Day 139 - Hoopalicious.Was.Amazing

I changed the name of my blog.  Everytime I think of my life, two things come to mind:  My family, and my hooping.  The challenge has been trying to find a balance between the two.  I find myself somewhat in the minority of hoopers, being a mom.  That is not to say that there are not any other hoop mamas out there, I've just noticed there are less of them than non-moms.  Of the two major workshops that I've been too, I have been one of only a few other moms (I think at HoopPath there was only one or two others).  This does make me feel different in a way - the way you approach your passions is drastically different when you have children as opposed to if you don't.  I've mentioned this before, prior to having kids I could dive deep into the things that interested me and spend as much time or money on it as I could.  Not so much with a young family.  I'm also still relatively new to the hoop world, or even motherhood one for that matter, so I'm sure things will evolve over time.

I love being a Hoop Mama.  I love that I have found something that I'm so passionate about that is also fun and can fit into my family life.  It helps me reconnect with my inner child, because really I'm not very good at being child-like in any other ways.  I look forward to the days when my children can hoop with me more.  My oldest is just starting to get the hang of it and will join me sometimes.  My younger two try as well, and while they are still young to be doing it I enjoy seeing them give it a go.

Anyways, I hadn't actually intended to write about hooping and my family except to mention the title change.  I could probably go on a bit more but there have been more pressing things that I have wanted to write about.

Hoopalicious!  Aka Anah Reichenbach, or as I am now referring to her, the most beautiful hooper ever.  She is just glorious is person.  I have always been amazed by her hooping when I saw it in videos, but the way she moves is really something that needs to be experienced first hand.  She was stunning.  Just in case you have never seen her dance:

The workshop ran over two days, 3hrs on each day.  It was absolutely amazing.  I really connected with her style of teaching, and had so many breakthroughs over the course of the weekend.  Anah really focuses on core hooping, as she puts it she feels core hooping is the main course and tricks/off body stuff is the spice.  They are both important for sure, core hooping without spice would be bland, but you definitely wouldn't want just spice and no substance. 

I will admit my own core hooping has been lacking lately.  I have been guilty of moving away from it, towards more off body work and isolations.  I don't know why, but I almost feel safer with off body work, like I have more control over it.  Whenever I would core hoop, as much as I liked it, I would find myself getting bored, or that I made a lot of mistakes, so I would just go back to doing off body hooping.  Anah really showed us the unlimited possibilities of hooping on the core, and that there are so many ways to move within and through the hoop that are beautiful and interesting. 

I have never seen anyone dance within the hoop the way she does.  It is like she is dancing, and the hoops just moves around her.  If you took the hoop away, she would still be dancing so beautifully.  Sometimes I feel like if you took my hoop away, I'd look ridiculous!

I totally fell in love with core hooping all over again, and feel like a stronger hooper for having had the opportunity to work with her.  She showed us how to move all around the room dancing in our hoops, how to hoop on the hips and move our chest around, how to shoulder hoop and do hip circles at the same time, how to properly do angle hooping (something I have needed to work on!).

That's not to say she didn't have a few tricks for us.  We learned some cool behind the back isolations, how to do a pizza toss, and a funky move she called the Noble Stag which I can't even begin to explain!  We worked on shoulder duck outs and for the first time ever I was consistently able to duck out to the left with the hoop rotating around my right shoulder, something I have been trying to do for probably close to a year.  It was like the energy of the room helped me do it.  Now to see if I can keep doing it!

Another awesome thing about this past weekend was that I got to meet many other hoopers that will be going to InFlow as well, and it was nice to connect with them and start building friendships.

These past few weeks have been amazing for me and my hoop.  Even before the workshop I was starting to find more flow and nail some new tricks.  I've got the chest rolls down pretty consistently, and have started to get a few shoulder rolls as well.  I'm unlocking more flow and finding new ways to move through my hoop.

I can honestly say that my hooping every day this year challenge is paying off.  My hooping has made more progress in the last few months than it did in the first two years combined.  It's an amazing feeling!  I will leave off with the next video I have uploaded to YouTube, the first time I managed to figure out the three beat weave.  It isn't an exciting video, but this was a move I really wanted to figure out and it actually hurt my brain trying to work out how to do it, but when I finally got it I was so thrilled that I had my husband come out and video it.  I don't think he was as impressed as I had hoped he would be, but you can see in my face that I was pretty happy about it!  Now I'm trying to work out how to do a reverse three beat weave, which is definitely proving to be tricky!