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!