The Secret to Dancing Kizomba with Confidence | Advice from Carlos Camba & Anna Mariaz

TAKEAWAYS

• Confidence is key to being a good dancer.

• Mistakes are part of the learning process.

• Dancing is about having fun, not perfection.

• Everyone starts somewhere; progress takes time.

• Don't be afraid to ask questions in class.

• Overthinking can hinder your dancing ability.

• Men often struggle more with confidence than women.

• Practice and exposure to different teachers help build confidence.

• It's important to relax and enjoy the dance.

• Your mindset can greatly affect your performance.

SOUNDBITES

• "It's a social dance, it's not a performance."

• "Don't take it too seriously."

• "Dancing is about having fun."

• "We are all the same on the dance floor."

• "You can be the one to ask the question."

• "Mistakes are part of the show."

• "Everyone just needs to start somewhere."

TRANSCRIPT

speaker-0 (00:00)

Hello, Kizomba friends, and welcome back to the Kizomba Conversations Podcast. If you're listening on Spotify or another podcast app, don't forget you can also watch our guests in action on our YouTube channel at Kizomba Conversations. We hope you enjoy the episode. Hello, Kizomba friends, and welcome back to another episode of Kizomba Conversations. As always, I'm your host, Victor. Today we are joined for the second time by Carlos Camba.

and Anna Mariaz returning for another episode with us. So thank you very much to both of you and welcome back to Kizomba Conversations. How are you both?

speaker-1 (00:39)

We're great, we're in Finland for once.

speaker-0 (00:43)

So you're at home for once, basically, that's what you're saying, right?

speaker-1 (00:46)

Exactly. It doesn't happen too often, so

speaker-0 (00:48)

Yeah. Well thank you. Well thank you. Again, like I said, thank you for joining us again. And today we're talking about something very, very specific. And we want to get your thoughts on that, okay? And this is especially for well, it's for lots of different people, especially more so for beginners, maybe. But even if you're not a beginner, some people might maybe struggle or think about this thing. And that thing is confidence. All right. So having confidence on the dance floor as dancers.

I think it's something that affects a lot of people and because people are different, right? So some people are more confident than others, some people are a little bit more shy. But to be a really good dancer, you there's gotta be a level of confidence that you have. So I wanna talk to that, talk to you about that. And I wanna start off by thinking about how you both define confidence. Okay. So what what does it actually mean to be a confident dancer? Right. So I wanna get both of your thoughts.

How do you have to be to be confident on the dance floor? What the some of the things that you need to be aware of or or have to have, especially if you're not confident?

speaker-2 (01:53)

I can say that straight for my opinion. First, you don't need to be afraid to make a mistake. That's the first thing. Because as much you think that, I'm going to make a mistake, then you don't have a confidence anymore to dance. So as strong, if you made a decision that, okay, I'm going to go dance. And then you need to think that we are all the same. And then the way you see like, for example, to Carlo or to Anna or to some other dancer.

So you need to think that we are all the same. If somebody can do, also you can do it. Easy.

speaker-1 (02:28)

Yeah, also take the pressure out of it, like 'cause it's social dance, it's not a performance. So it doesn't have to be perfect. Nobody will die if you make a mistake or ten mistakes. So but yeah. The definition just you know, I don't know, knowing what you're doing, but even when you're when you don't know what you're doing, just fake it till you make it. Nobody will know unless you show it in your face, like you make a face like oop or something, you know. Nobody will

speaker-2 (02:57)

No.

And also sometimes people say that, no, you say that because it's easy. Sorry. Is it for you because you're born with that? You have danced many years in your life. course. I have danced many years, but I'm, you know, I was one of the most bad dancer many years ago, but I improved myself. decided to start training a little bit more. I was like, you know, having my confidence also when you decide to training.

