Praises for our Hoop Elders

It's cool to see the web that attaches us all.

I would like to thank my best friend Jammerz for inspiring me to learn how to hoop. I saw her hoop dancing at the club on her b-day and I had to learn how! She looked so funky and graceful and happy. It took me 3 months before I could keep the hoop around my waist for more than 5 minutes, but after that I was hooping up a storm! I'd also like to thank my 10 year old daughter, Skylah, for challenging me to learn new tricks. And finally much love to all you folks here and hooping.org. Thanks for all the inspiration, instruction and creativity that you share with the world.

I thank all the previous girls who have lived at Flora Way in Normal, IL. I had never tried hooping until I started coming to parties there about 2 years ago. They always had people in the front yard hooping and getting people at the parties to try it. I tried and tried about 100 times and finally it clicked. Then I moved in here and started going to Cheese shows with my old roommate Jen Spearie. We went to Big Summer Classic and observed Stefan teaching some other girls tricks. Just by watching that we picked up on how to lift it above our head and spin it on the hand. After that it was all over. I had to learn everything. Since then the SPUNN girls, JeffZ, Justin and Erica in Chicago, and countless other people that I don't know have inspired me to learn many other tricks. The videos posted on tribe have also helped.

i'm surprised i haven't seen anah's name mentioned here yet. that first moontribe i went to in i think it was december 2000, where i saw anah and sita hooping and through anah's encouragement, jumped in the hoop myself, is where it all started for me. then seeing anah and rayna hooping together was another inspiration. a few years later christabel came along and as i like to put it, unceremoniously yanked me into my real life by dragging me along to burning man and into the good vibe hoop tribe in '03. dawnlight danced her way into my heart with the pure joy she put into hooping and kandice embodied everything that was fiery and fierce inside a hoop or two or three - and then she could do it on ice, too. that woman could throw down with her multiple hoops. she was the first fire hooper i saw and still remains the only person i've seen perform with multiple fire hoops. carlos is the first person i ever saw doing hoop isolations and angelo is the person who broke those isolations down for me for the first time at topanga days. i used to be jealous of kj and jenn - thinking that i wanted to be able to hoop like them. i saw karis. jaw dropping. raven made me my first fire hoop, was the first boy hooper i knew and is the first person i saw doing tosses with a lit hoop. and stephan and brent and groove hoops and baxter who blew me away with his unique brand of scratch hooping (changing currents) as well as his amazing mind and spiral and kc who came to a workshop in l.a. having been hooping for only a month or two and still blew everyone away. and glittergirl, temple of poi queen who played with the pod of anah, carlos, dawn and myself at a new year's eve party in sf and then didn't stop hooping for the next 8 hours and is now teaching countless other hoop newbies. and all the other hoop gods and goddesses i've met here on this tribe and who inspire me with your moves and videos. you are all my elders and my peers and i'm really glad to be part of such an amazing circle.

courtney thank you so much, there is nothing as fun as actually helping someone else get a trick down. i really appreciate the complete lack of competition and the full on support and excitement we all have for each other.

for my own tid bit: i was living in india from after burning man last year until recently. at one point in the first month or so of my trip, i did a group 6 hour straight meditation until sunrise. one of the things that surfaced in that meditation for me was that i needed to explore hooping.

funnily, it was something that had never caught my interest before and cannot even remember seeing it prior to this calling in my meditation. and beautifully enough, i came home, went to greensector, met a beautiful couple jen and justin, and they spent hours in the wee hours of a cracked out morning teaching me the basics patiently and supportive. (ly?)

got my hoop, and birthed myself into what i am today.

yay to exploration, growth, fun, and shaking our hips. i really appreciate you all.

-emilee

aka, hoop nasty!!!!

I don't think we need to be quick when singing praises to our inspirations. Thanks everyone for contributing to this thread. I absolutely love it!

I remember reading this thread when I began hooping and being in awe of everyone. Thank you for bumping this thread back up so that we can have a whole new crop of hoopers praising our hoop elders!

