Kizomba Hatred Is a Skill Issue

Let’s be honest for a second. Not the polite, dance-floor-hugging honest. The real honest. The kind where we admit that most Kizomba hate has absolutely nothing to do with culture, morality, or artistic preference and everything to do with discomfort, insecurity, and a sudden lack of usable skills.

Kizomba is the dance equivalent of a mirror with aggressive lighting. It doesn’t flatter you. It doesn’t distract from your weaknesses. It doesn’t let you hide behind speed, tricks, or chaos. And for a lot of dancers, that’s deeply upsetting. So instead of saying, “Wow, this exposed some gaps in my technique,” people reach for the Greatest Hits album of excuses.

Let’s go through them. Slowly. Like Kizomba does.

It’s “Just Walking”

Ah yes. The classic. The sacred chant of the dancer who has never tried to walk well in their life.

Calling Kizomba “just walking” is like calling sushi “just rice” or boxing “just punching.” Technically true, functionally embarrassing. Walking, actual walking, requires balance, weight transfer, control, timing, posture, and intention. You know, all the things that disappear the moment the music slows down and nobody is spinning you every eight counts.

In Kizomba, your walk is your résumé. Every step broadcasts your level. Can you control your weight? Can you arrive on the beat instead of crashing into it? Can you step without leaning, pulling, or apologizing with your shoulders? If the answer is no, then yes, Kizomba will feel offensively simple. That’s because simplicity is where incompetence goes to be seen.

Fast dances are forgiving. Momentum does half the work. Slow dances are ruthless. They make you earn every inch of movement. That’s why “just walking” feels boring to people who rely on speed to mask instability. There’s nowhere to hide when the dance asks you to do less and do it better.

And let’s be clear: if walking in Kizomba feels pointless, it’s because you’re not hearing the music. Kizomba music is rich, layered, conversational. The walk isn’t filler. It’s punctuation. If all you hear is “left, right, left,” that’s not a flaw in the dance. That’s an auditory skill gap.

It’s “Too Sensual”

This one deserves an award for Most Overused Excuse.

Kizomba isn’t “too sensual.” It’s controlled. It’s grounded. It’s calm. And to dancers who equate chaos with safety, calm feels suspicious. When movements get smaller and connection gets clearer, suddenly people panic and start clutching their pearls.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: sensuality is not something Kizomba adds. It’s something you project when you don’t understand the mechanics. When you don’t know what the connection is supposed to feel like, your brain fills in the blanks with awkwardness. And awkwardness loves to masquerade as morality.

Sensual does not mean sexual. Sensual means aware of sensation: weight, breath, timing, pressure. If that distinction feels blurry to you, that’s not a Kizomba issue. That’s a you issue. Other dances let you ignore sensation by overwhelming it with movement. Kizomba asks you to stay present. That alone makes some people deeply uncomfortable.

Also, let’s talk about irony. Many of the loudest critics have no problem doing dances that involve body rolls, grinding, dramatic dips, or simulated seduction, as long as there’s enough speed to pretend it’s “technical.” Slow it down, remove the distractions, and suddenly it’s “too much.” Interesting.

Kizomba doesn’t demand intimacy. It demands comfort. If comfort feels inappropriate, that’s worth examining, but maybe not blaming on an Angolan social dance.

“There’s Not Much Happening”

This complaint is fascinating, because it translates almost perfectly to: “I don’t know what to listen for.”

In Kizomba, a lot is happening, just not loudly. Direction changes, pauses, accelerations, decelerations, playful delays, subtle syncopations. The conversation lives in the details. If you’re waiting for a big obvious signal every two seconds, you’ll miss the entire point.

Some dancers are used to dances that shout. Kizomba whispers. And if you haven’t trained your ears, or your body, to hear whispers, you’ll assume there’s silence.

This is where musicality gets exposed. Not the performative kind where you hit obvious breaks and freeze dramatically, but the internal kind where your movement breathes with the song. Kizomba doesn’t reward overacting. It rewards listening. And listening is a skill that many people simply haven’t developed yet.

So when someone says, “Nothing is happening,” what they usually mean is, “I’m not being entertained.” Kizomba doesn’t exist to entertain your ego. It exists to create a shared experience. If you’re not participating in that conversation, it will feel empty.

That’s not boredom. That’s disengagement.

“It’s Ruining Social Dancing (Because It’s Easier)”

Now we get to the real anxiety. The one nobody wants to say out loud.

Kizomba is accessible. You don’t need years of patterns. You don’t need a massive vocabulary. You need fundamentals. And fundamentals are terrifying because they level the playing field. Suddenly, the dancer with perfect posture, balance, and timing looks better than the one with a thousand memorized moves and zero control.

For some people, that feels like a threat. If beginners can enjoy a dance without suffering through months of confusion, then what exactly was all that suffering for? So instead of welcoming accessibility, critics frame it as dilution. “It’s ruining social dancing.” Translation: It’s exposing the fact that complexity isn’t the same as quality.

Kizomba didn’t make social dancing worse. It made it more honest. It showed that connection matters more than choreography, that musicality matters more than volume, and that leading and following are skills, not dominance games or guessing contests.

And yes, it’s easier to start. That’s a feature, not a flaw. A dance that welcomes people without humiliating them is not a threat to culture. It’s how culture survives.

Kizomba hatred isn’t edgy. It isn’t insightful. And it definitely isn’t about sensuality. It’s about what happens when a dance removes your usual coping mechanisms and asks you to slow down, listen, and be precise.

When you can’t hide behind speed, flash, or noise, your skills, or lack of them, become obvious. Some people rise to that challenge. Others get defensive. And defensiveness, when dressed up nicely, becomes criticism.

So no, Kizomba isn’t “just walking.” It isn’t “too sensual.” It isn’t boring. And it isn’t ruining anything.

It’s just not built to protect your ego.