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StudentPermalink Reply by Jessica on September 1, 2012 at 2:39pm

I can't watch the video right now, sorry! A topic was brought up a while ago about "hooping without a hoop" which was compared to playing air guitar. Do you ever just move to the music without your hoop? I think this might help you be able to move with your hoop. It may become easier as you become more familiar with your hoop too. I hope this has been helpful!

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Permalink Reply by Caroleeena of Circles of Joy on September 1, 2012 at 3:19pm

I just taught a curriculum on footwork, traveling steps, spins and turns in hoopdance at Hoop Convergence and at Return to Roots. The more I study it, the more I realize there is to learn and teach. Footwork is fun!  Maybe I'll get to come to your area or near you and teach it again. I have three online tutorials that have various pieces of footwork too. No, four. No, five! I'll post links.

A simple piece of footwork:

Some Pretty Turns I Love:

Integrating Dance Into Hoopdance:

Walking While Hooping (Has the grapevine and a few others):

ANTM Traveling Step:

I'll look at your video now and give you some feedback too.

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Permalink Reply by Caroleeena of Circles of Joy on September 1, 2012 at 4:15pm

Feedback on your Video:

- First, you naturally beat punctuate, and not just with your hoop, with your body. Go girl. At the :26 second mark, you do a really cool hip punctuation right on the beat. You also seem to beat punctuate naturally with your steps when walking. Those are natural skills that will serve you well as you integrate more dance into your hooping.

- Hahahahaha! On hitting your ceiling fan. Girl, I do that all the time. Only once has a bulb fallen out an conked me in the head but I bet I've hit it a couple hundred times. It's kind of a miracle it's still hanging.

- When practicing before your camera, get used to thinking of your camera like an audience. Always try to orient yourself so that you are turned toward it and facing it (unless you deliberately want your back to the audience, which you sometimes do). This has real training benefits. It gets you used to thinking, "There is a front to this circle and I can orient myself to stop facing that front." (Spinning in a circle can allow us to stop anywhere and sometimes it means stopping with our back facing where we would like our front to face. Or our side. The sooner we think of our dance as having a "front" the sooner we can orient to it. As the old saying goes, "Turn around and face the music." Not sure where that comes from. Hmmm...) Anyway, it will also help you get used to doing full turns instead of accidentally doing half or three-quarter turns.

- For your leg hooping, here is a posture tip - look up! This will make it easier because your butt's not sticking out. Looking down at our hoop really messes up our posture. Lift your chin, lift from the heart and look up.

- Also for your leg hooping, it looks like you're letting one leg do most of the driving. I have a tutorial about leg hooping that will show you some other options:

- Your armwork is looking really pretty. Good job. I like the circles you make with your one arm at 2:29. That looks great. You do it a second time and your elbow is not as straight. Notice how different that looks. Keeping the elbow straight can create great and impressive lines.

- At 2:42 you do another pretty piece of armwork -- first across each other, then up and down. This looks great! Lots more of this. I hardly ever see people cross their arms (cross their lines) like that. Really gorgeous.

- At 3:10 you do a very pretty piece of HANDwork. You do an inside circle with the hand that's up top. That's a flamenco move and it looks gorgeous! Lots more of that!!!

- Practice relaxing the arm that is not holding the hoop when you're doing isolations. (See 3:21) This is trickier than it seems but it will help you not develop a habit of having a bent arm while concentrating on the other arm. That habit is hard to break! (Trust me. I know.) Also relax your hand. Breathe. We tense our hands and shoulders when we're holding our breath.

- At 3:46 you do an around-the-body orbiting pass. Lovely! When you're outside and have plenty of room, make sure you lock your elbows for this. It makes it bigger and makes your lines more impressive.

- I was looking for places to give you footwork coaching. Notice at 4:06 how you want to lift up your feet? Try this. Try bringing the toe of the right foot to the back (or side) of the knee of the right leg. Actually touch and let the right foot come up onto the ball of the right foot. (Or you can skip lifting onto the ball of the foot if the music is deeper and more grounded, like the dub you're listening too. Plus, it might be easier to practice without lifting the heel at first.) If you were turning, this would be a pirouette but it's very pretty standing still too because it creates three lines that form a triangle. It also helps you have strength and precision when you are ready to do pirouettes. It looks especially great if you can pair it with doing a lift so that the hoop hits the height of it's ascension at the same time your toe touches your knee. (Posture is important for this piece of footwork too. Remember to check in with your posture, especially you're upper body posture.)