First and foremost, I must praise Christabel. I am so lucky that I discovered hooping while living in the Bay Area because it gave me the opportunity to learn from such an incredible and talented hooper. She has inspired me in so many ways - her hooping, her drive, her openness, her sincerity, her generosity, and her radiant personality. She continues to amaze me constantly.

Although I've never met Anah, she was the first taste of hoopdance I saw online, thanks to the brief clips on her website. Seeing those few seconds looped together made me want to learn how to hoop. She has since taught my mom how to hoop too! She has brought so much national exposure to hooping, from music videos to America's Got Talent to commercials. Her hooping is a sight to behold - so much energy and light!

Ariel's "how to get it up" video inspired me to try getting the hoop off my body a few days before I took my first hoop class. Without a word, she was able to clearly demonstrate how to do it - and with such a sense of fun! I miss her presence here on tribe, but I wish her well and I thank her for being my very first hoop teacher!

Hadria was the first non-pro hoop video I saw while browsing youtube, and she was just so cute and bubbly that she made me want to find her and hoop with her. She made hooping seem cool but still accessible (I hope that didn't come out sounding wrong!). What I mean is that she wasn't a hoop teacher or a hoop performer. She wasn't wearing yoga pants or a glittery costume. She was a normal person who happened to be a kick ass hooper. That was really inspiring! When I finally got to meet her last year, I was so excited to see her in person! She is as brilliant in real life as she is on youtube :D

Philo was the first person I met at BAH, and even though I didn't go again for a few months, he remembered me the next time he saw me. He is one of the reasons why BAH is what it is: unfailingly inclusive and accepting of all hoopers. To take over hooping.org was a pretty huge undertaking. To make it even bigger and better than what it was before is saying something.

Bax was the person who kicked my hooping ass into high gear. I had been at a plateau for a few months (mostly due to my own laziness). When I took his workshop, a new world of hooping opened up to me, and something inside me opened up as well. I still don't know exactly how to explain how his class changed my hooping and me, but I felt a shift inside myself. On top of that, Bax is the nicest guy I could ever hope to stalk.

The first time I saw Ann and Beth hoop in person at Baxter's workshops, I was speechless. I actually thought that I should leave if everyone else in the class was that good. Little did I know that Bax had brought some ringers to California with him! Ann and Beth are amazing, not only for their incredibly precise hooping but for their huge hearts. Two days after I met Beth, I mentioned that I wanted to come to North Carolina one day to take more classes with Bax. Without missing a beat, she offered to let me stay with her if I ever came to NC. She and Ann welcomed me into the Hoop Path family with open arms and I found everyone else there to be as warm, kind, generous, and genuine.

Aryam's youtube videos astonished me - who was this energetic girl dancing with the hoop at the park? I'd never seen anything like it before, and I was so inspired by how much dance she integrated into hoopdance. She is so light on her feet and a joy to watch, even without any music!

For months, I saw this red-headed angel on tribe answering questions, offering advice, and being an all around nice person. When I finally met Caroleeena at the Hoop Path retreat, I was shocked that her hair wasn't Bozo red, but everything else about her was exactly what I expected. She is a thoughtful, compassionate member of our tribe, always ready to listen or help.

Xta was so helpful, even before Ariel left the hooping tribe in her capable hands. She has organized the hoop tribe with her collection threads, and her videos were so helpful! Endlessly patient and eager to help (to the point where she has made videos of herself taping a hoop at someone's request), she is a wonderful representative of the hooping community.

There are so many other hoopers who have taught me and inspired me, but I'm afraid of turning my post into a novel so I will conclude by saying thank you to each and every member of the hooping community. We would not be as strong as we are without each of your contributions.

Oh gosh, where to start! I don't know if hooping or Tribe or both in equal measure are the things I want to concentrate on in this response. I have been involved with the Internet more or less since commercial inception, I've been a web master and some of my very early web shopping sites won awards!!!! (That never fails to amaze me because I'm neither a designer or a computer programmer, but I was very determined!). However I was not drawn at all to on-line communities. YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, didn't do anything to interest me. It would not have occurred to me to join them.

