because I have very much a growth mind-set all the time, I'm always looking for, 'How can I get better?' So if I'm offered the help of Jason Gilkison or his assistants to come in and be the third eye, they might just have one ingredient that they can unlock or see one step that isn't quite working, then I'm going to take it."
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