The Brazilian Zouk podcast for dancers who overthink the dance. We overthink it with you.
I'm Alisson Sandi — 3x Pro World Champion, Head Judge for the Brazilian Zouk Dance Council (BZDC), and Resident Lecturer for the MAC Project. I'll be honest: I was never a natural. I had to fight for every piece of this dance, and that fight is the reason I can explain it.
Every week, Gui Prada and I — plus the occasional guest — talk about what classes don't cover: stalled progress, disappearing leaders, what connection really feels like.
New episodes weekly, in audio and video.
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I apologised at the top of this one, because I know what the word does to people. "Fix your frame, your frame doesn't work, your frame is this, your frame is that."
Nobody tells you which part of your body they mean. In Brazilian Zouk we use frame as an umbrella word for a pile of separate things, and then we correct people with it.
This one is for anybody who has been told to fix their frame and walked away with no idea what to actually change.
Gui asks the leaders who come to him to show him what they mean, and they tense their whole body and push harder into his.
What we get into:
→ A student at BraZouky asked Gui how to keep their lats engaged in close embrace, and he said, "You don't. You don't do that." Your frame there is your whole torso.
→ The Wi-Fi test. If we can do the movement with no connection, just body leads, why do you need that much tension the second your hands land?
→ The gap at the wrist. A leader's right hand never fully arrives on the body, so they frame up and squeeze, and the shape was never the problem.
→ The Ruler of Intensity, or Régua da Intensidade, from Gui's own training. A one to ten on the tension in your own body, another on the compression into your partner.
→ Why I start every dance from my quietest voice, and why the five you dance at is one you build together.
The big takeaway: the frame is the shape you take, the distance from your partner, the tension you hold to keep it, and the connection points where the touch happens. At least four things, Gui says, probably more.
Chapters:
00:00 Opening highlights
01:42 What frame means, and why the word triggers people
04:31 What leaders do when you say "use more frame"
06:24 Frame is a million things, not one thing
09:27 How do you keep your frame in close embrace?
12:36 The Wi-Fi test, and the hand that never arrives
15:47 Don't take frame advice that can't tell you where
17:57 "I can't feel their frame" and how to diagnose it
21:19 Frame as a communication tool, with or without touch
25:17 Three places to connect: arms, chest, hips
28:08 How to ask a better question about your connection
30:30 The Ruler of Intensity, from one to ten
33:12 A vest with prosthetic arms, and where the lead comes from
35:42 Why people quit when holding their frame hurts
37:12 Guess your partner's number on the tension scale
38:57 Starting a dance from the lowest voice you have
41:50 Why your three is your partner's six
43:41 Light and heavy frame are really light and heavy touch
47:29 The four elements hiding inside the word frame
49:59 When it is not your frame at all
Co-hosts: Alisson Sandi and Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep25 | ZoukNerds Podcast
How to Build a Dancer From the Floor Up
Season 6 · Episode 24
Wednesday, October 7, 2026 • Duration 51:28
We put two people on the floor at a Brazilian Zouk teacher training and asked the room one question. These two are complete beginners, what do you fix first?
Somebody said the timing, somebody said the posture, and then somebody said the torsion, so I had to stop everyone. "Hold on, slow down, torsion, who is that?" Like, is it food? At that point that word does not exist yet.
If you've ever been told to fix your posture with no idea what that meant, this one is for teachers and for dancers who feel stuck.
So Gui and I went through the two frameworks we use. The Correction Ladder is the order we fix things in, the Foundational Stack is the bare minimum you build a dance on.
What we get into:
→ Gui's ladder, from the ground up: rhythm, then the feet and ankles, then the knees, then the hips, then the posture. And it is a chain event. If you hold the beat standing still and lose it going front and back, you do not have a timing problem.
→ Posture, defined so you can test it. Gui calls it whatever arrangement lets your forward step and your back step be the same length and the same stability. A Lambadeiro, a Tangueiro and a Forró dancer all stand differently, and all are stable.
→ The part I know is controversial. At the very beginning we barely talk about frame, connection, leading and following at all.
The big takeaway: Gui's words, not mine. The other person is there for guidance, for the connection, for the playfulness. For the dance to exist, it does exist in your body on your own.
Great Technique Won't Get You More Dances
Season 6 · Episode 23
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 • Duration 47:21
I danced with someone I'd followed online for years, walked off the floor, and went to a dark corner to question every decision I'd ever made in my life.
They're one of the best Brazilian Zouk dancers in the world, the dance was terrible, and like most of us do, I blamed myself.
If you've ever come off a dance with somebody you admire and quietly decided the problem was you, this one's for you.
Gui's version is a follower in his D.C. scene who tries to sit down and can't, because the leaders keep coming. She's intermediate, and the teachers in that room are the ones sitting.
What we get into:
→ What "technical" even means. I go to the Olympics and the Ballroom World Championships, and then the question that matters: is that who you want to ask for a dance?
→ Gui ending a dance before the first song was over, with the follower a friend promised him explosions with. "We came to an agreement that it was not working."
