Cool Honey's Sunday Circus

Today was our weekly hoop group day! Instead of Rowan's class at Discovery Green, it was Cool Honey's Sunday Circus at Menil Park, a tiny park in the Montrose area. The park was full of people picnicking, taking photos, playing with their dogs, and in general hanging out and having fun! A big group of hoopers apparently attracts the interest of other park-goers. From hipsters to little kids, everyone had a blast giving the hoops a whirl. 

At one point, we probably had 8 or 9 strangers working hoops! Some of the strangers brought beer, and challenged me to chug one while hooping. Here's the poor quality video of the poor quality attempt.

Menil park is tiny, but gorgeous, with the most amazing atmosphere. It has some gorgeous plant life there, and one of the trees nearby was perfect for climbing. I couldn't resist. Then someone handed me a hoop!

All in all, a great day. Made some new friends, got to try slack-lining (which I suck at), and someone is going to bring a Go-Pro camera next week so we can shoot some hoop perspective videos! I'm super excited.

Stop Light Isolations

The street name for this move is procrastination! I have a paper due tomorrow that I am just stuck on, so I decided to take a little hoop break. During this break, I found myself doing this new move when playing with isolations. My boyfriend Nick thought it looked pretty neat, so I decided to share it with you, faceless internet! I call it, the Stop Light Isolation because you make three vertically stacked circles.

This move starts with an isolation centered at your belly button, then throws in an isopop at both the top and the bottom of the circle. Since I have my paper due tomorrow, I'm not going to break this move down for you, but those two tutorials linked above are from some great teachers that taught me what I know! Give them a view. 

Let me know if you like this move! Also, have a bonus video of me hooping to more Shakira.

Scissor Switch

A lot of people have trouble with this move. It's really hard to just keep the hoop level as it switches back and forth. Here's some tip, pointers, and an example video! (Again, for some reason, not letting me embed.)

To start, make sure you can hoop at the knee. Use a small, lighter hoop for this trick as well. Initially, I would practice placing the hoop between your legs and just practicing the reversal part. Work on keeping the hoop as level as possible. I find this is easier just at the knees and below the knees, but if the hoop is placed just above the knee, then it starts flying in all sorts of directions when you attempt reversals. 

When you start incorporating pulling your knee out and putting it back in, there a few tips that really helped me. First is, when you're hooping on one knee and going to drop your other leg in to begin reversals, have your leg behind you and sweep forward to meet the hoop. The energy from your leg will transfer to the hoop and give it the push it needs to change directions. From there, you just keep control like when you were practicing just the reversals, focusing on keeping the hoop level.

When pulling your leg out of the way to continue one knee hooping, its a very quick motion. You have to make sure your leg gets out of the way before the hoop has a chance to come all the way back around after giving it that final push. When doing reversals, you keep contact with the hoop on your outer leg. When giving the final push, you need to give it just enough push to get the hoop moving in the other direction, then get it out of the way!

Best of luck everyone! Let me know below what tips helped and feel free to post additional advice!

Multi-hoop body hooping

I finally had some luck with multi-hoop body hooping! It's not so much different from regular hooping. Before attempting to hoop at both the waist and chest, you need to be able to hoop at the waist and chest individually with ease (obviously)! You also need to be able to do the waist to chest shimmy with no hands. If you're having some trouble, a great tutorial can help!

Some tips to start: use two large, heavy hoops that are the same size. Start them on your waist and perform the shimmy up move. If both hoops move up, let one fall back down to your waist. Usually if the hoops are heavier, only one hoop will come up. I generally have both hoops start coming up, then stop doing the shimmy halfway through. The bottom hoop will fall, and the other hoop will continue up.

The movement to keep the bottom hoop moving will be your body shifting weight from foot to foot. You shift your entire body back and forth on the balls of your feet to keep the waist hooping going. The movement to keep the chest hoop going will be very similar to regular chest hooping.

If the chest hoop is spinning at the same rate as the waist hoop, then you'll just need to continue shifting your weight back and forth. However, the chest hoop will eventually start spinning split time with your waist hoop. At that time. you're going to need to push your chest out and in opposite the movement of the hoop. This is where the heavier hoop helps a lot. The heavier hoop will put more pressure on your body, so you'll have a better awareness of its position on your body.

If this helped you, or you have any other tips, post them below!

Vortex Brakes

I love this move that I've seen in a few of Neon Emu's videos. I've never seen a tutorial for it, and I don't know what it's called. I'd dubbed it a Vortex Brake. It's a really good transition between on-body and off-body moves. It's also changes your spin direction, so you can use it to change if you are spinning off-body opposite your natural direction.

To do this move, start in lasso above your head. If you're spinning with your right hand, the hoop should be travelling to the right. I switch back and forth in this video so you can see both ways. So as the hoop spinning above  you, grasp the hoop when it is directly over you with your thumb facing the direction the hoop just came from. Bring your hand down across your chest to your side. 