You need to be confident yourself also to wake up and then go to the class. This need to be confidence also to do like, okay, I'm confident that I want to do this today. So from this one also, they're going to help you. But if you don't have this confidence that I need to go to the dance school or whatever, you're like, so, was it lazy? Then you think,

I don't think so if I can make today. So you already start to make your like energy down. So you start losing all your confidence.

speaker-1 (04:00)

Actually it's it's good to see this progress. So sometimes I ask Carlos why he doesn't delete his old cause he has if you scroll down far enough in his Facebook, you will see the times when he was still the regular social dancer in Angola. So the way like he didn't look like

speaker-0 (04:19)

Let me get my phone out, so I'm joking, right?

speaker-2 (04:22)

I can send to you, I can send to you. I don't mind that I can send to you.

speaker-1 (04:26)

'Cause he didn't have this style. Of course he knew the steps, he he was able to dance socially, but he didn't have this style that he has today. And I sometimes ask him, like, why don't you delete these videos? Isn't embarrassing, but for him it's like, no, people can see my progress. I'm also a human. It doesn't mean that every ungoland was a master dancer when they were born. They they probably all know a little bit, but it doesn't mean that they were born with this like master skills.

So people can also see his progress і

speaker-2 (04:59)

And also you need to be confident to learn with the many different people. That we have an ego, it's ego, right? We have an ego, then we say, oh no, I cannot go to this guy, learn with this guy. So on this way, if you take something like from me, like that's a little bit from Carlo, a little bit from, oh, I just say the name, it doesn't mean that.

It's just the name come out like because people talking to me every day. Like if you take something like from Boniface, you take something from Wadi, you take from Donnie, you take from Dasmara, you take from Eddie, you take from many different teachers. So then when you're building your dance, you're going to be more confident also because these all the teachers, they're going to help you to understand many different ideas. So when you mix all these.

They're gonna help you.

speaker-1 (05:54)

Yeah.

speaker-0 (05:54)

Yeah.

So I'm hearing a lot of things here. One is just to well, I think like you were saying before, Carlos, is just relax, understand that you're gonna make mistakes. It's part of it, you know, don't be so hard on yourself. I'm kind of summarizing what you're saying here. So that's one thing because we're all human, and you're just mentioning about the fact that you're you don't take away your old, old dance videos there just, you know, because you were starting out as well. And also thinking about in terms of building confidence.

Who you're gonna learn with because all those teachers, like you just mentioned, are gonna help you with that confidence as well. So it's gonna get there over time. Yeah. That's that's what I'm hearing from you both. Is that correct analysis? Yeah.

speaker-2 (06:35)

Then I say also to people that of course you have this everything, but don't then don't need to do like too much mistake. Then I think, okay, I'm trying to learn so I can do many, mistakes. No, don't, don't need to do also this way. Not many mistake.

speaker-0 (06:51)

Make the mistake, but learn from there. Move on. Basically. Okay. Cool. That's excellent. All right. Cool. Create some some sound advice.

speaker-1 (06:59)

In short, don't take it too seriously.

speaker-0 (07:02)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because dancing is about having fun, isn't it? So that's that's that's some very good advice. So thinking about then, right? And many people, including myself, okay, not natural dancers, can be quite shy. Well, I'm a quite shy individual myself. And you got some people on the dance scene, you know, like I said before, some people are more shy, some people more outgoing. So when we're on the dance scene, how do you how do we overcome the initial feeling sometimes that might be a little bit awkward?

speaker-1 (07:05)

Exactly.

speaker-0 (07:30)

when dancing with someone new, especially maybe if you are new on the dance scene and you're not quite sure of yourself. what is some advice that you can give people when they're when they're in that environment?

speaker-1 (07:44)

I think that comes with time. You just have to put yourself out there and come out of your comfort zone because you need practice in everything. And it's the same. Like some people they might be very shy if they need to give a speech somewhere or you know, but you just need to put yourself in that situation and you know, to get that exposure. So then little by little you start start seeing that it's not that that bad and it's not that serious. And referring to the previous answer, just don't take yourself too serious.

speaker-2 (08:15)

I say also serious, you need to take it. Who, who needs to be serious on this thing? It's me and Anna. So we are teachers. We are the teachers. So you just having fun. What is the reason that you take so serious? Nobody, nobody push you to go there and pay you decide yourself to go and pay and to stay on the workshop. So this means that you just pay for having fun. How can it be possible to go pay to be so serious on somewhere?

speaker-1 (08:29)

Date for

speaker-2 (08:44)

It doesn't make sense for anything. That's why I say sometimes for people, please try to smile when you dance. Okay. I understand, but I never smile, but people think it like, Oh, Carlos, why are you so serious? These people do think that I'm so serious is because they don't know me. They are not close to me. If they come close to me, then they understand that, he's not like so serious. Like that's the way I was thinking. It's just his face. I cannot change my face. This is the face that I have. So, and then.

