Here's Charlie

After these, we can get to canadablue's Davis White and Virtue Moir gala comparisons.

I got the chance to watch some of the others, namely, Danica McKellar, Candace Bure and Amy Purdy. All were better than either Davis and White by a fair amount. McKellar's spins were stronger than Meryl's - balanced, controlled, in time with the music. Purdy had the best topline, and, of the three, I think was the most natural dancer - damn her for having Derek (I love Derek but I feel 6 trophies would be some kind of wrong). Bure kicked Charlie's ass in contemporary, but Charlie and Sharna had a prettier and, I guess, more audience-grabbing number, and I think Ballas worked a static frame a little too much - they didn't really use the space.

Let's watch Charlie go:

I thought this was leading to a vampire
interpretation, but false alarm. Look at Charlie act!
Has it been pent up inside him all this time?
He's almost hungry.

Right there he's now looked her in the face more
times than his entire career with Meryl.
 Not even waiting for the part specially
choreographed for him to look her in the face.
Just like it's a regular thing.

Sharna phrases very well and is very musical herself. You can't say that about all the pros. They all dance in proper time, but they don't all phrase well, although I won't start airing out my opinions as to who does and doesn't. But the fact that Sharna acts well when she dances (the music affects her rhythm which feeds the emotion in the narrative) gives Charlie a template right on the floor with him that is giving immediate feedback he can feed off and work with.

On the ice, he has to work with a static partner using what becomes a static template created off ice by his very musical coach (Marina), a template that has "set" the rhythm by timing the choreography to certain beats and musical highlights in their program music. Once they take it out on the ice, he's working by rote.

The other thing that gives you a "Hmm, that's different" feeling watching Charlie work with Sharna is we're used to DW re-setting after everything. Here Sharna's movement and the choreography kept evolving after she exited a lift. She didn't stop to wave her arms around, pose, jump in place, or slide on her knees. She could actually enter a lift, execute the lift, exit the lift, and off the exit transition into another choreographic phrase. We don't see this with DW, and suddenly the familiar DW lifts made sense and came alive as choreographic storytelling aids.

This is the part where Charlie showed tempo
variation in his actual movement. I was stunned.
It also reads to me like: "I can dance!
I can dance! I'm doing it."
There's a "Yeah!" kind of vibe going on,
like something is busting out.
"You didn't think I could!"

Look at Charlie, holding the moment after
the actual dance is done.

Sharna kind of stepped all over Charlie's "beat" by hopping in glee the instant she hit her last mark. Come on Sharna, you're the pro. Let Charlie enjoy himself - he never gets to do this in his day job.

BTW, what happened to Charlie's asthma? You'd think between the stress of doing something new (dancing), the challenge to his equilibrium posed by looking at his partner, and adrenalin, he'd be doubled over a bit, but he seems just fine.

Also:

Long time no see Tanith and Charlie out and about in
public together. Here they are again, just like
an actual couple.