Kizomba GPS please tell which way I’m dancing
After my first contact with Kizomba in 2014; Kizomba: love at first sight…. but I already have a girl friend. I decided to jump-start into the Kizomba adventure middle of 2017 but didn’t really know much about the different dance styles, music genres in and around Kizomba and was watching tons of YouTube videos – I don’t even dare to mention what exactly.
I didn’t really have a role model or mentor to ask… My approach was more like “hmm I don’t know which class to take… well let’s just take them all”. So I joined pretty much all available beginner classes in Zürich from July to September 2017.
In my beginners naivety I was drifting between styles, but I wasn’t aware of it.
“Follow the Road for three Miles at the next Dance Floor”
The first important and significant enlightenment happened during Kizomba Passion Zürich Festival July 2017. I was attending as many workshops as possible, mixing all of it Semba, Kizomba, Urban, Fusion. I was like a sponge and just wanted to soak any input I could get. Of course it was a struggle, almost a receipt for disaster;
- I was a total beginner
- I was mixing all the style and hence getting different, partially contradictory input
- It was just way too much input to process.
But I still enjoyed the atmosphere of the festival (my first kizomba festival) and watching other dancers. Saturday I was totally overwhelmed and exhausted but I anyway went to the party in the evening. I tried to dance once and literally experienced a total brain freeze, spent the rest of the evening watching others and trying to figure out which style I liked most and what style that might have been.
Within all this struggle I saw Steffi on the dance floor. She was dancing as a lead and looking back it was probably a Semba song she was dancing to.
I was fascinated and astonished in two ways:
- she was by far the best leader on the whole dance floor, if not of the whole party
- I absolutely loved the dance style
A whole mix of feelings were going through my chest; falling in love with the dance I was just watching. Feeling the awakening fascination and appetite for it. But I also felt kind of envious and frustrated…
Regret the Past or embrace the Path ahead
I had met Steffi 2014 in a class during my short Kizomba episode. I stopped dancing Kizomba after two months, she didn’t. And here we are 3 years later and I’m watching her dancing something that is mesmerizing me. The little ego voice in me couldn’t shut up and whispered “you could have been dancing so well today, if you hadn’t stopped” . But this feeling didn’t last long, because I knew now what and how I wanted to dance. I just needed to figure what it is and how to get there. Without me even realising it, the seed for the love of Semba was planted.
I still continued to try out the different beginner classes, but stayed in touch with Steffi and we had a quite extensive exchange about Kizomba, Semba, dance steps, analyzing and theorizing about moves and steps, discussing how to split them down, etc.
Steffi was rather frustrated with the under appreciation of Kizomba and Semba in Zürich, while I was overly motivated and engaged. I was hooked and dancing 3-5 times a week.
I was impatient and wanted things to move faster, my dancing to become better.
Sometime you better be carefull what you wish for 😉
Panic on the Dance Floor
In September I got approached by Tobias former president of TQ, TanzQuotient a student agency organising very affordable dance classes and workshop for the students of the universities in Zürich. He asked to teach a Kizomba beginners class starting end of October 2017. I didn’t know whether to feel proud, happy – hey it’s a little ego booster, right ?- or to totally freak out.
I already had teaching experiences in other fields, but my expectations towards myself are very high, and knew how much effort it would be, if possible at all for my beginner level, to pull out a qualitatively satisfying Kizomba course. But anyway the challenge was on.
I was excited and terrified; my teaching “career” was kind of secret. I didn’t dare to mention it anywhere; in my mind I was already seeing the people pointing and laughing at me “you beginner wanna teach, ahahahaha”
Embrace the Fear and enjoy the Ride
I asked Steffi for help and at one point she boiled it down to the following: “It’s crap… but well… better you teach that class than an other urban guy”
We made a deal and she agreed to give me weeklong a boot camp training in exchange for my language, tourist guide qualities at a warm spot in south Turkey in October 2017.
The Boot Camp
The boot camp training with Steffi was a real boost for my dancing. It wasn’t about any special tricks, it was about foundation. Proper stepping, timing, posture, weight shifting, etc all the little elements necessary to build up the more complex moves.
Similar to experience with my one month cuban salsa training, I started getting positive feedback in form of compliments. It took some reflection to understand what was going on. Because my male leader brain rather wants to learn some fancy dance moves and is focused on those. But the dance flow starts at a more basic level.
Before hand I literally had bumped toe nails of my followers; I’m still so sorry. And now I was starting to feel this feeling of being in sync and floating over the dance floor.
Happy End
Tobias actually did an amazing job and also found a matching teaching partner for me; Vanessa. When Tobias originally asked me to teach, he also mentioned that he has a dance partner for me to teach with. This didn’t really help to bring down my freaking out level at all. This guy didn’t just ask me – a total beginner – to teach, he also wants me to do it with a stranger. He invited me to join workshops happening at Iron Mams place couple of days later. “She’ll be there too and you guys can check out whether your dancing matches” he proposed.
I went to the classes, without any idea what to expect. I joined the workshop and luckily enough got emerged into the dance class and forgot about my panic attacks. There was my dance buddy Francesca and things were going fine, but I also noticed another follower with whom it was really nice to dance with. Oddly or luckily enough this turned out to be Vanessa.
We gave our first 6 week Kizomba course at TQ and a few others did follow. This adventure turned out really nice. We had exceptionally motivated, talented and very forgiving student in our classes. Thanks to them it was so much better, than my worst nightmare I had about that first class.