You know.

speaker-1 (09:16)

You can but we're not rich enough for that yet.

speaker-0 (09:19)

need to change his face. It's all good. It's fine. Yeah, I know what you mean, Carlos. And I I know that you you know, it's all about fun, isn't it? And I know that, you know, you we we joke a lot. Sometimes people might not see that on your face, but yeah, I understand what you're what you're saying there.

speaker-2 (09:32)

Do you think that I'm serious also if you look at my face?

speaker-0 (09:36)

People think that, right? Some people.

speaker-1 (09:38)

Some

people think that Carlos is very like angry or very serious or something, but

speaker-2 (09:43)

But of course I'm hungry when I don't have money. If I don't have money then I'm very hungry.

speaker-0 (09:48)

think you said that on the previous episode as well, by the way.

speaker-1 (09:50)

Really?

speaker-0 (09:53)

Yes.

speaker-2 (09:53)

don't know if you have a good memory or so. If I say it, it's okay.

speaker-1 (09:58)

Okay.

speaker-0 (09:59)

Yeah. All right. So again, again it's about fun. You know, if you're feeling if you're feeling awkward, you know, try not to feel that because th everybody's out there's had the same for the same thing, right? And Yeah. So you you know, you go away after a night and you you feel happy that you've that you came out in the in the first place. So okay, cool, cool. So then what about I mean, same sort sort of thing, but what about people who are not natural dancers? Okay. So I am not a natural dancer and many people

you know, would be maybe in the same kind of boat that would say, I'm not a natural dancer, but I love to dance. Again, what can you tell them to increase their confidence? And this is more about this is more about how they move and how they look when they're dancing, more so in that respect. Can you teach anything a around that? Or do they just have to practice and have their own style as they as they go on?

speaker-2 (10:48)

Can I start? Okay. So I like to give example about the, two, have two famous person in these words. I mean, one is a Cristiano Ronaldo, another one is Messi. So if we look for these two guys, there is one talented, he born with that talent, like, I mean, Messi and then Cristiano Ronaldo, he, he didn't born with that talent, but he working to get there.

So that's exactly good, good example. So it's mean that as much we want, if we really want to do something, if you work hard to get, you're going to be there.

speaker-1 (11:31)

I was just about to say the same. I was about to say motivation beats talent when talent is lazy. So if you have y or or hard work hard work beats talent when talent is lazy. So if you have enough motivation to work hard, you can get there. And even if you don't look the best, you know, there's a lot of dancers who maybe on the video they don't look the best, but when you dance with them, it's amazing to dance with them. So it's not about

like how you look if you're a teacher, yeah, then you probably need to look even a at least a little bit presentable. But but when you're just dancing for fun, it's more about how it feels for your partner that you're dancing with rather than what it looks like on the outside.

speaker-2 (12:13)

And then I can, I did also a little bit, for example, myself, I don't like always to look at my video because when I looked at my video, sometimes I feel like, it doesn't look so good. I don't like that. You know, sometime before I put some video on internet, I need to think a lot. This one is good. All the time I delete, then I try to put again, you know, so, um, more.

speaker-1 (12:37)

Probably other people don't see it the way you do yours, so you know we're always too critical.

speaker-0 (12:43)

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely. It's interesting what you said about obviously if you're a teacher, you have to look a certain way. But then also it's interesting because you're talking about even so my myself, sometimes, you know, I I look at my dancer and I'm like, my God, what is this? What are you doing? Right. You're not moving, right? But then you have certain people you dance with and you just feel it and it just feels nice and they enjoy it. And then you when you go out, they seek you out and you dance with them. So the feeling for them is actually quite nice.

Just that when you put a camera on, it's like, Okay, you're not doing the

speaker-2 (13:16)

is

speaker-1 (13:17)

It's yeah, it's a completely different thing. But for social dancing, of course, how how it feels it's much more important than what it looks like.

speaker-2 (13:25)

But me also, I know that I'm good dancer, but I'm not always happy. Yeah. It's the one, you know, my son is the one I love. It's more my fan number one. He just talked to me every day. said that, I like when you dance. He look at my video, say, you are the best dancer.

speaker-0 (13:29)

Told you that.

speaker-1 (13:31)

You don't need to

speaker-0 (13:45)

Right.