Then one day, I think either my husband or a neighbour sent me a link to a funny YouTube video which I watched and presumably because of some fluke keyword, there in the list of other videos on the right was Sharna dancing in a charity shop wedding dress. I was intrigued, clicked it, watched it with jaw dropping and excitement fluttering in my stomach and was immediately and totally blown away by hooping. I am not athletic, a dancer or particularly young but I wanted to do that. Within days I was devouring the huge video resource of hoopers out there. I ordered my first hoop from Sharna and sat and waited with baited breath.

When it came I couldn't hoop. But I could do off body stuff with my hands because it never occurred to me that I wouldn't. I pulled muscles, made a complete ass of myself, but it never occurred to me that it wouldn't work eventually. I so wanted to do what I had seen. Within days of seeing my first video I had a YouTube account, then a Tribe account and FaceBook account. My husband still laughs at me for the time I spend on them because for years I was really derogatory about his use of such sites. Tribe is by far the best. The connections I feel with everyone around the world through the hooping tribes is incredible.

As for hooping inspiration, I love everyone! I adore watching the videos. I love Sharna's videos because she is so creative in such small hoops and small spaces. I think she's a real performer of the future. Also her little tutorial videos are great. I am currently hitting myself on the head every time I practice because I'm trying to do the bent over behind the back pass she does and so far I can't get my arms up high enough above my back. But I'm trying. Early on I found Hadria practicing stalls in a skirt and thought it the prettiest thing I'd seen. That wonderful track was downloaded and I now regularly dance with it, although nowhere near as good as Hadria did. The Hoop Pathers fascinate me. Their movements are so sharp and fast yet immensely graceful, so I wait with baited breath for Ann, Beth, Baxter, and others to post. I loved Bonnie's Xmas gift videos. I also found Alan really inspiring here in the UK. His 4 month hooping video caught my eye. He is younger than my Dad, but in mental terms he's decades younger and he's up for hooping which I think is great. I think it was Alan who inspired me to have a go at making my first hoops. Then I poured over Natasha's videos of how to make and tape hoops, and Xata's also. They were so helpful. I learned the step-through (well, I'm not that good at it yet, but it does happen) from Natasha too. I thought she was lovely. Pretty, a wonderful dancer, and a warm looking woman with her lovely dogs around her feet.

As the summer wore on I became fascinated with Silverstar's wonderful little videos. I love her dance poses and her style of demoing a move. Her smile lights up the video which is wonderful. I was awed when Diana Lopez posted a comment on my blog!! By goodness, hers was my first pro video purchase and I learned how to move my feet from her, and here she was commenting to an earthling. Later came Revolva's Harvest Moon which is one of the prettiest videos we have. Her fabulous long legs. She was the first to inspire me to try to pass the verticle hoop under my leg! I got stuck on top of it. But I can do it now. I think she is just so graceful.

But then you Caroleeena with your wisdom, kindness and super hooping skills, you are a true inspiration. Diana Defries in the UK who has one or two lovely videos (but needs to post more) and who has been so supportive of me through blogging and messaging and supplying me with connectors. I could go on and on (I already have half of you will be saying) but that's because every one of you on Tribe and YouTube have inspired me to learn something new, to find a new passion in music, to move my body in a way I was not used to doing but enjoy. You have made me loose weight, get fit and find a new and fun thing to share with friends. My hoop class on a Thursday now has 5 ladies and one man is getting interested in joining. 3 people in the village can now hoop and others are interested. I am setting up a new little web business connected with hooping loosely which I would not have thought of before and I love it all. Thank you to everyone who has crossed my path. You have affected me in ways you will not realise and I think it's fantastic that the Internet has allowed it to happen. I raise my glass to you all, Amre, Chika, Coehlo, Kitty, Mon, teri'b, katie, Spiral, Sass, Victoria, P0ppy, Brooke, Jess (her hooping twins was an early favorite), Lucien and Marlo and Khan et al.

Oh, and to finish, I now have contact lenses as a direct result of a discussion on here about hooping in glasses. If anyone got to the end of this you deserve a medal.

Oh goodness, and after all that I still forgot Aryam whose dancing to Scissor Sisters wowed me to pieces and meant I had to buy the album. How could I forget her wonderful dancing. Sorry!