Martine I like you very much! You are a lovely person and a lovely hooper. And I, too, prefer the groove of a larger hoop. It helps me relax and gives me a massage and feels like a friend I can kind of wrestle around with. So I'm with you on that. I use all kinds of hoops but my favorite is the biggest one I can still manage to jump over or do that "stir the pot" move with.

Martine, you have a refreshing and realistic outlook. Thanks for sharing that personal revelation. I think many of us can identify with you.

love this.

Martine - you and I hoop very much alike! I could not have written the above better myself, because, well, I feel the exact same way. I see so many awesome hoopers doing all of this amazing stuff yet I find I can't really get into my trance as much because I am wanting too much to do something like someone else. Most of my hoops are large and heavy and that's the way i like them. I, too am a slower hooper who hoops more at the core or with my hands, but not so much of a trickster. While I wish I could be - I'm just not.

I find I am this way in dance as well. I am a slower more sensual dancer than an all out hop all over the place kind of girl. I've tried it and it just does not resonate with me. This is why my dance style gravitates very much toward tribal (in bellydance) and my hooping gravitates toward larger heavier hoops that allow me to move at my own natural pace.

Very often, I feel inferior but in the end, it doesn't matter because all that matters is how I feel when I hoop or dance, or combine the two. It is with hooping, like you, that I found myself, began to like myself and have become a happier person. :)

For a very long time, I kind of identified as a "circus hooper" myself. I enjoyed the athleticism of it and I loved the tricks. I've gotten more dancey and graceful over time and you will too. So you hang in there. It's all about racking up the rotations. All these forms of hooping are available to you. It's just a matter of time.

And yes! Come to North Carolina! I would LOVE to hoop with you!

hell yeah! Come to NC! It ain't that far!

Please excuse me if I repeat something...It's a long post and I've been reading it and watching it develop over days :-)

I've been thinking about this a lot recently myself, my hooper identity, mainly in order to clarify what it is that I want to teach other people. From the start of my hooping journey in Feb 2006 I felt it important to hoop in both directions, I'm fairly spiritual with an obsession about language and I believe that polarity is an important part of our game of life and the fabric of the universe as well . After all humans choose, or were directed to use language as the preferred method of communicate with. It is all good, even the things that don't work out so well initially for the growth comes from the lulls as well as the highs! My mistakes, non hooping included :-) , have taught me so many valuable lessons, ways to see things differently.

When I first started hooping I had not ever seen a real person hoop dance only circus hooper's elevated as professionals on a stage, and I never considered that I could achieve any of it, only a tighter tum :-). The Groovehoops demo video, Anah, Christabel, Spiral and Diana Lopez opened in me a spark of something that felt dormant until that moment. Something awoke, a part of me knew there and then that it was possible for me to do that. Only this weekend I met some girls who came over to comment on my hooping. I said to them "Did you feel when you were watching me that you could do this" they replied "That's why we came over" :-) :-) :-)

I have given lots of attention to learning tricks, mainly because for the first time in my life I found a prop that I could work with, a prop that encouraged positivity and growth in my life. The perfect dance partner that does not tread on your toes but delight you and takes you to unexpected places. I see these tricks as a part of the non verbal language that we as hooper's across the globe are developing, the "vocabulary" as such. It's not always been easy and I have had plenty of plateau's (Beth commented recently about how children demonstrate the plateau when they are learning to walk, talk etc and I think is is a marvelous point ...for this hooping phenomenon is growing like a growing and precious child, spreading joy and presence across the entire globe).

I love to dance but I'm not a real smiley dancer, I'm a kind of connecting to all there is in a very inner way. Building the vocabulary of my hooping language has really helped me to find my expression while dancing in a hoop, I becomes more me the more 'flight time' I put into it. This expression is kind of like the punctuation and descriptive ways we as individuals express any verbal or non verbal language. Each of us says and expresses it differently even though we use the same vocabulary.

I am still developing, I develop less when I try to emulate others, or if I become obsessed with the way other hooper's do things. I am not those other people, I am me, and I can only do it the way I do it. I can be inspired by others but it has to be integrated into my world view and adjusted accordingly. As my hooper identity grows information from the wider world comes to help. I would never have discovered Kundalini Yoga if I had not been on tribe looking at hooping video's, and the chances of finding a spiritual teacher in the back woods where I live was nothing short of miraculous. Or I might never have discovered the interesting Spiral Dynamic Theory.

I know one thing for sure, I sure can waffle when I start :-)

Jen,
After reading your post I had a look at your blog and I am totally the same about stuff. When I get a new hobby I really want to be great at it straight away and get bored if it doesn't come easily. As a result I've tried lots of different 'hobbies' over the years, but it seems now I might have found the one for me!
Obviously learning anything is a slow process, unless you're one of the lucky talented ones! I totally agree with your comment about watching videos on youtube, I have the same instant reactions- thinking 'wow, that's amazing, I want to do that', followed by 'shit, I'll never be that good!'.

But try not to be disheartened! I am fast learning that it's not what tricks you know that matter with hooping, and that's why it's great for me.
I have days where I am endlessly hitting myself in the face trying to learn something new, and days when I am satisfied with just letting it roll around my stomach with my eyes closed, listening to nice tunes!
I guess what I'm trying to say (sorry, I'll get to the point eventually), is that some people are into all that fancy stuff, and for others it's just not!
I've only been learning a few weeks, and never really put any goals on myself, I just wanted to be able to look cool dancing around with a hoop. When I look back at what I've achieved, it's really quite astonishing! It's these reasons alone that keep me soldiering on.

So don't give up, sounds like you're off to a great start! Don't be frustrated with yourself, just do what you enjoy and don't put pressure on yourself!
Enjoy x

I Jen, I'm with Helen on this one. It is very important to use the Youtube video resource as a guide for inspiration but NOT as a benchmark. Every hooper is different. Once you've watched a lot of the videos you will realise that the possibilities are endless, even using the same moves. We all look different when we hoop, yet we are using fundamentally the same tool and the same moves.

It's easy to compare and find yourself lacking. But try not to. A few weeks ago you couldn't keep the hoop up at all I suspect. And it's not all about tricks. You can dance beautifully with a hoop using very few tricks. The 'trick' is to let your mind go with the music. The rest follows. As a result of my disability to let my mind go when I know a camera is looking at me, I rarely video myself. But without the camera it's a way into a totally different zone for me and I love it. I'm twice the age of many hoopers and so I'm immensely gratified that I can do it at all. At first I compared and found myself lacking all the time. Now I usually just enjoy myself. But there are days when our outside stresses won't let us go and that's when the frustration comes in. Best to put it down and walk away or like you have found, you can injure yourself.

Hooping is intensely personal. This is a 'hobby' that's just for you. Relax into it and above all enjoy it. Try to keep competitive thoughts out of it. We have enough of those in other walks of life.

Welcome to hooping!