Family does it.

speaker-2 (13:48)

Yeah, he's my son and my daughter. They're the two my number one and number two fans.

speaker-0 (13:58)

They're gonna be amazing dancers too anyway, I'm sure. Who do you think maybe struggles with confidence more? What do you see? Is it men or is it women?

speaker-1 (14:06)

Men, definitely men. I think men. No.

speaker-2 (14:10)

Again, again, you know, then I just, I want that you guys understand that there is two different person here. One is a Carlos, one is Anna. have a different name.

speaker-1 (14:21)

I dance with men, he dances with women so.

speaker-2 (14:25)

And also, we have a different opinion. So if something I don't agree with her, will say, no, I don't agree with you. If she does agree with me, she will say. Right now, for example, for me, my opinion is that who have more confidence, the woman, the ladies. Who have more?

speaker-0 (14:43)

More of them.

speaker-1 (14:46)

That's

what I said. I said he has who has le who struggles with it more and I said men struggle with it more. So we're agreeing.

speaker-2 (14:53)

yeah, it's a struggle. was just, I understand that he just said that, who have more? Yeah, this is what I understand, who have more?

speaker-1 (14:58)

No no, who has less comp so

Yeah, so women have more we we feel what we see is that women have more confidence than men. 'Cause if you look at the parties, the male teachers, they have a queue of women waiting to dance with them. But then then us female teachers, oftentimes the guys say, no, I'm too nervous to dance with you or like you know, they're scared to dance with with a teacher.

female teachers because they think that they're so much better than them or their level is not good enough and that's BS, you know. Oftentimes it's actually much nicer to dance like a very basic, comfortable dance with someone rather than something crazy steps all the time like it's exhausting, you know. Sometimes it's nice to just dance, just normal social dance without any fancy moves.

You know, so men shouldn't beat themselves up too much like thinking that they have to be on a certain level to dance with some

speaker-2 (16:06)

But I can, I did also a little bit one up, we talk about the, who have more confidence. Like for example, I think so men, don't have sometimes, not always, sometimes you don't have a much confidence because they are afraid to make a mistake. They dance with somebody and then they think that I don't want to do any mistake or I don't want to do this step. Probably if I do the step and then,

I'm not going to do as the way a teacher was teaching me. So, you know, on this position, so we need to understand also the leaders. And then the followers, they are exactly different ways. So they don't think a lot as the same way we thinking before we start dance. With much respect, I don't mean that the followers doesn't do anything, but of course that we know that the leaders, they do more. They need to think before start do something.

They need to remember that I need to lead with my hand. I need to change my leg. need to do many different things and the follower need to be there and try to understand all everything that the information come from the leaders. So this is thing that also sometimes make it as leaders, little bit more difficult. This confidence come on the dance floor.

speaker-1 (17:23)

When I dance as a follower I don't sweat, but when I dance as a leader I sweat. It's that's how much harder it is to be a leader.

speaker-0 (17:30)

Yeah, that's the pressure that we are under trying to make you have a nice dance as well. Okay, okay. So is there any advice you can you can give for each side then for men and women when it comes to to confidence in in this part?

speaker-1 (17:44)

No, it's the same thing we've been saying all along. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. It doesn't matter. It's it's, you know, just having fun. It's nothing serious.

speaker-2 (17:51)

And then look at us, look at us, when I mean us, it's like everyone, teachers, no teachers, dancers, all of us, we are all the same. Yellow, white, black, everyone, we are all the same. So on the dance floor, when we think that we are dance, we are all the same. You need to think as the way. If Carlos can do.

Okay, I can do also the same. If I have a two-leg, Carl has a two-leg, he has two hands, all this stuff. So everything he can do it, of course I can do it also. But of course, sometimes there is a different step that you must play to learn a little bit more. That's now about the business.

speaker-1 (18:39)

I used to be very scared of job interviews 'cause it's like a swe like the situation, two people across the table like grilling you. I feel like it's a little bit the same. Then someone I don't remember if it was my mom or someone told me that, hey, they're just human. Like just look at them as they're exactly the same as you. They just have a different job. So I think it's the same thing. Like it doesn't make any difference if you're a teacher or a beginner or an advanced dancer.

