Superhooping

From the Hoop's perspective.  Hooping meets a middle school English lesson! When Ms. Moon invited Superhooper.org to visit her 6th grade classes at Path Academy here in Atlanta GA, she asked her Language Arts students (after lots of hooping fun, of course!) to compose poems as if they were written by a hoop. What wonderful reminders of the childhood magic the hoop continues to inspire in us grown-ups!

I’m a hula-hoop
Shaped like a loop
  It’s fun for me
  It’s fun for you
I get dizzy
 You do too.
 
- Abraham, age 12

 
WOW!

Wow! Hurray! What is it that I see?
Twirling, circles, spinning, big, motionless,
fun, slow, colorful. Ouch! Round, Turning,
painful, big, “It’s hard!” Difficult, too.
Cool, hard to do, exciting curing, incredible,
new, easy, laughter.

- Ubalda, age 11

I am dizzy, all I do is spin and turn.
When they spin me hard I
feel like I’m going to throw up.
I am colorful, I am round.
I can go all around.
You should try me – I’m really fun.
Also I turn really fast I can be
really fun. Guess what I am? A
hula-hoop. Am I not fun? Told you
I was.

-Ariana, age, 12

 
Hoolahooping
whoooo! whoooo!
spinning, twirling, swirling
it makes you want to be flying
you have fun and you laugh
you go slow you go fast
you never want to stop
Hoolahooping

- Yasanta, age 12

Turning,
burning,
out it goes,
out it shows,
in the holes.

- Yadria, age 11

Around and around
I go. In a bunch of colors
and from high to low. I go
fast. I go slow. I can’t stop.
I seem like a spinning top.
I feel free until I drop.

AND

Trying Something New

Watching someone hula hoop
is oh so great.  You can’t
seem to hold on when you know you
have to wait.  They swirl they
twirl oh how cool. They look like
a whirl pool. They do a bunch
of tricks. They do them oh so
quick. You just have to try it. I
recommend it to you. I know
you will enjoy it as much as I do. 

- Itzel, age 12

I’m a hoop
going round-n-round
I’m like
a tornado, or a whirlpool, or a
little ballerina
I’m happy and not dizzy
because I’m used to
goin’ round-n-round

- Andrea, age 11

Wow! How cool but strange
this is. I’m going around and around twirling
in all directions. It makes me nauseous but
it’s cool. I wish I was higher.
I feel like I’m on top of the world.

-Niles, age 11

I’m twirling,
I have great bright colors
Which makes people’s day!
I am round. I bring kids laughter
and play.
I get hurt, but that’s OK!
I’m a hula hoop.
Hur-ray!

-Lizbeth, age 11

Hoola-Hoop
Hoola-Hoop
I go round and round
I go in so much circles mostly
I fall down

Hoola-Hoop
Hoola-Hoop
goes around your waist
you have to keep a good pace

-?

Rainbow colors
                I’m red black
                and pink
                I’m like
                An elevator
I can go up or
   I can sink
     you can only do
       one trick with me
That’s what you think.

- Jordan, age 11

Spinny, spinny, spinny, spinny
I am spinny. I am also really
        roundy
sometimes I can make
               noise
I make a ringy sound
                you
Could put me down and around
                side by side
                  you
                   decide.

- Jouanny, age 12

I know
I’m fun and just
for you. I
come in a color
just for you.
like pink yellow and
funky blue
Remember
I’m just for
You!

- ?

Twirling spinning
is what I do
It is very fun
for me and for you
Big and round
is who I am
sometimes I can
get in a jam.
Round and round
I can go all day
with lights or fire
when you say.
If you want to know
me like that
just give me a call
and we will chat.

-Taylor, age 11

Colorful circles go
round and round.
Up and down they go
around your hand.
Are there tricks up your
sleeve? There are up mine.
twirl them, twirl them
then they fall down.

