>I noticed that a little yoga before and each day lessens the pain

IMExperience, "too tight" doesn't go away on its own. If it were my body (and it has been), more stretching would be in order. Lots more, and maybe also look at a good yoga book or the book about Stretching and see what catches your eye. Maybe test a few new poses to see if they stretch something you didn't know you had. For me, it's almost always the piriformis that's at the root of the problem, but I can't tell you how much massage money I've spent before I was able to remember that for myself.

Depending on your age and history, knee hooping may be something that has to go. I have to ask a surgeon about that next week, and I suspect you'll be able to hear him laughing where you are.

Meant to add this too.

What surface, what shoes? too much friction between your shoes and your dance surface is going to show up elsewhere in your body. Too hard of a dance surface may have an effect, too.

the closer I get to 50 and the farther from 30, the more I have to pay attention to. And my body sends VERY TINY warning signs that get VERY UGLY fast if I ignore them.

Good luck.

I think you'll be amazed how much it helps. When we hoop in only one direction, we twist our spine and knees and neck in that one direction - over and over and over - and we also only develop the muscles on that one side, which helps keep pulling the body in this one direction.

When I first started hooping, I had injuries also - a pulled hamstring, bruises on the backs of my hands, hips, knees, ankles, my back and neck getting out of alignment. Along the way, I've developed skills and techniques that help me avoid the errors I was making that were causing these injuries.

The back thing definitely came from hooping in one direction. In fact, it was affecting my knees too. I figured it out in a moment of non-dominant hooping when my whole spine reset itself - pop pop pop pop pop! That was two years ago and I haven't had a back or knee pain since I started hooping both directions. It was a head slapping moment.

Bruising came from using hoops that were too heavy and also from drops. They were aggravated if I didn't let them heal. I learned to treat them with Arnica (topical) and let them heal and, in the moments of impatience where I just had to hoop anyway, to protect them by, say, stuffing a washcloth down the front of my jeans over a bruised hip bone. To protect my hands as I developed strength and skill, I used to wear batting gloves or weight lifting gloves, which offered some protection to the backs of my hands where there is very little fat to protect the blood vessels from bruising. I switched to a light 100 psi hoop. I'm learning leg stuff now and I wear jeans or multiple pairs of socks while I am getting better and toughening up. Also, as part of my learning/meditation process, I practice drills that improve my skills and conditioning and control.

As for the pulled hamstring, what I learned is "Be careful on wet grass...on a hill...while hooping you ass off..."

Anyway, all this is to say that injuries are often the result of inexperience as much as age and arming ourselves with information may ultimately help us prevent injuries in the first place.

Happy healthy hooping everyone!