We're all Nasin, and everybody started from somewhere.

speaker-0 (19:11)

Yeah, yeah no, absolutely.

speaker-2 (19:13)

The last thing about the confidence which

speaker-1 (19:15)

Trying

to beat Gallas, we are trying to beat Gelas.

speaker-2 (19:19)

The last thing, the last thing, the last thing, this is, this is like me, Carlos. Now I would like to have more attention. Do you know the, the, the, the, the moves when you watch a movie, the thing, the most, the movie, right. The, the most, it's coming. So right now would say this is me, Carlos.

speaker-1 (19:36)

Suspense music or something.

speaker-2 (19:43)

the confidence, sometime I used to say, my confidence come out when I go to us or when I go to Australia, when I go to UK. So it's like their country where the English come from, you know? So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I the language official English. So of course, as a way I'm going to speak, not exactly the same way.

speaker-1 (20:01)

Or English is the

speaker-2 (20:12)

like people from London or people from UK or people from US or America or Australia. But when I think about doing my class, I don't care if I'm going to make mistake with my English. But I have this confidence like talking with the people, explain. But for me, I don't feel like because sometimes some people think they say, no, I cannot talk because I'm afraid to say something wrong. I don't care. say no.

The most important for me is that to make them at least to get the point, what I'm trying to say. So if they get my point, they will be happy, whatever. They will be difficult like, you know, we don't speak the same way because it's not my language I understand, but at least I'm going to try and then I'm going to make them understand. You know, I haven't made many mistakes with the, when I.

speaker-1 (21:05)

I w I'm laughing because there's there you might need to cut this out 'cause this is PG thirteen. Okay.

speaker-2 (21:12)

And

then you need the kind of what we got to this one.

speaker-1 (21:14)

But

I knew too, but I just wanna tell you. so one time we were was it it was Australia. Australia Yeah, we were in Australia and it was a footwork, Kizomba footwork class. So Garus was showing the footwork for leaders and then he said, You know, you just play with yourself. And then I told him like what it means and then he doubled up on it and he was like

speaker-2 (21:19)

Well enough.

speaker-0 (21:33)

Okay.

speaker-1 (21:41)

Well, everyone does it anyway. So then he learned that he should say, You play by yourself, you know. You do the footwork, not play with yourself.

speaker-2 (21:55)

changing to English. Sometimes it becomes like different translation. now when I meet the people from Australia who was in the workshop, I still need to learn with you how I can play with myself. Yeah.

speaker-0 (22:03)

Yeah.

speaker-1 (22:09)

I was like, play with your

speaker-0 (22:16)

Carlos has got different skills, man. Many different skills. Lots of teaching that he can do. This is great.

Okay, okay.

speaker-1 (22:26)

Yeah, but so the point being that he doesn't care if he makes mistakes. We have an accent, we make grammar mistakes, we don't know all the words, but the most important thing is that people understand what we're trying to say and you know, we're we're not afraid, 'cause otherwise we would we would be quiet all the time, not able to speak.

speaker-0 (22:45)

No, absolutely, absolutely. Thinking about that, and very funny by the way, but thinking about that and making sure people understand what you say and all that, I wanna just talk about again confidence, but in classes, all right? So you're teaching, and like you just said, you want somebody to understand what you're trying to say or get the move or get the point. Right? But you know, you sometimes your classes are quite busy, quite full, or whatever. So

You're gonna have some people who learn a bit faster, some people who learn a bit slower, or just learn in different ways, maybe I is what I should say. And then again, because it's to do with confidence, some people are gonna be a little bit more shyer, right? So then they they don't speak up. And by the time you and you can you can ask the question, are we okay? Are we okay? Do we get this? Can we move on? You can ask that many times, right? And some people will still not say anything, even though inside they're like, I didn't really get that. All right. So my question is.

How can those people just be a little bit more what can what advice can we give to them to just, you know, ask? Ask a question. Come out of your shyness. what would you say just for those people listening?

speaker-1 (23:50)

Well, probably many other people in in the classroom are thinking the exact same thing, but everyone is just too shy to ask the question. So you can be the one. Nobody's I've never we've been to I don't know how many countries, how many festivals, but it's so many. And I've never had a situation where someone starts laughing at somebody's question. Nobody will laugh at you. There is not that doesn't happen.

