Thanks for the friend request. Hope we can connect next time I'm in your neck of the woods.

Hey Livi Little!

I'm so happy to hear there are other ballet hoopers around ^_^.

While I am by no means a professional ballerina or hooper, I can share with you some things I am learning about the fusion.

First, and most importantly, work on turnout and demipointe BEFORE you even try to hoop en pointe. The less your brain has to focus on rolling through demipointe and maintaining turnout, the more you can focus on manipulating the hoop with your hands.

Also, tape yourself or have someone watch you to make sure you have no signs of sickling. If you have problems with sickling it will be hard to swing a hoop around your body or over your head and still be able to pointe over the box, that could prove to be a dangerous situation for you and your ankles if you can't maintain balance when you are up.

next, as weird as it is, start with a kiddie hoop (like a plastic one you get at a toy store, or a mini). Usually in hooping we start with large heavy hoops and downsize, but in this case you'll want to work with the lightest piece of hoop equipment possible and work your way to something more substantial. Its a weird fusion to do, combining intricate hand movements with tough ankle and foot work. The footwork is much more important because you dont want to break your legs, so practice doing basic point work and turns simply with a light hoop in your hands,not even doing tricks with it, just to get used to the feeling of having to split your brain into two different functions. I think even as you get better you'll find that you want a tiny diameter hoop (i just ordered a .7m and im 1.7 meters tall) because its very tough to do tight quick pirouettes and spin a hoop that isn'[t moving as fast as your body is throug the turn.

Hope ths helps, lemme know how it goes ^_^


Allie

Welcome to Hoop City! Enjoy!