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PODCAST

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong

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,

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All Episodes

00:47:21

Great Technique Won't Get You More Dances

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/09/30

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,

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00:53:58

Stop Blaming Your Dance Students!

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/09/23

"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

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01:10:15

Lambada vs Brazilian Zouk: Is It One Dance?

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/09/16

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

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00:44:44

From Ballet and Math Class to Lambada Masters with...

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/09/09

"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

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00:48:32

Yes, Dance Teachers Plateau Too!

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/09/02

"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

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00:50:36

The Pickiness Curve Every Dancer Climbs

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/08/26

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

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00:52:44

Are You Wasting Your Private Dance Lessons?

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/08/22

"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

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00:45:38

Why Do You Dance Like You're Competing? (S06 Ep16)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/08/12

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:

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00:43:28

Most Dance Teachers Are on Autopilot (S06 Ep15)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/08/05

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

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00:36:40

How Dance Becomes Your Safe Space (S06 Ep14)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/07/29

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

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00:40:05

Zouk Retreat vs Festival: Two Opposite Worlds (S06 Ep13)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/07/22

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

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00:36:13

Is Brazilian Zouk a Spiritual Dance? (S06 Ep12)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/07/15

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

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00:41:04

The Fear Behind Every Brazilian Zouk Festival (S06 Ep11)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/07/08

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

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00:33:28

Is Brazilian Zouk an Addiction? (S06 Ep10)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/07/01

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

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00:37:43

Brazilian Zouk Musicality: Beyond the Beat (S06 Ep09)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/06/24

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

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00:37:32

Where Are the Brazilians in Brazilian Zouk? (S06 Ep08)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/06/17

Where are the Brazilians in Brazilian Zouk?Gui Prada went looking in Sydney and found them at the Forró social, not at our Zouk Social.Gui was three weeks in Sydney, dancing Zouk every Friday, missing what he calls the squeeze, not a hug, a squeeze. Then somebody took him to the Forró social, and in the waiting area all he could hear was Portuguese, Portuguese, Portuguese. A small branch of Brazil inside of Sydney. At the Friday Zouk social? One other Brazilian, besides him.I lived the other side of

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00:38:55

Why Do You Pick Who to Dance With? (S06 Ep07)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/06/10

I'll be honest. I walk into a social and I pick who to dance with in about three seconds, and most of the time I don't even decide it. My body decides for me.In this episode of Brazilian Zouk podcast ZoukNerds, Gui Prada and I pull apart that decision nobody talks about: the hidden social hierarchy I see in every dance community, including the ones I run.Why does everyone sit in the same spot every party:→ Find the DJ. The teachers are right there. We call it the red carpet, and the dancers

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00:15:44

What Brazilian Zouk Actually Costs You (S06 Ep06)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/06/03

Brazilian Zouk costs me sleep. I'm in Taiwan right now and I've finally built a schedule that lets me rest. The rest of the year? Time zones, late socials, weekends that bleed into the next week. 23 years in and I still pay for it every Monday.In this Q&A episode, Gui Prada and I read Veronique Dupont's question from our ZoukNerds Facebook Group: what is the ONE biggest benefit of dancing Brazilian Zouk, and the ONE biggest disadvantage?Both of us landed on the same disadvantage. The

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00:25:56

Why Brazilian Zouk Has a Leader Shortage Problem (S06...

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/05/27

Brazilian Zouk has a leader shortage problem at every social — and no organizer has solved it, including me. I've run BraZouky with strict ratio control for years. Some years we hit 1.1 to 1 at sign-up. The social still tilts the same way every night.In this Q&A episode, Gui Prada and I read Billy Lou's question from our ZoukNerds Facebook Group. He's in a leadership course and asked us: what are the "wicked problems" in the Brazilian Zouk scene right now? This one was

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00:16:08

Most Zouk Scenes Don't Need More Socials! (S06 Ep04)

ZoukNerds • Learn | Build | Belong ·

2026/05/20

Most Brazilian Zouk scenes don't need more socials. They need more Practicas. And the reason most Practicas fail comes down to the DJ: songs that don't end.In this Q&A episode, Gui Prada and I read a question from Star Bolton in our ZoukNerds Facebook Group. Her school changed their practice time from a Spotify playlist to a DJ set list. Followers started going home without dancing.I learned this the hard way running Practicas at District Zouk. The fix is simple. Most teachers get it

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