It takes months to know what to do with your hands while practising solo. Hold them close to your body so that they aren-t flailing around. Form loose fists as if you-re holding drumsticks and move them in a way that adds fluidity to your movement.

Up next is a seemingly simple side-to-side step, where we have to make sure we slide our feet and transfer the weight of the body from the stationary foot to the other-starting with the right one for women, and left for men. Large steps are not recommended and you shouldn-t raise your foot too high or else you end up looking like you-re hopping.

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You need to connect with your partner using the forearms. The person leading should wrap their arm lightly around your back, and not the waist. The follower needs to keep their hand on the shoulder and not slide onto the shoulder blade. 

The third step, where you take two steps backward and then forward for women, before we pair up, doesn-t require deft footwork. But you do have to focus on putting your full weight on the foot you-re moving, while also making sure you-re in sync with your partner. We learn that looking down to track our partner-s footwork will only end up injuring ours as we need to read the body language of our partner, who was leading in this instance. We get a hang of it, and even le­arn to improvise.

This transitional move has the follower facing away from the leader, as both your hands meet on the follower-s tummy. It-s a combination of the first three basic steps, but in reverse. There has to be a certain amount of tension where your hands clasp together, but avoid squeezing your partner-s hand or it will limit their movement. The follower has to be willing to be led. It-s crucial that the person leading gives the partner some space.

The last step we learn is the women-s saida, which is a walk in dance form. While the steps are simple enough, it-s the woman-centric movement called jinga that we struggle to grasp. In it, you move just your bottom wh­ile keeping the rest of the body in place. "This is a sensual, yet comfortable aspect of the dance. It-s not sexy," says Lobo. We-ll be back to tackle this move.

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