r/kizomba

Anna-Maria from Finland & Carlos Camba from Angola via Finland demonstrate some of what they taught in their "Kizomba Footwork" workshop to "Soly" - N'Sex Love @ the Nashville KiSemPa Weekender II, held at the Sonesta Nashville Airport hotel, Nashville, Tennessee. Saturday, May 16, 2026.

Edit to add - Anna leading from about 2:35 - 2:55 on the timeline

Anyone been to this festival? What's it like?

This is something I've been pondering for quite a while. Currently my kizomba scene has no teachers, meaning follows are learning purely socially, and in my opinion are picking up many bad habits due to advanced leads putting them through many fancy tricks. One specific complaint I have is that follows are very trigger happy on preparing for a pivot or counterbalance. I do a block, they expect a pivot. I increase tension, they balance on one leg. I pause and stay still, they go on one leg. I do a regular move then reverse it half way, they balance on one leg. Something went wrong? They go on one leg to "fix" it because it was "obviously" going to be a pivot.

I intently watched how an international guest teacher handled one such follow who inserts random steps: I saw him implement four solutions that I'm not equipped to do, and I'm kind of guessing that there might be an additional hidden factor:

1. He picked moves that are very obvious as to which foot one must be on -- in fact this is "easier" when you're doing certain tricks where the entry is much more forced than relaxed steps
2. He started using tons of blocks with his free leg or even hands to prevent incorrect weight transfers or steps
3. If the above didn't work, he would cheekily force the follow's legs into position using his hands or feet, he was very playful by default so there wasn't any rude vibe in this kind of obvious correction
4. If all else failed or it wasn't an important moment, he would just fly with the follow doing random footwork and adapting to re-align later

I'm starting to think there might be an invisible factor here: could it also be that his basics in general are somehow 300% clearer than mine?

Consider this: the most advanced follows in my city say that my footwork and leading is really clean (at least for the moves I know well). These same moves have like 10-20% success rate on everyone else. (In a more advanced city, I would expect it to be higher, at least 50%.) It would seem that my technique is "roughly" correct for leading advanced follows, while being "not clear enough" for beginners. Is that even possible? If so, how do I even figure out how to make every step clearer to a beginner, since this is what an international pro might be able to do subconsciously but would never teach specifically because technique is regarded the same regardless of the follow's level?

Anna Maria from Finland & Carlos Camba from Finland via Angola review some of what they taught in their Kizomba Footwork workshop to "Assobio da Lu" - DJ Malvado, @ the Jamais DoDo Weekender 2024, Columbus. Ohio. Saturday, September 21, 2024.