- John, age 11

Round, big, colorful, and fun
let’s play together ‘cause it’s
a lot of fun. Let’s play in
the middle of the sun. I’m
round and fun. I will help you
get in shape. So play with me
we will have so much fun. Do tricks
with me like walk, play, jump and
run

- Paola, age 12

I’m colorful
But also big and round
rotating fast but always
having fun.
I go high and low and twirling
around and around

- Karen, age 11

They drop me on the floor.
It really hurts.
I get back up & have some more
fun.

-Frederick, age 11

Hula’s life

I am heavy
But I am also light
Though you are sleepy
I am awake in the night

- Leopold, age 12

Fun exciting yea!
Don’t worry I finally
come to you who owns me
and loves me so much
this is from the hoola hoop
one. 

- Gloria, age 12

Whirl, twirl, around my waist, let us
ninja hoop battle so that I can give you
a taste.
Oooh …
it moves so fast.
It is such a blast
as time blows past.

- Tyonne, age 12

Hula-Hoop’s Point of View

I turn
I churn
I go around
I get real dizzy
I touch the ground
They pick me up so
I don’t mind
What’s to be
I just hope
they don’t step on me

-Sharen, age 12

I am heavy, fun, circular, & round.
People take me all over the town.

- Raymee, age 10

What do I see?
I see people hula hooping
What do I see?
I see people laughing.

- Evi, age 11

I go up I go
down all around
falling down
with a
frown
Then night and
day we will
all play with
a smile on
our face
all in
place

-Cesar, age 13

I go up
I go down
I go all around
I even sit on the ground
I see my friend Zanab
Spinning me around

- Zanab, age 11

And a few students added poems about their own experiences hooping:

Hula Hoops

Hula hoops are big, small, and round.
Hula hoops can hit the ground.
They can be blue, yellow, purple, green, and brown.
Hula hoop is a fun game to play
Not all games you can play around with your
friends, laugh and giggle everyday.
While I’m hula hooping, I have no shame.
Just learning the ways of the game.
But watch out.
As I feel it slipping around my legs
I start to pout.
There it goes, it fell.
I lose, I think to myself.
I will wait my turn.
Soon, all hula hoops fall.
I look around to see not one, five, or
several, but all.
People are laughing everywhere.
So you see it’s not who wins or lose.
Play the game how you choose.

- Gabriel, age 12

When I’m with my hula hoop,
the hoop goes round and round.
But soon if I can’t hold it’ll
touch the ground.
The colorful circle is big and wide.
And when you play with it
you feel cheerful inside.
Both young and old can do it too.
Because there’s nothing to it –
so just do it!
You can hula everywhere –
in a store, in your room,
but not in your hair.
You hula on your arms, on your legs,
on your waist, on your neck,
on your ankle, but not on your face.
It’s big, it’s little, it’s any way you like.
It’s purple, green and it can even be striped.
So make sure you try it –
Come and see the wonderful thing
called
Hula Hoop

- Stephanie, age 11

Posted by superhooper at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whether you're a beginning hooper or just looking to re-infuse your hooping with some new spunk, these exercises are designed to inspire your body and your creativity.  As they say, you can never know the basics too well! The exercises we've posted below are from the first class in our Atlanta Hoop Dance Series.  These fantastic ideas are a conglomerate taken from our own hooping, discussions on hooping.tribe.net and from all of you.  Have fun, add to our list using the comments button, and Happy Hooping!

Waist Hooping Exercises

Hoop!  Hooping is all muscle memory. The more you do it, the less you’ll have to think about it.  Here are some ways to learn more from your body and your dance while waist hooping.

• Close your eyes.  Focus on the feel of your hoop moving around your body.  Imagine that your hoop is the perfect dance partner.

• Hoop as slowly as you can.  Exert as little effort as possible to keep your hoop spinning. This will develop small, controlled movements. Your hoop may lower to your hips.  Practice keeping it there.

• Hoop as fast as you can.  Really let loose! Your hoop may rise to your ribs.  Practice keeping it there.

