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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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.
Chapters:
00:00 Opening highlights
1:22 What the pickiness curve is
3:03 "I don't like this music" is usually a skill gap
4:46 Gui's Xote and Bolero problem
6:58 How pickiness climbs: shoes, floors, partners
8:47 Ignorance is bliss, and the gelato snob
10:35 When your checklist gets too long
12:18 The bus ride home, and what he asked next
17:21 Preferences versus pickiness
21:16 The unpaid dance escort
22:32 Reading your social battery in one night
25:43 "I'm a paying customer", and where the line is
29:47 Pandemic pods and the people who stopped coming
34:12 The teacher's pickiness curve
37:06 Your dance teacher is a business owner
40:44 Knowing your preferences without being picky
45:20 Festivals, and growing the community
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep18 | ZoukNerds Podcast
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.
Most Dance Teachers Are on Autopilot (S06 Ep15)
Season 5 · Episode 15
Wednesday, August 5, 2026 • Duration 43:28
Why did you leave that amazing Brazilian Zouk class confused?
Because the teacher was serving three meals at once. Every dance class teaches one of three things: mechanics, concepts, or feeling. When nobody names the main one, you learn a nice move and walk out not knowing what the class was about.
In this ZoukNerds episode, Gui Prada and I talk about how teachers build classes, why most of us default to mechanics, and how to decode what your class is actually teaching you.
People ask me, "Can you teach spins? We have one hour on the Friday." Nope. Do you want them to feel like a spinner? Okay, I need three hours. There are things that need time. You cannot cheat that.
What your class is teaching you:
→ Mechanics: how to execute. The Bônus = traveling turn, rock step, Patinha.
→ Concept: what it is for. The same Bônus becomes dancing on a track, or a circle.
→ Feeling: what it is like. The turning, the momentum. This one needs time and a reference point.
Gui's line is, "it's almost like a ladder. You study the mechanic and you get the concept and then you have the feeling."
The part most teachers skip: naming it. If you ever left a workshop thinking "I suck at this", that was probably a class built to show you what you don't know yet. That class exists. Somebody just forgot to tell you.
How Dance Becomes Your Safe Space (S06 Ep14)
Season 6 · Episode 14
Wednesday, July 29, 2026 • Duration 36:40
How does a dance school become your safe space?
Before Brazilian Zouk, before teaching, Gui Prada and I were two shy kids who found one safe room. In this ZoukNerds episode, we thank the first teachers who built us, and I tell a story nobody has ever heard. Not even my family.
Brazil, 1999. I was around 10. A community center near my house had dance classes, and my parents couldn't afford them. "Look, I'm sorry. We cannot afford that." So I would hide before class, join when the warm-up started, and run before it finished. For months. One day the teachers came to me: "Hey, before you go, can we have a chat?" I never went back. Years later it hit me: they were probably offering me my first Bolsista position.
What did our first teachers actually give us?
→ The ethos: Dan and Lily ran my first school on one rule. Make people happy, everybody has fun, you're doing a great job. The rest comes with time.
→ The standard: Gui trained at Jaime Arôxa in Rio. Jaime had this thing in class: "Normal person, special person." Two postures, two people. The older ladies and widows walked out special again.
→ The seeing: Val gave me my first chance to assist when nobody else would. "You have something that they don't, and I see it."
We didn't dance because we were dancers. It was shyness: cold sweats, hiding in corners. Dance was the only room where we could connect without talking. Keep the body moving. Don't speak.
The big takeaway: a dance school is a permission space, the place where you become someone who connects. I slept at mine between the Saturday 4 AM party and the Sunday 8 AM training. That school raised me.
Zouk Retreat vs Festival: Two Opposite Worlds (S06 Ep13)
Season 6 · Episode 13
Wednesday, July 22, 2026 • Duration 40:05
What's the difference between a Brazilian Zouk retreat and a Zouk festival?
In this ZoukNerds episode, Gui Prada and I go down memory lane to the events that marked us, and they could not be more opposite.