→ What Jaime Arôxa's studio actually graded us on. Not only technical knowledge, but how comfortable we were, how we used the space, how musical we were, how we switched rhythms.
→ How many ways do people say water? That's the practice I'd put you on, flavours of the same Basic, Lateral, Viradinha and Soltinho, not another endless list of moves.
The big takeaway: What people want is to connect with everybody, and they are chasing that through things that are not in alignment with connecting with everybody.
Stop Blaming Your Dance Students!
Season 6 · Episode 22
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 • Duration 53:58
"I don't know what to do. My students don't wanna learn the foundations. Please help me." An organizer said that to me years ago, and it is the most common thing I hear in Brazilian Zouk.
This one is for teachers and organizers who have said out loud that their students do not want the basics.
That night I went to the social. Acrobatics everywhere, every head movement, not one Viradinha. Then he started dancing, because he was the local teacher, leading crazy moves to people who could barely do a basic step.
So Gui and I sort this into three buckets, a me problem, a them problem, or a design problem, and the one everybody reaches for first is almost never the right one.
What we get into:
→ Gui on why a curriculum gap only shows up a year later, in the warm-up, months after you built it.
→ "Move, move, move more." His class moved their bodies and stayed where they were, until a co-teacher said the word he meant was travel.
→ What he told an organizer mid-briefing: "I think it's the time for us to stop putting the blame into the students."
→ When it really is them. Someone read the format, said "This is not for me," came anyway, and left after day one.
→ A month of classes where I never went past Soltinho, and the room grew every single week.
The big takeaway: Whoever is at the top of a community takes credit for the good and the bad in it, because a community identifies with what its leadership values.
Lambada vs Brazilian Zouk: Is It One Dance?
Season 6 · Episode 21
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 • Duration 01:10:15
Lambada is like the sun, you know? It spreads the brightness and the energy to everyone around.
And I'm sorry to say this, but sometimes, in some places, Brazilian Zouk can be like a black hole.
Vanessa didn't even let me finish. "You just get in." Yeah. You get in, you get sucked in, and everything else disappears. It's my dance, and I say it with love.
If you've danced Brazilian Zouk for years and still tell people you don't dance Lambada, this one is for you.
I sat down with Vanessa Meirelles and Iago Hassuike in person, and these two are the nerds of Lambada.
What we get into:
→ I already steal one of these. The follower is always looking for Soltinho, and Boneca when there's head movement. I taught it last week and my followers stopped waiting.
→ The 51/49. Leaders carry 51 percent, followers 49, "and we just have 49 because someone has to be the leader."
→ Vanessa asked what I should have asked years ago. Nobody fears Urban Zouk, everybody fears Lambada, and Zouk and Lambada are the closer pair. "Who builds their mindset are the teachers."
→ Then she gave away the secret. "First, we try to trick you all." They teach you a movement you like, wait for the wow, then tell you it was Lambada. Iago: "We set the trap."
The big takeaway: Lambada came from the street, so there is no right or wrong body in it. Somebody asked Didi about a room dancing every which way. "I'm loving that."
From Ballet and Math Class to Lambada Masters with Iago & Vanessa
Season 6 · Episode 20
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 • Duration 44:44
"I don't believe this person, they can really follow what this guy wants. I think they are guessing." That's Vanessa on why she started Brazilian Zouk, after fifteen years of ballet, jazz and contemporary.
If you have a job you like and a dance you love, and you keep running the numbers at two in the morning, this one is for you.
Iago was teaching mathematics in Campinas when Nina told him, "If you wanna be with me, you gotta dance." The pandemic shut his school, and when it reopened he said, "Well, good luck for you guys. I'm not coming back."
I sat with both of them in person, and this half is about who they were before the stage.
What we get into:
→ Vanessa doing continuous turns with Philip Miha and hearing "You are not following me." She found out years later he was right, because her ballet was supplying the momentum.
→ Nobody jumped without a net. Daniel Darbello gave Iago a room with no rent, and Vanessa's dad said "if you can't, you have a home." Mine was kebab shops.
→ My advice on going full time is six to twelve months of savings, or build the dance income on the side until it matches what you already earn.
→ Iago on living together 24/7: "it's a marriage." They were never dating, which he calls a golden rule, and I've done that once and I don't recommend it.
The big takeaway: The time of life is the most precious thing we have to offer, so when someone chooses to dance with you, receive them with all the care you can.
Yes, Dance Teachers Plateau Too!
Season 6 · Episode 19
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 • Duration 48:32
"Hell yes, hell yes." That's my answer every time someone in the group asks whether teachers hit plateaus too, and I teach Brazilian Zouk for a living.
Ours just hides better. I can teach all week, feel completely fulfilled, and then meet Christina after three months apart and find that the things we could do together suddenly need thinking about again.
Gui said it cleaner than I did. He'd been dancing mostly with his beginner students, having the time of his life, and then he went to do something explosive: "there was a wall. I couldn't do the thing."
What we get into:
→ A student feels stuck and knows it. We feel great, right up until someone challenges us socially, and that's when I go "hang on, I have not been training that division of my dancing."
