Tribe.net. Local Connections Tink http://hooping.tribe.net/thread/bb01e3ed-d357-4517-bbee-b197dd7e7b18#7de589aa-4d41-4260-852a-b7cfa4c6586a 2009-07-04T22:48:48Z 2009-07-04T22:48:48Z

I've just passed my 10 month mark, too. I think we all move through the flowless period when we are acquiring tricks willy nilly and set on building strength and improving control. The flow seems to come back for me when I put the moves together in sequences - logically and with deliberation at first, but moving towards less thought and more flow as I go on. For me, picking up poi (which are all about flow or you whack yourself in the head/crotch/legs/back) helped a lot. As did some dance classes to boost my confidence in dancing. The right music makes a difference, too.

Tink 2009-07-04T22:48:48Z Xta http://hooping.tribe.net/thread/bb01e3ed-d357-4517-bbee-b197dd7e7b18#a164936f-17b0-452b-aec7-58a38e2dc724 2009-07-04T15:46:01Z 2009-07-04T15:46:01Z

If you haven't been to a Hoop Path workshop, you need to! Flow vs tricks comes up a lot :) I find that two things help me get 'flow' more: 1 - putting on my absolute most favourite current song to dance to, 2 - hooping until I'm too exhausted to work on new things, but still hooping.. the mindspace that I get to at this point stays in flowspace for a while, and then beyond that when I'm REALLY tired, my fumbles will start to become inspirations for new ways to move with the hoop! I'll be hitting this today and tomorrow, as I figure I've got 6+ hours of hooping ahead of me each day at the Jazz Fest! X.

Xta 2009-07-04T15:46:01Z Tina http://hooping.tribe.net/thread/bb01e3ed-d357-4517-bbee-b197dd7e7b18#c12bc169-19e4-4d7d-8ea5-cfe4223e7cef 2009-07-04T04:43:16Z 2009-07-04T04:43:16Z

Sometime around today will mark my ten full months of hooping! :) I can't believe how fast it flew by... I recently stumbled across my first ever hoop video made back in January and cannot believe the progress made. One thing however, that I couldn't help but notice was that in my earlier video's, although i didn't have many of the moves down, I would really feel the music and it would show. Part of me feels that even though I can pull off way cooler tricks these days, there is still something about my hooping that just doesn't feel natural/flows... When I'm out performing where the music is great I feel energy that I don't get at home so things become more natural and I feel confident. Otherwise, when I'm at home I feel stuck like the progress being made is very minimal at least over the past few months. I need to find that place where hooping took me when I first started. People tell me that they've never seen me this happy before the hoop, but inside I feel like I'm just concentrating too hard... Maybe the feeling of doing something new that you can't stop thinking about has just warn off.. I don't know, has anyone else ever felt this?

Tina 2009-07-04T04:43:16Z