There is no such thing as stupid questions. And and like I said, everyone probably well, not everyone, but many people are are wondering the same thing. So you're actually making them a favor by asking. And Carlos always starts every class by saying, Hey people, we're here. Ask all the questions that you wanna ask now that we're here. Don't wait until we go back to Finland, and then you state wonder this question and you never asked

speaker-0 (24:45)

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. So basically just speak up and don't be shy. Don't be afraid and it's what you're there for, right? Yeah? Okay.

speaker-1 (24:57)

That's why people pay full pass for us to be there and explain stuff.

speaker-0 (25:01)

Yeah, I I think I think it's important. And it's important for people to hear you say that as well as teachers as well. So when they come there they they they'll feel that, you know, they can't. So okay.

speaker-1 (25:10)

No will love questions. It's way better to give a class where people actually interact and ask questions than do a class where nobody asks nothing because then you're like, do they like this? Are they bored? Do they like, you know, they don't like us or they don't like what we're doing, you know? 'cause we need that that energy from people as well. That they're actually enthusiastic and they they like, you know, like to have us there.

speaker-2 (25:34)

Actually, without, this is not any joking, but probably now we need to concentrate. You know, now we need to, as we have a men's youth step, all this stuff, but right now it's come out, I dare to concentrate on the kind of class, how to make people more confident on the dance floor. No, I think we must work on that. And I like the challenge.

You know, of course, have many, there is many way to make people how to be in confidence on the dance floors. Probably I know that a hundred percent that we can help people with that. Also, sometimes there is people, they, they, they feeling that, okay, they go to the dance floor only because they are like at home alone. And then they want to just, uh, you know, getting the stress for the week.

And then, and then they stand up on the class, they don't do anything. But when they start having fun with the friends, they feeling more good, you know, they say, so we need to work on that. This podcast is going to help us also to be create a new business.

speaker-1 (26:48)

need study some psychology before that, but no, but but actually what came to my mind is that oftentimes when we do privates, when people ask for privates, very often their problem, so-called problem, is not actually in the dance itself or in their body or in their rhythm or understanding of music or whatever. Oftentimes the problem is here. I feel like maybe

Even more than half of the people who take privates, they don't really have anything fundamentally wrong in their dance. It's more about the overthinking, about the being in your head and like overanalyzing your own stuff. And you know, if if people could just get a little bit out of their head, and relax more, it would really make their da it it makes such a difference. And then w once they start relaxing, it you can

feel the the difference already in the dance.

speaker-0 (27:47)

Yeah, no, that's really, really, really insightful. 'cause we all this can this can help us or it can hinder us, our my our our mindset, doesn't it? So okay, thank you very much. And then just for I mean, I think we may have spoken about this already, but for both of you, right? Obviously you both are great dancers now. You had lots of training over the years. But do you remember when you didn't feel so confident? Can you share that with us? Do you remember the time when you weren't so confident yourselves when it comes to dancing?

speaker-1 (28:17)

I used to hate demos. I used to dread them. I was so scared of demos because it's like hundred people with the camera filming you. And that's the because of the mentality that we have here in the West that in the demos you cannot make a mistake. But it's in the same it's it's the same type of we don't do a choreography in our demo. It's always a social dance. So I don't know what Carl is doing. But then it helped me when I realized that in Angola, the best dancers in the world, they can

Fall flat on their face in the middle of the dance and just get back up and continue. They don't care. It's just like part of the show. Show must go on and they just continue dancing. So they have a very different mentality when it comes to mistakes. There's no such thing. They fall, they make a show out of it, and then they get back up and they continue. You know? Like we should take more of that. We should not be so

in our demos as well, like we there cannot be any mistake, it's normal. But yeah, that's mine. That used to be I I had to like force my smile for the longest time before it came natural. Like I was actually just like this until it came natural. So you just have to

speaker-0 (29:32)

Yeah, no, that's that's great. That's cool. Yeah.

speaker-2 (29:38)

I like, I don't have, I don't have any, anything that makes me feeling like I was a little bit, confidence during the class or something like that. And also, I like when I, the one thing, one thing also it's helping a lot when you go to the class to helping you be more free with no so intense and it's going to the class.

before all the people coming. So you know, when you're in the class, when the people coming, you are already over there. So it means that you don't need to come, you're the last one. then you say, 100 people waiting for you, you get more nervous. So you're gonna think of, I'm gonna forget, you know? And then you're in a hurry to do the music, try to play the music, you know, this is something that help a lot. Be there before the class start.