Gui's first Brazilian Zouk event ever was Xandy Liberato's first retreat, in Valencia, 2016. Invitation only. On arrival day, the exercise was simple: look your partner in the eye, one touch on the shoulder, one on the arm. Gui started sobbing in front of a stranger. The stranger cried too. Eight months later he flew to the Warsaw Zouk Festival and danced with four people in four days.
My version: Brazil Central in Brisbane, an old museum building, all the masters from Brazil. That event is the reason I made a rule when I created BraZouky: "This event will never be in a ballroom or in a community center that has no personality."
Why did the same dance feel like two opposite worlds?
→ The retreat: everything organic, everything subtle, fire day, water day, air day. Solid basics in the room, so "the only way were to go deeper."
→ The festival: a vodka stand, a club room, songs Gui had never heard. He sent a friend an audio message: "Look what they're listening to. How do I dance to that?"
→ The etiquette: in Australia it was one song, high-five, change partners. Third song is a marriage.
If your first big festival disappointed you, Gui found the answer years later. The retreat was a very specific container. A very intentional container. The festival was never trying to be one.
The big takeaway: a festival is not a broken retreat. They are different kinds of events, and intention is what made one of them feel like another world.
Is Brazilian Zouk a Spiritual Dance? (S06 Ep12)
Season 6 · Episode 12
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 • Duration 36:13
Is Brazilian Zouk a spiritual dance? Do you have to be spiritual to dance it?
In this ZoukNerds episode, Gui Prada and I take the "too hippie" stereotype apart.
The complaint: too spiritual, too much eye contact, whale music. So I asked the Buddha himself, Gui Prada, to define it. His definition: anything you do that connects you to meaning, to purpose, to something larger than yourself. Not a belief, a practice. Yoga counts. Journaling counts. In an old German monastery, brewing beer counted, and the monks drank from three-liter mugs.
By that definition I am in it already: weight transfer drills, feeling the floor. Yeah, we all hippies, okay?
Does the stereotype survive the episode?
→ The wardrobe: linen from Bali, organic and vegan, and less depth than someone in jeans in a big city. "It's not what people wear. It's not what they eat. It's not where they live."
→ The competition: I asked Gui, "Could I be a Jack and Jill hardcore, fanatic point chaser and still be a spiritual dancer?" "100%. 1,000%."
→ The retreats: journaling connects you to yourself, yoga to your body, meditation to your thoughts, and the dance to each other. That is why retreats use Brazilian Zouk as a connection tool.
Then I remembered Beijing. The Chinese Olympic ice dancers saw a video of me dancing Zouk and said, "We don't want to learn the dance itself. Teach us how to become one like you guys do." I could relate. When I competed, my training was for the outside, for the judges, for the show.
The big takeaway: spirituality in dance is depth of practice, not wardrobe. The Tuesday-night dancer doing footwork drills may hold a deeper spiritual practice than the professional in yoga pants who lost the why.
The Fear Behind Every Brazilian Zouk Festival (S06 Ep11)
Season 6 · Episode 11
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 • Duration 41:04
Why is the festival you bought never the event you get?
Because most Brazilian Zouk festivals are designed from the fear of not being able to pay for them. Gui Prada and I open the organizer's books.
I'll put my hands up first. I've lost money on BraZouky Festivals. Some years we didn't pay the bills. We take from here, go from there, we do some magic. And we still never sold a day pass.
Gui named the pattern: you start with an intention, a small, intimate event, and right behind it comes "how am I gonna pay for this?" Then the plane tickets arrive: "Maybe we open 10 more spots. Maybe we do a party pass." The event you announced is already gone.
What actually breaks an event's promise:
→ The quiet pivot: "Let's just sell more followers tickets. Nobody's gonna know. Who's gonna know? Nobody's gonna know." We never did that. We see it a lot.
→ The napkin math: if your budget is not a spreadsheet with multiple tabs, you missed real costs. On one small weekender we spent $500 just on Uber. That's five passes.
→ The word "intimate": there is no such thing as an intimate event with 50 people in the room. My cap is 30, with pre-selection.
The ones who keep their promises prepared before they promised: money saved like a club, before the event exists. Gui taught at one of those. The peace of mind exudes around, and for once the intermediate room was actually intermediate.
