We don’t stop at “it just feels good”

I started in 2003, not long after stomach surgery that came out of stress and anxiety, so dance didn’t change my life, it saved it. I was never a natural, I was the slow learner in the room, and the only way through was to take everything apart until I understood why it worked, which twenty-three years later is the ZoukNerds Method. Three Pro World titles and Head Judge at the Brazilian Zouk Dance Council are on the list somewhere, but I talk about the two burnouts more, because that’s where the pacing came from. Twelve years building the scene in Australia, five in Washington DC, over fifty countries taught in, and now Taipei, Taiwan, which is home, for now.

I got into this in 2004 because of a film, Shall We Dance?, and ended up at Jaime Arôxa’s school in Rio, 3pm to midnight, learning Forró, Samba de Gafieira, Soltinho, Bolero, Zouk and Argentine Tango. Then in 2009 I went to Buenos Aires and the tango close embrace rearranged what I was chasing, because what I felt there was conforto, cuidado e entrega, comfort and care and surrender, and I’ve been teaching toward that ever since. Three judges once told me I was good to watch but not to win, and that turned out to be the most useful thing anyone ever said to me. My question in class is usually, “what if you try a little less hard?”