r/Zouk

I have been dancing salsa and bachata for several years (leading and following), which i learned through classes in a studio setting. Now I'm learning to lead zouk just by practicing with my friend, who is an amazing follow, but we're really just choosing random moves that look cool from videos and seeing if we can figure out how to imitate them. This is actually going quite well, but I'm curious...

In salsa, my studio teaches that there are 10 main building blocks beyond the basic: cross body lead, right turn, left turn, inside turn, outside turn, new york walk, forced left, pullback, wrap, copa. Whether or not every instructor would agree with that list, I've found it to be a very useful base to build from.

So, what would be the equivalent list for zouk? Lateral, elástico, soltinha, viradinha, gostashino, raúl...? (Just throwing things out there lol.) I want to learn all of the most common moves ASAP so I can develop good habits before i get into more complex variations.

What do you think are the must-learn building block moves of zouk?

I'm new to Brazilian Zouk, but I dance Bachata Sensual and different flavors of Kizomba (which is an outlier here). In a Zouk class (somewhere between beginner and intermediate level), a teacher said that no advanced dancers start their dance with the basic step (for the beat part, obviously, not in the intro) and advised going straight into figures. This contradicts my experience in Bachata, and it also goes against the advice reputable teachers give there — don't be afraid of the basic, use it as additional time to connect/reconnect with your partner and as another step to build up a dance gradually. That's the approach I use in Bachata, and I've never had a negative experience with it. So are there any specific things about Zouk I should know, since I'm quite new? How do you build up your dance?

Also anything that I should look out for regarding differences between what I currently dance and how I should dance zouk.

Ways to adapt kizomba/bachata moves for zouk?

(Brazilian zouk)