The big takeaway: an event designed from fear will drift away from its own intention. An event designed from a real budget and a clear intention can stay small, stay honest, and sell out at premium.
Is Brazilian Zouk an Addiction? (S06 Ep10)
Season 6 · Episode 10
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 33:28
Is Brazilian Zouk an addiction? I think for a lot of us it is — and I say that as someone it nearly broke.
In this ZoukNerds episode my co-host Gui Prada and I talk about the body of the dancer. The strapped knee, the strapped shoulder, the wrist, the people massaging each other at every festival. That is the community telling on itself.
For 10 years I ate painkillers as if I was drinking water. I wasn't sleeping. Any lesson, any call, any hour — it was a yes. That burned me out, and in 2016 I quit dance for a whole year. What I came back understanding: it was never the dance. It was how I dealt with it.
So how do you know your love for the dance has tipped into addiction? Try the self-advisor test: if a friend told you everything they've been doing to their body, would you say "keep going, you're fine"? People freeze. We can't say it to a stranger, so we shouldn't say it to ourselves.
Then there's the gambling parallel. We keep feeding the machine for the dopamine hit of one great dance, losing and losing until we win. Pace yourself instead. Rest a few weeks, then go all-in on the one weekender that connects with your soul.
Gui says it best: "I cannot give more. What I received right now is enough." Understanding what is enough is the search for a whole life.
Dance is our tribe. It can't be our only tribe. Reach out to your Dancers Anonymous, and notice how big a slice of your life this really owns.
Listen, follow, and share this with the dancer who needs to hear it.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
Brazilian Zouk Musicality: Beyond the Beat (S06 Ep09)
Season 6 · Episode 9
Wednesday, June 24, 2026 • Duration 37:43
I'll put my hands up here. A lot of the time, dancing Brazilian Zouk, I'm just listening to the tum, ta, chick and going for it. "Oh, good BPM, I can dance to this." That's autopilot, dancing to the sound of the machine, and it's most of what we call musicality: hitting the structure, the ones, the fives. There are whole layers under that we're not touching.
Gui was trained the other way. At Jaime Arôxa's school, you learned to be affected by the music: follow the cadence of the voice, sing along, move until the song gets into your body. His goal: "I want the music to get to me." So what does musicality in Brazilian Zouk actually mean, past the beat?
Why we get stuck on the beat:
→ The classes: we teach footwork, timing, frame, and connection. Music connection comes years later, in workshops built for teachers and Jack and Jill.
→ The history: Brazilians connect to the percussion, and most Zouk songs are not in Portuguese. We couldn't reach the lyrics, so we grabbed everything else.
→ The reward: we call the dancer who hits all the numbers "musical." The dancer feeling the layers is dancing within the music.
In DC, Gui watched 40 dancers. One face was really feeling the music: the Kizomba dancer, new to Zouk. "Oh, I know this song. It makes me feel a certain way, and I go this way." He couldn't dance Zouk yet, and he was the most musical dancer in the room.
The big takeaway: timing is communication, and rhythm is the first layer of connection. Once you have the rhythm down, listen beyond it: melody, instruments, and eventually the vibe. And train it on your own, from day one, no apologies.
The big takeaway: we know everything that we know, but we don't know what we don't know, and you are the one who can tell us.
Chapters:
00:00 Opening highlights
01:14 Intro: what a private lesson is actually for
03:44 When someone asks you to teach a move
10:11 The Q&A before the first dance
12:54 Why the problem is rarely mechanical
15:09 I forgot everything I learned
20:34 How often to book: the health checkup
23:19 One hour can't replace three missed classes
26:40 "In Salsa we do it like this"
28:28 What to keep from your old dance style
31:19 Empty cup or full cup
36:05 "Tell me what only you do"
40:21 When a private goes wrong, say something
44:04 What does better mean to you?
