‘Dancing With the Stars’ Judge Carrie Ann Inaba Issues a Warning to Season 31 Semi-Finalists: ‘Keep the Rules in Mind’

usmagazine.com:

Playing by the rules. Dancing With the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba warned the season 31 contestants to make sure that they play it safe with their upcoming routines.“To all the semi-finalists: Please … No lifts tomorrow night,” the former Talk host, 51, wrote via her Instagram Story on Sunday, November 13. “In watching the shows back, I see I may have missed a lift or two.

The competition is very close so let’s keep the rules in mind.” Inaba concluded her post by wishing all of the remaining contestants “all the best” of luck before the next show.The Hawaii native revealed in September 2015 that the DWTS producers made it a rule that dancers aren’t allowed to lift their partners.

While discussing season 21 Mirrorball champions Bindi Irwin and Derek Hough‘s tango. “I didn’t make it up.

The producers have had this rule in place since the first season,” she wrote in a blog for Parade at the time. “I know it upsets people but it is a rule.”Inaba added that the National Dance Council of America Rule Book defines a lift as “any movement during which one of the dancers has both feet off the floor at the same time with the assistance or support of their partner,” while revealing that she doesn’t enjoy docking points for lifts. “Just to clarify, I do not get any joy in docking a point for breaking a rule,” she wrote. “Rules are rules and I do my best to enforce them.”Two years later, the choreographer revealed that the show’s producers originally instituted the rule as a nod to traditional ballroom competitions. “From day one it was decided that there would be no lifts in the proper Ballroom and Latin dances, just like in a true ballroom and Latin dance competition, since that was the original basis of the show, to learn