- During your footwork, you have risen to your toes and I think that throws of your balance a bit. That's where posture is very important! First plant your heels, then the balls of your feet, then grab the ground with your toes. Soften your knees, tighten your abs, tighten your bum. Boom! The lower body posture is set. Second part -- upper body. Lift from the heart, roll the shoulder back and down, lift the chin and look up. Boom! The upper body posture is set. Try to hoop from here. Then, when you want to lift onto your toes or the ball of your foot, you can lift out of the top of your head instead of all with your feet! (Here is a link to my blog where I give you a little ritual to do before you hoop every time that will help you develop the habit of setting your posture. There's lots of other hoopdance info there too. http://circlesofjoy.org/a-short-building-posture-ritual/ )

- As for other footwork, I would suggest just standing still and practicing some footwork while either hooping on the waist or above the head or behind the back. Practice tapping out to the side or to the front. (A la the Integrating Dance into Hoopdance video.) Get used to moving your feet deliberately without actually traveling. This is called stationary footwork and it's a lot of fun. Do you have a mirror? If so, look in the mirror so you can see how it looks. If not, Craiglist's "Free" section has people giving away big bathroom mirrors all the time! If you have a way to pick one up, you can probably get a great big mirror there for nothing. I've gotten several from people who were re-doing their bathroom. A mirror that runs across a long counter with two sinks is perfect. Stand it on its end and ta-da!

You're doing great. Your moves are coming along smashingly and your armwork is especially shiny. Your beat punctuation seems to come naturally and that's going to serve you well your whole hoop journey. You natural punctuate with both your body AND your hoop movements. Go girl! And I love how you're already thinking footwork so early in your journey. That's hoopdancer thinking right there. I can't wait to see where you are a year from now. 

Thanks for letting me give you feedback. I am practicing because I'm about to start offering remote coaching feedback professionally so it was nice to get a chance to practice with someone who was open to it. Thanks for asking and being open to feedback. I hope it helps you. And if you have feedback on my feedback, I'd love to hear it! It would help me too.

Great job sister! Happy Hooping!

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Permalink Reply by Shanna Sweet on September 1, 2012 at 8:11pm

Caroleena! Thanks so much for taking the time to go through my video like that! If you're looking to get into remote coaching I think you'd do an incredible job! Thanks for the props on the arm work I actually pulled a lot of what I try to do from here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTFOYmXbZWw, which I'm sure you'll recognize! I'm trying to think about lines all the time! The leg hooping I just kind of just picked up - I definitely just learned how to bring it back up, but that "one leg driving" is really the only way I've been able to bring it back up, and it still feels a bit sloppy to me, so I can't wait to try from your video. All of your videos! I'm definitely going to be all up in this all week haha! I'll have to make another video!

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StudentPermalink Reply by Sweet Sisi on September 2, 2012 at 1:41pm

Leg work is awesome. I have been feeling about the same with my legs. I will leave the concentrated awesome to Caroleena, and post a few of my 'tips'.

Check out other people who dance kind of while holding stuff. Lindsey Stirling has been my greatest inspiration lately. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGCsyshUU-A

Try to hoop while standing on one leg. Bend the knee you're standing on and change your centre of gravity, balance around and play with it. Lift the leg you're not standing on in different positions. Practice hopping while hooping.

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Permalink Reply by Caroleeena of Circles of Joy on September 2, 2012 at 3:40pm

I love this dance so much. Her whole dance -- footwork, armwork directed gaze -- is amazing. Hooping while playing violin was one of the original circus tricks. It requires the same skills as hooping and footwork -- isolating the bottom half of the body from the top, especially. I would love to get this girl hooping and then see what she could do. Wouldn't that be rad!?!

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Permalink Reply by Shanna Sweet on September 2, 2012 at 10:29pm

Whoa! 2:15 - 2:24 is that even possible while hooping?! I would LOVE to do that kind of thing...

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StudentPermalink Reply by Sweet Sisi on September 3, 2012 at 10:50am

Try it! I think it would be easier with the hoop up around your hand at first but I firmly believe it would be possible to do while hooping up on your shoulders. You'd need to get firmly comfortable with bending foreward and shoulder hooping though... *ponders*

1:25-1:35 is what I'd like to do most.

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StudentPermalink Reply by Sweet Sisi on September 3, 2012 at 10:48am

Oooh yes. The way she moves her arms she'd be great on body and off. XD

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Permalink Reply by Shanna Sweet on September 2, 2012 at 10:30pm

That seriously just blew my mind...

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