How to start dancing kizomba

Salsa and bachata are taught over a count: one, two, three. Kizomba doesn't work that way. The first thing you learn is to walk in time with the music, and for the first few classes that is very nearly all you do. People who arrive expecting choreography think the class is moving slowly; people who understand that the step is walking get somewhere.

That has a practical consequence: you don't need to be able to count music to start. If salsa lost you at exactly that point, kizomba doesn't put the same wall in front of you.

It is a close-embrace dance and the weight of the body is shared. The lead doesn't signal with the arm: they propose with the chest and the hips, and the follow answers that. Which is why two people with two months of class can dance a whole song without a single figure and enjoy it, and why someone with years of salsa behind them sometimes starts from scratch here.

The close embrace makes plenty of people uncomfortable the first few times. That is normal and it gets said out loud in class: the distance is adjustable, and nobody has to dance closer than they want to.

Comfortable clothes that let your hips move, and smooth-soled shoes that let you turn instead of sticking to the floor. Trainers grip too much and your knees pay for it. You don't need dance shoes to start: thin-soled shoes will do for the first few months.

You don't need to bring a partner. Almost every class rotates, and that is also the faster way to learn: everyone leads or follows slightly differently, which forces you to understand what you are doing instead of memorising one person.

To go to a party and dance one song without stress, one to two months at a class a week. It's usually quicker than salsa because the minimum vocabulary is shorter. What takes longer is looking relaxed, and that comes from dancing with a lot of different people, not from repeating steps at home.

Plenty of schools teach kizomba on the same night as bachata, so you can often try a class without changing your evening or your venue.

Three things that share a room, and worth telling apart before you pick a class. Semba is the earlier Angolan dance: faster and more playful. Kizomba is what most people mean by the word — slow, walked, close. Urban kiz is the European branch, with more pauses and more marking, danced to different music.

A school can advertise "kizomba" and be teaching urban kiz. Neither is better; they are different, and starting with the one that actually plays at the parties in your city is what gets you out dancing sooner.