Former Dancing With the Stars champion Bobby Bones is weighing in on the long-running debate over contestants who enter the ballroom with years of dance training.
In an Instagram video posted Saturday, September 5, Bones, 46, argued that celebrities with previous dance experience have a clear advantage over competitors who are starting from scratch.
“I keep hearing people with years of dance training go on the show — not just this season, but every season — and say, ‘Well, I’ve never done ballroom, so this is completely new for me. It’s going to be really hard,’” he said.
According to Bones, that comparison doesn’t tell the full story.
“It’s not. It’s an obvious advantage,” he continued, adding that he finds it “a little insulting” when experienced dancers suggest that having no ballroom background puts them on equal footing with contestants who have never trained at all.
Bones competed on season 27 of DWTS without prior dance experience. Partnered with professional dancer Sharna Burgess, he ultimately defied expectations and won the competition in November 2018.
As season 35 approaches, Bones explained why he believes trained dancers begin with several built-in advantages.
He pointed to skills including rhythm, balance, posture, flexibility, body control and spatial awareness. Experienced dancers, he argued, already understand how to move their arms and feet, hit musical beats and complete movements in ways that beginners may need much longer to learn.
Bones clarified that he does not object to celebrities with dance backgrounds participating in the show.
He acknowledged that many actors, singers and other performers in Hollywood naturally have some type of dance experience. His issue is with suggesting that a lack of ballroom-specific training means there is no meaningful advantage.
“I just don’t love pretending that ‘I’ve never done ballroom’ means ‘I have no dance advantage,’” he said. “Because that, my friends, is a total load of bull crap.”
The conversation comes as season 35 prepares to feature contestants including Jenna Dewan, Harry Shum Jr. and Julia Stiles.
Longtime judge Carrie Ann Inaba also recently addressed the topic, offering another perspective on the difficulty of transitioning from other styles of dance into ballroom.
Inaba explained that dancers develop muscle memory, which can actually require them to unlearn certain habits when adapting to ballroom technique.
“Your body has memory, so it remembers how to dance, and it thinks it already knows how to do these moves, but it doesn’t,” she said, adding that ballroom requires performers to adjust details such as where they place their weight.
While Bones and Inaba may approach the debate differently, the question of whether previous training creates an unfair advantage remains one of the most persistent discussions surrounding Dancing With the Stars.
Season 35 premieres with a two-night event on ABC and Disney+ beginning Tuesday, September 15, at 8 p.m. ET.