When the hoop reaches your side, make sure you have a firm grip on it. You're going to sort of rebound the hoop off your palm to reverse the hoop direction. Use the bouncing movement of the hoop to change direction, then bring your arm back up in across your chest and continue hooping above the head. It needs to be a very quick movement so the hoop doesn't lose momentum. 

Using a lighter hoop will help a lot for this. Also try to do this move in a mirror (that's why I'm constantly looking to the side). You'll be able to see if your hoop looks level and pretty, or if it is drooping down at one end. 

Let me know if you have any luck!

First Hoop Group

Today I went to Discovery Green to hoop with the Houston Hooper Stahs. I really enjoyed hooping with a group and being silly with some new music. Rowan is an incredible organizer and teacher, and there were several other very talented ladies there, like Sassyraffe, Moxi, and Karen, and Kelsi.

There was an amazing gentleman named Tom who was there for both the hooping class and the yoga class following it. This is Tom doing a headstand! Tom is the kind of guy who refuses to act his age, and he's amazing for it.

If you're new to hooping, I'd definitely try to find a community of hoopers to learn with. Try searching Meet Up, Hoop City, and Facebook for groups in your area. Don't be afraid to go alone, but take a friend if it makes you feel more comfortable. Most of these groups are focused on helping beginners get into the sport, so anyone could go and have a great time!

Some Latin Groovin'

I love Shakira, and I love reggaeton music. I love the beat it gives, and the tempo is perfect for hooping. Its a great beat to dance to, and I had more fun with this song than any others so far.

If you want to look good while working on your flow, make sure every movement your body makes is intentional and shouts confidence. Confidence is the key to nailing flow. As you can tell from the video, I'm still trying to work on that. Particularly I need more confidence when doing vortexes and knee hooping tricks.

When knee hooping, try to do something with your arms that *doesn't* look like you're flailing your arms about (my attempt is weak). In general, not just for knee hooping, turning in circles, taking steps, pointing your toes, extending your arm, bending at the knee are all things you can do to look more confident while hooping. I'll work on taking my own advice. It's a lot harder to focus on when hooping, and I have zero dancing background.

(Poor) Attempt at Multi-hooping

So I thought I'd give it a go at spinning two hoops at once. Get ready for a video with lots of drops!

After practicing this some, I went online and learned that knee/waist hooping was the hardest one to get down. D'oh! For this particular combination of multi-body hooping, I don't think it's necessary to have two hoops of the exact same size, as the rhythm isn't going to line up between your waist and knee regardless. My biggest tip would to be practicing knee hooping and locking in a beat and never losing it. Practice phantom waist hooping while hooping at the knee. It's harder than you think!

For this I'd really recommend using the heaviest hoops you own. I started with some 2.5 pound duct tape-covered hoops. It really helped me to be able to feel what side of me the hoop was pressing against. Being able to tell where the hoops are at all times is going to be key to getting down knee/waist hooping, as the rhythm just continuously changes.

One thing this taught me is that if you have an unbalanced body shape (i.e. top-heavy or bottom-heavy), you're going to have a hard time waist/chest mulit-hooping. It's the same problem that the rest of us encounter when hooping at the knees: your hoop isn't traveling across the same amount of space on your waist as it is on your chest. The hoops aren't going to spin at the same rate, and you're going to have to use some wonky rhythm because the movements likely won't sync up. But don't give up! You can find a work around.

Indoor Hooping

Today my roommate Blu and I rearranged the furniture in the apartment so I have this great big hooping space now! It's really great, and I'm much less likely to break things now.

For some reason, its not letting me embed this video, even though embedding is enabled. View my video HERE.

I celebrated by playing inside with the new PolyPro. I'm still working on getting used to it, and I always forget to add brakes to any song I'm playing to. I think my isolations are getting better, but I need to work on looking less intense/focused when I hoop and just have fun with it! Smile! WHY SO SERIOUS?

Sorry the video is a little close, I should have checked the distance before making it. I'll have to rig some kind of stand or something to get a shot a little further away next time.

Anyways... I'll work on those things. Everyday improvements. Step by step. That's why I'm making this blog.

Getting Used to the PolyPro

So hooping with this new PolyPro feels pretty awkward, but it looks less awkward than I was expecting (which is nice). It goes pretty much where you tell it to, and it's easy to keep up, but if you lose momentum, you're screwed. And it's pretty easy to screw up and lose all your momentum.

I'm working on breaks with the PolyPro because it's supposed to be easier than the PE hoops, but I think I'm just too used to my PE hoop. I'm all *raptor hands* so the hoop doesn't fly up off the plane. Definitely need to work on those.

