The key to this trick is to keep your hand as close to your body as possible on the up swing.
You want to let the back of your right hand almost graze your body diagonally (from your right hip to your left ear). This way, you're mimicking the natural rotation of the hoop, which generally rotates around one center point at all times. If you let your right arm swing away from your body during this motion, the hoop's center of gravity will be lost and it will just hit you in the back.
Also, as always, remeber to turn in the direction of the hoop so that you have more time to perform the trick.
Good luck!

Woah, that finger/thumb loop thingie made not only that move click for me but my isolations and another thing I just flow around with click. It's like a mantra or something, thank you thank you thank you!

******CLICK*******

that was the light going on in my head/hoop.

thank you thank you thank you! yay!!!!

where can i see a video of this trick?

Cass, thanks for the kudos.. that was really neat to hear that someone is making use of those clips - I was wondering if anyone did!

To break down this skill, I would recommend doing a lot of right-hand only work: lift from behind the back, drop back down in front, let it spin a few times to rebuild momentum... repeat a few times, then add turning yourself counterclockwise...oh, a quick note that in my version, I do the hand-change down at my left side, not up in front like many others do, AND, when I'm going really fast, I don't even use my left hand, just kinda stick my left forearm out to push against the hoop as I swing it around to where my right hand is waiting behind my back.

Good luck!

X.

It's so funny to see this thread bumped all the way back up cause it seems like ages ago that I wrote this!! I've mastered this trick now, funny to think there was a time that I struggled with it.

Anyway, Nicki... what REALLY helped me learn this trick was to spin with the hoop when lifting it up. I think the momentum of your body spinning helps keep the hoop moving... or something like that. Not sure exactly, but it definitely helps! When you master this trick you won't need to spin anymore. Give it a shot :)

You also could try practicing this with a really big hoop.

Good luck!!

Gosh, this is the one thing that still is tough for me. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. Spinning and snapping definitely help, but there's something that has yet to click with me. I am working on posting some practice vids I have (they'll be in the hooping videos tribe shortly) - you can see clearly my trouble with this. :-) Teehe. Working with a low ceiling didn't help matters.

I agree - knowing how to do the two separate parts of the trick was key for me before being able to put them together successfully. Two other tidbits that might be helpful:

(1) I didn't realize that you don't put the hoop back on your waist before bringing it back up. It might sound obvious, but it wasn't to me, so I would get it up over my head, bring it back down, let it rotate around my waist, and then lift it up again. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong until someone said that the hoop goes from hand to hand. That was a real d'oh! moment for me! No wonder I couldn't get the two parts connected smoothly!

(2) Once I figured out not to put the hoop back on my body, I was still bringing the hoop down to waist level and I would sometimes hit myself in the head on the way back up. I later learned that it was easier for me to bring the hoop down even lower, about mid-butt level, because that gave me more time to unwind my arm on the way back up.

Hope that helps!

i go from right to left on the upswing grabbing the hoop from behind with my right hand then i transfer it to my left to bring it down and grab it with my right hand making the little ring motion thingie...

Mmm... sounds like you may actually be lifting faster than its spin momentum..? From the back diagonal lift, try sneaking your right hand under your armpit and complete the lift with your hand actually in front of your face before snapping up to the 2:00ish position...

.. but the other thing to realize is that the hoop may not be perfectly horizontal through this move... and that's okay. If the edge away from your grip swoops down a bit, then you'll just get this neato helix effect :)

Hope that helps... can you take a video so we can do a visual analysis? :)

X.