Nobody Puts Kristi Yamaguchi in the Corner

To start today's "Dancing with the Stars" recap, I have to admit I was not sorry to see Derek and Shannon go last week. I'm not usually rooting against people, but those two were getting pretty distracting, what with the crying, and the ranting, and the not so candid kissing, and the fake butts even.

Now, I will try to be a little bit more positive (even though there was no figure skating on the show tonight - boo!). I'll start with Kristi. I thought her first dance, the quick step, was good, but I looooved the samba! Of course, it did not appear the judges agreed with me, but it was just so impressive. Unfortunately, Kristi also performed the dance dressed like a chicken, which may have been distracting to the viewers/judges. She was good though. I thought maybe the lift would be better because of all of her pairs experience, but that was like twenty years ago, I suppose.

This is the first week I enjoyed another performer just as much as I enjoyed Kristi. I thought Mario was amazing (also, Karina, way to steal Johnny Castle's lift training strategies by making Mario practice in the water)! I could have watched the dances over and over. His lift was the only one that really made sense to me and it was very good. I hope he sticks around.

I only got to see Tracy Turnblad's first dance, but I am just so impressed by her. She did do choreography on broadway but from the beginning of the show it was obvious she was not a natural, and she has improved so much. She's delightful.

Jason Taylor is very nice to watch but I'm back to not being very impressed. The tango was just alright for me. And the samba was annoyingly easy - I realized about halfway through that he must have spent all week practicing the lift. It was a great lift, but it didn't really go with the rest of the dance.

Cristian was very impressive - he was obviously not doing anything with his left arm (which he apparently needs surgery on) but the amount that he can with his right arm left me in awe. Not as good a performance as the rest of the contestants, but I thought it was a valiant effort.