like on time, be there, this is gonna help you. teachers, please guys, if you can do that, they're gonna help you a lot. As dancers also, like if you can do that, like you know, on the class, normal school, when you go to the school before the class start, and when teacher over there, so you're gonna get more information if you come to beginning of the class. All the information gonna be more easy for you to understand, but if you come in the middle of the class, like 10 minutes or 20 minutes after the class start,

Of course, you're going to be more conscious to try to understand and start asking people, what was it before that? Oh, blah, blah, blah. You know, so at least I want to say I don't, I don't think so. had some situation like, uh, in myself who made it me a little bit like, um, stressing or nervous before or during the class. No, don't have to. Of course the mistake it's coming. Nobody's perfect. If a mistake can come during the class and then,

you can get just nervous for one or two minutes then you can... Music helps you a lot to forget anything, it's just going with the flow.

speaker-0 (31:45)

That's a top tip, Carlos. Thank you. So for people listening, you know, like Carlos was saying there, get to the class early. it could calm some of your nerves as well. So I never heard that one before, but it's very obvious, very simple. And I think that's a great tip. So one to take away a hundred percent. So this is more so so Kizomba is a beautiful dance, right? And it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So for people who let's say they come across it online.

Or a friend, you know, shows it to them and they look at either you two dancing or other people dancing and they think, wow, that is beautiful, that is amazing. But they are so good. They're so good. I could never dance like that. What do you say to those people? So this is especially for new people coming into the dance that we love. They look at it and they say, I could never dance like that, but it looks amazing and I would like to. But I just don't I don't think I can because my confidence is not there, or I'm a bit shy. So

What are your what are your words to those people, specifically?

speaker-1 (32:48)

Everyone just, you know, needs to start somewhere. None of us look like or dance like we do.

In the beginning, so we are all started from somewhere. And yeah, so it's about it's all about hours. Because sometimes online you see these conversations about when it's appropriate to start start teaching, Kizomba for example, how long you have to dance before you can start. But I don't think you can measure it in years or months, because it's it's about the hours. Like some people can progress

In three months, if they spend every day going to classes and then there's another person who has been dancing for five years and they go to class twice a month, of course the progress is not gonna be the same. So it's all about just putting the work, putting in the hours. It's all about the hours and like Carl said earlier, don't get stuck with one teacher. It's good to get exposure from different teachers. Everyone can teach you something.

whether good or bad, then you just, you know, pick and choose what is more more you, what is more your style, what do you like the most, and you get a little bit of information from everyone.

speaker-0 (34:01)

Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to both of you. I think it's an important topic. You know, as much as we go out, we we and we have fun. And that's what really what dancing is all about. You know, some people struggle with this thing around confidence. And I just wanted to open up the conversation. And, you know, really, as we've been talking, it's just really highlighting the fact that it's okay. Everything's gonna be okay. Just don't panic, don't stress, you know, just go out there and have fun. That's that's the main thing. So

Thank you to you both for joining me again for another conversation. It's great to have you. Just so before we go.

Socials, just so people can remember where to get you. So what are your socials? So

speaker-2 (34:46)

you mean social media. So, Instagram, can find me like Carlos underscore Canva and then, Facebook, it's, Carlos Canva, TikTok at the same way, Carlos underscore Canva.

speaker-1 (35:02)

For me on Facebook on Anna Maria, unfortunately very hard to find because Anna and Maria are the most common names in the world. But you can probably find me through Carlos. On Instagram, my Instagram is Anna underscore Maria unders no, wait, how is it? Anna underscore Maria Jet underscore yikes. But you can also find that through Carlos. We have a joint one as well on Instagram, Carlos underscore Anna.

Maybe there's an underscore after that or maybe not. And then TikTok, I'm Miss Annabella. Also, our trips to Angola that you can find on Instagram Kudissanga underscore trip and Kudissanga underscore festival.

speaker-0 (35:46)

Fantastic. Thank you very much. So, everybody, make sure you check them out on all their socials. Get involved and get that confidence up on the dance floor. All right. As always, just want to say thank you to Anna and Carlos for joining us. And as always, thank you to you all for tuning in. And like I always say, keep dancing, and we'll see you on the dance floor. Peace.