47:14 It wasn't her weak ankles
50:04 Choosing the teacher who fits you
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep17 | ZoukNerds Podcast
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: one dance, three dances
05:41 "I am dancing not to go crazy"
07:00 Weight distribution fixed her balance
12:55 My competition body couldn't relax
15:14 The 99% Jack and Jill diet
17:45 Train a concept and a feeling
19:36 João Lambadeiro: stage moves went social
21:00 My Australia confession
26:27 Attention media, not social media
29:26 How Brazil studios kept paths separate
36:44 Improvised order, not improvised execution
37:29 The fifth manifestation: the teaching dance
39:36 Change the chip
42:55 Don't let others create your reality
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep16 | ZoukNerds Podcast
The big takeaway: The move is just a move. What you learn through the move is the class.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:58 Mechanics, concepts, or feeling
06:06 The students choose how I teach
11:45 Gui's confession: all mechanics
13:36 Why I refuse one-hour spin workshops
17:16 The ladder
20:59 The teaching autopilot hot take
23:03 The move is just a move
26:16 One move, three classes: the Bônus
28:36 Two kinds of classes
33:50 What one hour of spins buys
35:52 How to watch a demo
38:10 Feelings need a reference point
Co-hosts: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep15 | ZoukNerds Podcast
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: thank you, first teachers
02:05 "Make people happy": the ethos
04:59 "What is Jaime Arôxa?"
07:44 Elegance with an edge of arrogance
11:40 Val: the teacher who saw me
16:00 The story I never told anyone
23:13 Too shy to talk, so I danced
25:02 Normal person, special person
26:55 I never left the dance school
31:55 Paulinho, the Chacha man
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep14 | ZoukNerds Podcast
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: the events that stay in our heart
01:06 Gui's first: the Valencia retreat (2016)
05:09 Brazil Central: an arts festival, not a ballroom
07:36 Prague: the social that never stopped
12:00 Day zero: the sobbing exercise
15:18 Time, immersion, and the able body
18:03 All styles, all good
21:00 Third song is a marriage
23:27 Studio socials vs the fish market
28:38 Let's spill the tea: Warsaw
30:12 Four days, four dances
32:40 A very intentional container
36:10 Like going to the opera
37:24 What's new is what we remember
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep13 | ZoukNerds Podcast
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: is Zouk too hippie?
02:05 The definition: it's a practice
07:00 Weight transfer drills: we're all hippies
08:08 It's not what people wear
11:23 Can a point chaser be spiritual?
14:50 A tool for connection
15:45 Is the name itself appropriation?
22:25 The Chinese Olympic ice dancers
27:21 The Tuesday-night spiritual practice
30:00 Same class, two names
30:51 The things are what we are
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep12 | ZoukNerds Podcast
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: the fear that drives organizers
02:18 Gui's epiphany: intention first, fear second
06:51 My BraZouky receipts: four countries
08:00 The 'BraZouquinho': underpromise, overdeliver
12:55 No such thing as intimate with 50
18:06 The party-pass death spiral
22:17 The club account: money before the event
26:51 We don't need a festival in June
30:23 Napkin math vs the spreadsheet ($500 Uber)
32:10 The Bali dancer who sold out on intention
34:24 Ask AI, then dig: see the monster first
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep11 | ZoukNerds Podcast
00:28 The body of the dancer: strapped knees, shoulders, wrists
01:45 The inability to stop
02:32 The self-advisor test
05:57 10 years, painkillers like water
07:16 I quit dance for a whole year
08:45 Why teachers can't say no
12:24 Dance as your only tool
16:03 It's a gambling addiction
16:13 Music FOMO, people FOMO, event FOMO
21:05 Falling asleep on the floor
24:48 "I cannot give more" — enoughness
26:42 The Michelin sushi spoiler
29:31 What does dance fulfill for you?
30:31 Healthy here, not struggling to be here
Co-host: Gui Prada
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep10 | ZoukNerds Podcast
Chapters:
00:00 Opening highlights
01:32 Intro
04:32 Teachers want the timing down, then can't get you out of it
08:32 How Jaime Arôxa taught musicality
10:27 Autopilot: dancing to the sound of the machine
11:55 Why musicality workshops skip the basics
16:05 Heavy, airy, viscous: words for what you feel
17:57 Hitting the structure isn't musicality
18:54 One guy in 40: the Kizomba dancer's face
20:14 Why Brazilian Zouk got taught rhythm-first
24:29 Timing is communication
29:51 Most dancers don't dance enough on their own