I like the PolyPro because it's super easy to manipulate the tempo to whatever you need it to be to match the music! This song is just an overlay, I was listening to other music on my earphones. I'm looking forward to hooping to some fast-paced songs now that I have a lighter hoop. Nick has a lot of techno to go through :)

PolyPros and Hooping at the Gym

PolyPros arrived today from HoopMamas! It is so different from all my other hoops! I'm glad I had a 1/2" hoop that I've been practicing with. I can't imagine going straight from a 3/4" to a 1/2" PolyPro. I've heard a few horror stories of people shattering them, so I'm a little scared to go wild with it.

Also, I went to the gym on campus for the first time and used the big mirrored room to hoop. Don't mind the person in the corner. UH's rec center is pretty swanky, and at least one of the four multi-purpose rooms is open at night. Spent an hour there, made a video. Need to work on breaks some more. They're way easier with my PE hoop rather than the PolyPro hoop. I think I just need to get used to it.

Foot Hooping

So this was something new... and it felt amazing! Great way to stretch and work out your legs. Took me about 20 minutes to get it down so I could switch from foot to foot. Can you tell how excited I am at the end of the video?!

Tips and pointers that helped me learn to get this is start spinning with your dominant foot. It's usually the same as your dominant hand (right for me). Start by spinning the hoop in the direction so it travels over the top of your foot towards the inside of your foot. This way you have the curve of your foot to help keep the hoop in place. So if you're spinning with your right foot, looking up at the hoop, spin counter-clockwise.

For the pass, bring your feet as close together as you can when the hoop is over your body. You can also change when the hoop is opposite your body, but I found having the hoop against the sole of my feet gave me more grip and control. See which is easier for you!

Play with it and see if there are any other tricks you can do just with the feet! Did you come up with anything fun? Post your ideas below!

Practicing Brakes

Brakes are HARD! There are NO good tutorials, and I really just can't tell why they work sometimes and why they send the hoop at angles other times. It's so frustrating! But I'm starting to get a handle on it.

I think I worked on one thing too long, because I got some fun bruises on my arms. Time to take a break from brakes!

First Flow Video

This is a great song by Dub FX that is created entirely by one guy's mouth! The tempo is perfect for hooping, so I tried to make my first flow video. My inspiration for movement was this video.

I know there are a lot of drops and mistakes, but I didn't want to edit it. I want to be able to look back and see how far I've come since I started. So! Sloppy first video :)

This is shot on the walk up to my apartment door. I really like the way the hallway frames the shot.

New Hoops!

My new hoops from Hoop Mamas arrived today! I got one 3/4" 100 psi 39" tube and one 1/2" 125 psi 38" hoop. Getting used to the smaller, lighter hoops was a little tough at first. Now it just feels like my duct tape hoop weighs 5 pounds! The difference is crazy obvious! I ordered these hoops because they're collapsible, and my current hoop doesn't fit well in the Miata.

Used the new smaller hoop to practice duck-ins. I love the mirror in my apartment, it's great to practice in front of. It's helped me get better at isolations too!

Circus Kick Start

Circus kick start.... a cool way to fix a drop, make it look intentional. Sounds like a good idea.... after an hour, my foot was black and blue!

Took a while to get, until my friend Michelle told me to think like I was doing knee-highs. That finally made it click! One hour and 2 fuzzy socks later:

For this move, you really want a lighter hoop. Use the lightest large-diameter hoop you own. There are really 2 ways of starting up this move: kick the foot outside the hoop backwards against the hoop, or kick the foot inside the hoop forwards so that the hoop pushes against your other foot. I was always practicing the first version, which how most tutorial videos start.

However, I was finally able to nail this move when I tried the second starting technique, kicking your inside foot forward. If you're stuck on this move, I'd really recommend giving this a try. It feels awkward, but it gives your lifting foot more time to get into the hoop and lift up. This way, you don't have to kick the hoop, bring your foot back in the hoop, then lift. It takes out a step and gives you more time to react.

Let me know if this tip helped you nail the move!

Homemade LED Hoop

So I took the time to make my own LED hoop by using a combination of awesome tutorials. It took me 4 days total! In the end, it was well worth the effort. The hoop is a LOT heavier than any of my other hoops (4 rechargeable AAA batteries will do that), but I'm very proud of it.

And of course it give me something to play with in the dark!

I'm happy with it, but will still probably end up purchasing a translucent LED hoop for the blur effect. Also, long exposure shots are fun!

My First hoop

My first hoop was homemade! My new roommate Aleena and I went to Home Depot for supplies. She taught me how to make it. We made 4 hoops total out of all the piping we bought. I took the time to exacto knife flames for my orange hoop. It took a while but it looks great! I know its going to be busted up soon, so I took a few photos while it's still pretty.

I loved hula hooping as a kid, and lately my friend Michelle has been sharing all her hoop stories with my friends and me. When I found out my new roommate hooped and I could have a hoop buddy, I decided to finally give it a go on my own.

Wee!