Brazilian Zouk Dance Coaching & Mentorship

This is what I’m offering and what problems we’re solving together

Wanting to progress faster and strengthen your foundation?

Hitting plateau and not improving?

Taking lots of classes but still unsure how you should be training and practicing?

Sitting on the sidelines and not getting asked to dance?

Want to get the most out of your dance investment?

These are some of the main reasons why you should reach out to me.

Having an enjoyable passion and hobby such as Brazilian Zouk dance is both a gift and curse because it takes a lot of time, investment, and frustration to get good at, but it’s addictive because of the endorphin hits we get from it making us feel good inside and on a good high.

I’m offering to be your dance coach and mentor.

Coaching targets short-term performance, mentoring guides long-term career growth, and teaching imparts specific knowledge. I am here to help you grow as a dancer using my own ways and methodology.

For clarity, I’m not here to teach you foundations or the basic steps which every other class out there already offers. What I am offering is a supplement.

Instead, I am here to refine what you’ve learned, help interpret and translate your understanding into practical movements and self-awareness. This is what I’m offering, a layer that will help extract the most out of the classes or privates that you’re already taking.

I will help clear up any difficulties or challenges you’re finding and help you find ways to remove those obstacles that is blocking you from progression and reaching your dance goals.

You’ll find my communication style to be non-sugar coated. I’m very straight forward and don’t mince my words or beat around the bush as some calls it.

So when I provide feedback, I call a banana a banana, an orange an orange, a pear is not an apple. However, as a trade-off, you’ll find me quite encouraging with my sense of humour. I need to see you fail a lot, not afraid to explore new ideas and concepts, and learn from it as you improve.

So I’m not here to stroke fragile egos, that’s not my problem. If I say your basic sucks, it means it sucks, but that doesn’t mean you’re a lost cause. I still have faith in you if you put in the work in the right focal points! You see, there’s my encouragement.

My thoughts about Brazilian Zouk as a dance

I have a love and hate relationship with Brazilian Zouk. It’s my main dance repertoire by the way.

I love it because I can use the same foundation to dance so many music genres so I never get bored unless the DJ sucks. The beauty of Brazilian Zouk dance is it’s such a versatile dance that you can stack other dance repertoires and integrate it into your dance to make it yours while still retaining its foundation and timing. Brazilian Zouk is a dance where you won’t be frowned upon for dancing with the same partner for endless hours.

I hate it because even after 12 years of training intensively in it, there is still so much to learn and practice. Brazilian Zouk dance is way too hard to learn, the entry point has far too much friction because of how complex the dance and rules. Including certain rules which you don’t even know that exists. It’s not the dance foundation fault, it’s just a very hard dance to master or to even grasp the basic foundations. I don’t like when people think they know the dance, when they know nothing at all, or so little (the Dunning-Kruger effect). Even when I’ve been doing this so long, the more I learn, the more I know I don’t know. That’s called being humbled and a reality check.

However, despite the challenges, I would still want everyone to get a better understanding of its foundation, because once you get it, it opens up so much doors and opportunities. The endorphin hit just increases and you can start entering the state of flow. True bliss and feeling alive. But such is life, pain and suffering comes before it, and you can’t skip it. But it doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and enjoyable. That’s why I’m here, just to make it a little easier and less insufferable. You’re not alone. I’m here.

Once you’ve learned the practical use of the foundation, it creates freedom to express in as many ways and forms you want. You need to understand the rules, before you can break the rules. (Sorry, but most people I see just aren’t aware you can’t do whatever the fuck you want, that’s not how the dance works)

How we will make this work

You’ve already seen me attending dance socials in London, and socials are great places to practice what you’ve learned if you know how to.

I will make time to dance with you since you’re under my wings and guidance, and provide you feedback in the right areas you need to focus on. Most of the time, there will be lots of problems or changes that can be made, but making so many changes all at once is never a good idea because you’ll lose focus and attention on improving the areas which gives most impact at that current moment in your dance journey. I will highlight those, and give you homework, and the regular reminder you need, and I will hold you accountable (I have my ways).

Our dances together during socials, or on the sideline, will not feel like classes, I’m your coach and mentor, not your teacher. We will just dance and enjoy it as we always do when dancing together. But I will give clear pointers for you to focus on so whenever whomever you dance with after, you know what to consider and explore.