• Play with your arms and hands.  Try keeping your fingers poised.  Extend your arms.  Experiment alternately with sharp and fluid movements. Try belly-dancing arms.

• While hooping, get down on your knees.

• Change directions.  Try hooping clockwise and counter-clockwise until you are comfortable with both.

• Spin with your hoop.  Spin against your hoop.  Spin slowly.  Spin faster.

• Walk, skip, or run (!) while hooping.  Try moving forward, backward, and to both sides.

• Shift your weight from foot to foot.  Try lifting, kicking, or sweeping one leg at a time.

• Try bending slightly at the waist. Bend forward. Bend backward, making sure to keep your pelvis tucked in to protect your back.  The axis of your hoop will change. Can you keep it spinning?

• Jump while hooping! Then try jumping and spinning.

• Music is the key!  Put on a song you can’t help but dance to. Have fun! Try hooping to different genres and tempos -- slow jazz, meditative music, blues, disco, funk.  Note how the energy of the song changes how you move.

• Choose a song whose lyrics are special to you.  Try to express the feeling of the song’s words through your hooping.

• Begin by dancing to a favorite song without your hoop.  Now pick up your hoop and try to keep dancing as you were without it.

• Teach someone else to hoop!

• Get inspired by the hooping community online!  Discussion, tips, and videos are available at

http://hooping.org

                                           http://hooping.tribe.net

http://tribes.tribe.net/hoopingvideos

Posted by superhooper at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

 I respect and admire your symbolism.  Your link to yourself, to me, is a sign of unity, continuation, revolution, and isolation at the same time.  I recognize that within each of us is a place where peace dwells, and when we are in that place, we are One.  Through you I learn to respect myself and the space that continuosly revolves around me.  Through you I learn dedication, commitment, finesse, strengh, and most importantly freedom of motion.  I will pick you up if you fall.  I will learn from your flow, and I will share your strengh with anyone open enough to reach out for you.  The light within me sees and honors the light within you.

Namaste

Posted by superhooper at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Revolution" Resolutions

So I haven't been hooping.  Much. 

I've got about forty pounds left to lose after the August birth of my own little hooper. I've been out of the game . . . and way off mine.  And since my body's been on mind, hooping has too. 

Renewing my confidence has meant a good bit of soul-searching.  Why do I hoop, again? I mean, I thought I knew.  I hoop because it's fun, because it makes me feel good, right?  So what's up? 

Hooping's not the only sport where I've lost some pizazz. I'm a runner. I've run 5 half marathons in 2 countries. But post-baby, I'm only up to 4 miles so far.  Every sport draws on a different point of personal inspiration.  When I'm running, I tap into a certain ambition, a battle between two sides of me -- the part that wants to quit when it gets hard and the part that knows I can keep going.  Every run is a small symbolic victory for my internal optimist and a mini life lesson.
(Kickboxing, on the other hand, feeds off my anger.  I haven't kickboxed in years, so I'm going to assume that my inner angst-ridden teenager is finally subdued.) 

But what fuels my hoop?  I was recently reminded that my hooping is integrally linked to my sensuality.  When I hoop, I tap into a kind of self-expression that reflects how I feel about my body and how it relates to the bodies around me. Like nothing else in my life, hooping has zero to do with the chatter of my mind. Hooping is my body talking.  And lately, I haven't been listening.

My hooping has been a performance for so long -- tied up with its matching costumes that no longer fit, the tricks that are about nine months out of practice, and a feeling of flow and beauty in my movements that seem to belong to another, more youthful Lara -- that I've been experiencing a bit of (ahem) performance anxiety. . .

And since picking up my hoop again means wanting to feel beautiful and mine again, then it's time! I've just wrapped two new 2007 hoops -- one for me and one for my new running partner.  Tomorrow, I'm going to turn on Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life" and remember the joy of moving my hips.  I'm on a mission to get my chops . . . and my body  . . . back.

