Week 3- Week of No Hooping

.... I didn't do much hooping this week... It was the first week of the first semester of school, and I was really busy preparing for that... when I did manage find to a little time, it wouldnt stop raining!! It was a crazy week of rain, rain, RAIN! I worked a bit on isolations in my room. But my room is so small, thats all I can inside. Yesterday, I got see my friend Niki hoop for the first time, she started at the same time as me. She is doing great!!! WAY to go Niki! Your a super hooper! I wish Shizu wasnt so far away, we could hoop together every week. So this is a short one, and hopefully I will have more fun information to post next week. I am downloading some new tunes to hoop to now, and will head out to Yoyogi practice in a bit!

Week 2- Woo hoo!

Hey guys! Well, I just tried to go out to the park to hoop it up, and it started to rain. So I decided to take this time to add to my blog. This past Sunday, I went to another hooping class, hoopGLOW. I had a fantastic time there, and met some really cool people. The people that came to this class were a little more relaxed and talkative than my classmate in the beginners workshop, and I love to chat so this made the class even more fun. The atmosphere in the studio is really nice after the sun sets. There were lots of small tea candles around the room, and incense burning. To bring more awareness to our arms and what we are doing with them, we wore glow bracelets! Okay.... I am not as rave-a-licous as I used to be, but I will still jump on the opportunity to wear something glowing when ever I have the chance. We learned a few new things in class, and I have been practicing them this week. We practiced doing isolations, side step through, a foot trick where you grab the hoop with the top of your foot when you are swinging it your body, passing the hoop around your body, neck, over your head, around your knees and some move where it looks like the hoop is kind of just hovering around you.

I have gone to the park twice to hoop this week, each time for about two hours.

On Isolations -photo- When you see someone doing a basic isolation, it looks really easy... but its not. You have to have really strong arms to keep the hoop on its axis, and to keep it from wobbling around. You try to make it look like a bubble, just hanging in the air. I have been getting better at them, but if I try to speed them up at all, the hoop starts doing what it wants. It seems like there is a fine line between me forcing the hoop where I want it to go, and letting the hoop do what it wants.

On Side Step Through- When you see someone do this, it does NOT look easy. During class, I didnt start getting it until the end of class, and it was far from graceful. Not only was I not getting it, I kept whacking myself in the head. This trick looks really cool, so of course, I wanted to learn it as quickly as I could. I have practiced a lot and I can finally do it consistently stepping in through the right, and about 30% of the time coming from the left. Now, just bc I can do it, doesnt mean it looks pretty, but all in due time. I got a little cocky on Tuesday when I was practicing and tried to speed the hoop up and step through and hit myself really hard above my right eye, on my eyebrow. I got a HUGE goose egg. I decided to slow down after that... The day after I practiced this move, my butt was really sore. All of those high steps must be good for your gluts!

On the Foot Trick- This is really fun, and its cool to start using another part of my body with the hoop. I can do this trick only sometimes, and when I miss, the hoop goes flying. I think I actually need to stretch my legs out a little more before I attempt this trick. I can feel my quad pulling really tight when I turn my leg to the back.

On the Hoop Hovering Around Your Body Thing- I haven't had much success with this yet, as I keep getting extremely dizzy every time I try it. You have to move your hands to the front and back and make sure the hoop doesn't touch you at all, while you are spinning to the left and I just cant handle the spin yet. This move is what I am going to focus on the next time I go to the park.

Also, chest hooping is still not happening at all... and I am okay with this. I am going to start working on it harder next week, but am giving it a rest this week as it has been frustrating me. I bought an iPod shuffle, so I will have a better way to listen to tunes while I am in the park. Another thing... I went hooping the day I started my period, and I got dizzy really easily on that day. Now, it could have been completely unrelated, but I am going to test it out again next month. If you are interested in what any of these things look like just type them into youtube i.e. hooping isolation, hooping helicopter, etc. Thats all for now! Will blog again next week!

My Hooping Begins

So, I have blogged a little over myspace but decided to create this blog so I could dedicate to hooping. I only started hooping a week ago, but I love it already and I want to track my progress and share it with everyone else. Friday, I went out to Yoyogi to join Deanne and her friends/students for World Hoop Day. World Hoop Day was started to help bring toy and dance hoops to underprivileged children. I got to use my first adult sized hoop that night, and had a good time chatting with the people who were there, and shaking my hips. I took my first lesson with Deanne in Meguro the next day. There were four other people in the class with me, and it really was a blast! After the lesson, I bought my first hoop, the Neon Genesis, made lovingly by Miss Bunny Hoop Star who currently preforms and teaches in Australia. I learned some cool tricks at my lesson, like how to pass the hoop behind my back, hand hooping, walking while hooping, and some other things that I cant remember the names of right now... The hardest things to learn were passing the hoop behind my back, taking the hoop spinning from my waist to above my head, spinning from above my head then dropping it onto my waist, and also actually dancing or even walking fluidly was REALLY, REALLY difficult. I was doing a very robotic walk. I also found it frustrating that I couldn't be in time with the beat of the music.

That night, I got to take my hoop to an outdoor party in Yamanashi. Of course, the beautiful sparkly tape, is getting rips and tears already because I am... well, not so good yet and it was hitting the ground a lot. I was also sharing it with whoever wanted to use it, and so it spent even more time swirling on the ground than if I had been using it myself. Starting now, I will write a brief blog each time I get in from hooping. I went hooping three times this week Monday, Wednesday and Friday- each time for two hours. My success are- I can take it from waist to over my head, from over my head back to my waist, I can walk less robotically. I can dance and move my arms a bit, and I learned to helicopter. I cant even come close to chest hooping. I have watched a million tutorials, and read even more tips. Then I practice moving my body like I am supposed to without the hoop -cat, cow, cat, cow like in yoga-.... then when I started spinning the hoop around my chest.... I start shaking my ass and hips. Its like, my bodies automatic response to a hoop is to shake my hips, but the hoop isnt even on that area of my body. The other thing I can not get is how to raise from my knees to my waist. The advice I should heed most, I suppose, is that learning new tricks isnt going to be easy and I have to just give myself some time. Hooping is sooooooo much fun, especially now that I can dance around with the hoop! You should all give it a whirl!!
The thing I have to figure out this weekend is what to do about music while I am hooping. The Ipod is too big, I need something little I can clip to around my neck. The past week I have just been shoving the Ipod in my bra. This is not very comfortable, and it has also caused the device to freeze up a couple of times. Probably all the heat and sweat...
I will try to get out to the park to hoop tonight after it cools off. Its been so humid the past couple of days. Tomorrow evening I am going to another hoop class led by Deanne. Woo hoo!!! LED hoops!