As you progress, I will give new homework, ideas, more considerations and suggestions for you to work on. This will be fun, and shouldn’t be stressful. My methods are designed to make learning fun in a way that it integrates into your lifestyle so that you can maximise learning efficiency and effectiveness. It’s not to make you more stressful or negatively self-conscious.

What this means is that you get to learn through my experienced body by dancing with me more often and getting guidance. (I’m starting to sound like a Gigolo now. As a bonus, you also get to enjoy my sense of humour and sarcasms, lol)

Who is this for?

I can Lead and Follow in Brazilian Zouk. So it matters not which role you’re learning and want to improve on. This is open to ALL levels, beginners to expert pro level whatever you like to describe yourself as.

If you’re a local in London great, sign up!

If you’re a traveller or here only for a short period of time and also want to improve, then just message me, I’m not going to say no if you want me to take your money! We’ll figure something out together.

Will I share techniques?

Yes, and sometimes explicitly, and sometimes not explicitly.

Explicit techniques; I may reshape the tools and techniques you have learnt, and I may share more if there are safety gaps which will include content of how, when, what, and why it works. I will provide explanations to the best of my knowledge and understanding that comes from my personal perspective. Just remember, I can only share what I know, and I’m always continuously expanding my own abilities too, even after 15 years of dancing.

Not explicit techniques; what that means is, I may make adjustments to your body, posture, without saying anything, and see if you clock on what I’m actually doing and why. Sometimes I like you to figure it out through feelings and why I made those adjustments, otherwise you’d overthink a simple technique. Our body has the most incredible sensory system built-in, so let’s use it to provide feedback. It’s important you know how it feels. You’ll understand once you get it. :)

I will talk theory; You’ll join me and others for drinks hanging out as you usually see me do, and we’ll talk. We’ll talk about you, your dance goals, where do you see yourself. Deep dive into discussions about techniques, rules of the dance, health and safety, comfort, dancing to your ability and not beyond, bad habits, musicality, expression, emotions, mental states, bodily interactions, breathwork, muscle tones and tension points, skeleton structure and frame, weight shifting, where your center is and should be, balance, footwork, extensions and compressions (aka push and pull) interactions, skin contacts, and more.

Do we need to hire studio or spend privates together?

The answer is no, we want to utilise the time to practice and train while we’re having fun. This is why I am able to price it the way I do, keep the costs under control for you while maximising your current investments in current classes already.

Should I still go other classes?

100% yes ofcourse! No doubt about it. This doesn’t replace your core foundations, as mentioned before, what I offer is a supplement.

And, I will be suggesting different teachers and schools which may benefit you currently in your journey.

Like any skill, you need to learn from as many as possible. Some may be more effective at different stages due to their teaching methods which works when you have a better understanding to build on top of your foundations.

My true goal buried beneath it all

My goal is clear. To share pieces of valuable dance insights at an affordable price because I feel many of you need it right now and London’s community is getting quite stagnant in terms of progression.

The current growth is happening with only a handful of dancers getting the right kind of consistent exposure to international dance level techniques and knowledge. I feel, this needs to change. I believe dancing is a skill that anyone can learn how to dance well and safely, and bring out more enjoyment. Only if you want it enough to make it happen and do something about it if you’re not making progress.

I’m seeing this from a community builder’s point of view holistically, the cause and effects of each piece on each other. By creating better dancers, this incites a positive cycle into the dance ecology of a healthy dance community. London needs to develop more better dancers. As we all improve, this impact London’s retention rate vs turnover rate in a very positive way to break the stagnant cycle. That way, we can all have longer dances without the need to keep changing partners. Less dancers on the sidelines. As more dancers joining and staying. Let’s give them good reasons to want to stay.

We need to prevent new dancers who just started and entered our community from leaving due to people doing weird shit, dangerous dancing, and poor techniques which makes it uncomfortable for new dancers. All of these needs to be addressed and dealt with. If we do nothing, or continue doing the same shit expecting a different result, or trying nothing new and testing different approaches creatively, then London will just keep heading down that same pitfall again, and again, and again.

I’m done talking. See you on the dance floor.