Here's to feeling beautiful. And here's to jumping back in the hoop.

Read others' new year's hooping resolutions and add yours here to the hooping tribe: http://hooping.tribe.net/thread/46ffbf1b-12ad-4b4a-9d3c-b22a20d657bc 

Posted by superhooper at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm not the greatest dancer, but my hoop is a spectacular dance partner.  I don't think I ever really understood expressive movement until I started hooping.  The presentation can still elude me from time to time, but these days it seems pretty on point.  I feel as if skilled expressive movement comes in plateaus.  I'll have long bouts of stagnation where I feel as if I'll never learn anything new, then suddenly I'll learn sevarel new tricks or combos in a row.

A man dancing with a hula hoop was the first plateau for me.  It didn't take much though; theres something about hooping that is inherently fun.  I watched my then roommate Lara hoop to her favorite music and decided that it was something I would try.  However in a typical male fashion I decide that if I am going to play with something as "girly" as a hoop, I'd better at least try to make it look masculine.  My first attempts at hooping never actually involved me hooping around the waist.  Always off the body movements incorporating lots of arm work and throws. It took me a while to get comfortable with hooping on my body.

Then I found that I couldn't just let go and hoop.  I had a bit of a techy, or really trick based style. Flow was not one of the most important things to me.  Learning and becoming comfortable with each "trick" was all I could focus on.  I felt proficient at many tricks but could not link them well or really flow.

Realizing that I needed something diffrent I began to hoop around my body more and dance around.  After a while I found my flow was improving and I was able to smoothly incorporate diffrent tricks into my dance.  Recently though I have been climbing out of a period of stagnation.  Inspired mostly by my new color changing hoop, I have been working on a new (to me) style of hooping incoorporating very slowly isolated hoop movements and large dramatic body movements.  Its been fun trying to find new ways for my body to move and interact with the hoop. 

I keep growing with the hoop and it keeps growing on me.  More people need to experience the joy of hooping.  I encourage you to gift at least three people this season with a little time with your hoop.  Let them experience the joy of hooping.  You'll be rewarded with the smiles on thier faces.

Posted by superhooper at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hooping with a burgeoning pregnant belly, you might think, is no easy task. Throughout nine months, the axis around which my hoop turned changed daily in size and shape. It took a little extra effort, granted. But it was another valuable step in my (r)evolving relationship with my body.

Although I didn't know it yet, I was pregnant during my hooping trip to Anguilla in mid-December.  By Christmas, I was puking during my early morning run.  I was proud to think I'd hoop through all three trimesters. I'm a Superhooper, right?  But it wasn't until my belly got harder and all my internal organs had finished rearranging themselves that hooping felt right.

Well, it didn't feel right, really.  I had no waist, of course.  And even if I could have seen my hips, they were aching.  And hooping is all muscle memory. My muscles didn't have any idea, much less a memory, of how to move for two!  I was terrified I would fall.  Just walking was a challenge -- how  was I going to spin? Still, after several months, hooping was possible again, even if it felt like I was dancing with someone else's body.  And the look on people's faces seeing a very pregnant woman hoop was priceless.  Few people saw our picture in the paper in April, fire hooping at five months along, but I am giddy to have the coolest memento ever for my little one's baby book.

Looking back, I wish I hadn't indulged my frustrations as much as I did.  I wish that I had spent less time annoyed at the tricks I couldn't do and more time playing with this new and changing space.  But there were truly beautiful moments.  I felt strong and powerful.  I imagined what my little girl was feeling in the womb as it rocked in circles. I thought about how hooping was keeping me in top shape for labor and how one day my little hooper and I would dance together to this very song.

The day before my little girl arrived was the most fun I had hooping pregnant. For the first time, moving in and out of my hoop felt effortless.  We danced together for more than an hour and when we stopped, I felt the first hints that she was on her way.

Posted by superhooper at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)