→ Gui's pizza chart. Almost every hour you teach goes into basics and everything vertical, so the sharp explosive layer gets a sliver of the pie and quietly rots.
→ Why I can't train with my own students. It's never their level, it's the hierarchy, and you hear it in the disclaimer: "I don't know, I'm probably wrong, but I feel like this."
→ What we actually do about it: the student seat at somebody else's weekender, a private lesson where you tell the teacher to hold nothing back, and cross-training in styles that have nothing to do with Zouk.
The big takeaway: The plateau exists because we have a certain expectation, and the moment we remove that expectation, the plateau is not there anymore.
The Pickiness Curve Every Dancer Climbs
Season 6 · Episode 18
Wednesday, August 26, 2026 • Duration 50:36
For years the DJ would put on traditional old school Brazilian Zouk and I'd walk off the floor. "Ah, I don't like that type of music, I'm gonna take a break." That was a lie. I didn't have the skills to enjoy it yet, and the day I learned them I loved it.
So when Gui tells me he got so picky only two or three followers could give him a good dance, down to where their head sat against his, I know that feeling.
He worked it out on the bus home from a social in Rio, where he realised he'd danced all night without being present once, because he spent the whole thing hunting those two or three people. And whose fault was it, right?
What we get into:
→ Gui trained slow songs for years, then walked into a real Forró where Xote is five percent of the night. "Lack of exposure, for sure lack of exposure."
→ You start in flip-flops, any song, anyone. Years later it's two kinds of socks in your backpack and one follower who "knows how to dance with me."
→ "Because Gui is a gelato snob." "I am such a bitch. I'm such a gelato snob, yes. And without shame."
→ The unpaid dance escort. Friday nights in Rio, one friend, met at the door, forty five minutes, nobody else, home.
→ "But Alisson, I'm a customer. I'm paying to be here." Yeah, I don't argue with that. It still doesn't make your taste the DJ's problem.
The big takeaway: I'll be picky as long as it doesn't affect other people, and if it may affect other people, I'm going to find a way to reduce that effect.
Are You Wasting Your Private Dance Lessons?
Season 6 · Episode 17
Saturday, August 22, 2026 • Duration 52:44
"I know, I've done this already." Every Brazilian Zouk teacher hears that in privates, and I ask the same thing back.
"Okay, you've done it. But do you know it?"
"Oh no, yeah, I know."
"Do you know? Because if you knew, we wouldn't be correcting this."
Then Gui told me the one that stuck. Hours of privates on Lambada, learned so much, never practised any of it. "Couple months went by, it's almost like I didn't do the private lesson at all. I forgot everything."
What we get into:
→ Don't book me to buy a move. Someone points at a video and Gui usually just says, "this is a Ioiô," you already know it.
→ Three missed classes at District Zouk is four and a half hours, warm-ups, rotations, everybody's input. Gui asks it straight, "you wanna substitute that for one hour?"
→ My students book me like a physio, "Alisson, I need a health checkup." Once a month is my floor, and weekly only works if we're integrating.
→ "I wanna get better." Better how? Gui asks that every time, and it turns a drifting hour into a working one.
→ A follower came to him losing her balance, told her ankles were weak. It was never her ankles, she was moving her weight forward too fast.
This one I keep chewing on, because I've done it as a student. Gui says people ask for what they think you want to hear, not what they actually want. Nowhere to hide in there, you know?
Why Do You Dance Like You're Competing? (S06 Ep16)
Season 6 · Episode 16
Wednesday, August 12, 2026 • Duration 45:38
Why do you dance like you're competing?
Because Brazilian Zouk is one dance living as five: the social dance, the performance, the competition, the after-class demo, and the teaching dance. In this ZoukNerds episode, Gui Prada and I name all five, and what happens when you train one while wanting another.
Gui saw it in a private lesson in Australia. A follower past 65 told him, "I am dancing not to go crazy. I do this as a mental health tool." Her balance diagnosis from other teachers: engage your core, point your feet. Competition tools. The real fix was weight distribution. She almost got emotional, because she thought something was wrong with her.
I put my hands up here too. In my Australia years, everybody trained for Jack and Jill. My classes taught the cleanest, most precise execution, and we called it social dancing.
What manifestation of the dance are you training?
→ The body: when I competed, my body was ready for a show any minute. A relaxed embrace? My body could not process it.
→ The feed: we don't have social media anymore. We have attention media. It decides which version of the dance looks like THE dance.
→ The diet: people want comfort, but 99% of their training and Instagram watching is Jack and Jill. I wanna be healthy, but I go to McDonald's every day.
If you ever left a social feeling like your partner was performing at you, this is why. The order is improvised. The execution is not. That's choreography.
The big takeaway: training for Jack and Jill is not the bad thing. It's how you're training for Jack and Jill. Know which dance you're training, and change the chip between them.
Chapters:
00:00 Opening highlights
01:10 The Correction Ladder and the Foundational Stack
02:30 The teacher-training test: what do you fix first?
