"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.

What did you give up to keep dancing? Tell us in the comments.

Chapters:

00:00 Opening highlights

01:48 Meeting Vanessa Meirelles and Iago Hassuike

03:08 Why a ballet dancer didn't believe in following

05:42 From a math classroom to quitting the school

08:16 How the partnership actually started

11:16 The five-year plan that happened in two

13:04 The safety net that made going full time possible

16:14 Why a dance career is a whole different monster

19:34 The circles of information in a dance scene

21:53 Living together 24/7, and the golden rule

23:54 Travelling the world and still being alone

26:56 Why their partnership worked when others don't

29:48 Dance first or structure first: two ways to learn

32:08 The rule that settles every disagreement

34:03 The class that keeps a teacher awake at night

36:45 How to actually let a compliment land

38:43 The math student who came back crying

41:11 Their advice, and what's coming in part two

Guests: Vanessa Meirelles and Iago Hassuike, Lambada and Brazilian Zouk artists from São Paulo. Hosted by Alisson Sandi.

ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/

Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/

Episode: S06 Ep20 | ZoukNerds Podcast

"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.

When did you last catch yourself plateaued without noticing? Tell us in the comments.

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

"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?

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

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 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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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