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 benefits we picked are different. And the deeper answer doesn't show up until minute 12.
The first cost is the easy one: your sleep.
→ Touring life means no schedule. Time zones, different weather, different bed every weekend.
→ Teaching ends at 10:30 p.m. By the time you close, eat, wind down, it's 1 a.m. The festival weekend pushes that to 4.
→ My current answer is the Chunked Travel Schedule. Three or four weeks on. Two months of recovery off. We are not the crazy 20-year-olds that started this.
For me, the benefit is mental and emotional exploration. Teaching is not lecturing. It's workshopping with whoever shows up that night.
For Gui, the benefit is the people. His 15-year-old self in Rio didn't know people from São Paulo. Now he records with me in Taiwan for listeners in Sydney, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia.
The closing reframe: the deeper disadvantage is what the dance exposes in you. For Gui, shyness. For me, perfectionism and the 10-15 extra iterations I need as a non-natural dancer. This dance is not therapy. It is highly therapeutical.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: Veronique's "one thing only" question
01:05 Alisson's benefit: mental and emotional exploration
02:14 Alisson's disadvantage: sleep schedule and touring life
03:10 Gui's benefit: the people you'd never have met
03:30 Gui's 15-year-old-self gratitude anchor
04:57 Gui's disadvantage: the resting part
06:40 The Chunked Travel Schedule
08:24 Gui's Rio-shyness disadvantage
10:18 Alisson on perfectionism
11:16 The 10-15x learning iterations confession
12:53 Closing reframe: the dance is a mirror to your fragility
Co-host: Gui Prada
Listener question from: Veronique Dupont — ZoukNerds Facebook Group
ZoukNerds: https://www.zouknerds.com/
Alisson Sandi: https://www.alissonsandi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zouk.nerds/
Episode: S06 Ep06 | ZoukNerds Podcast
