This is something I wrote on Hooping.org for the Flow Zone forum which Khan Wong and I co-moderate. Check it out!

I had a realization some years ago that my ability to tap into Flow with my hoop was very much like my ability to speak a second language. I”ve never been quick with words, even in my own language, and I never really felt I had a talent for learning another tongue. When I was 27 years old, rather late in life for learning a new language, I moved to Japan for what I thought was going to be a one year contract. (I ended up staying 5 but that’s another story.) I was rather smitten with the idea of “full immersion” and ended up taking a job where I had to rely completely upon my rudimentary Japanese skills. For months, I would struggle to interpret what was being said to me, translating each word and phrase as I could to get some kind of glimmer as to what the actual topic of conversation was. Conjuring up responses was even more tedious and tortuous and it felt incredibly frustrating at times wanting to express myself and having the language skills of a 2 year old.

After several months of embarrassment and effort and great patience on the part of my Japanese colleagues, I ended up traveling to Malaysia for break and spent several weeks there feeling the relief of not having to work so hard to coommunicate. On my flight back to Japan, the stewardess made her announcements first in English (no problem, feeling smug that I can understand,) then Chinese and Malay (no pressure for me as there is no chance that I could understand so I don’t even try.) The final announcement comes on and I find myself understanding completely and fully what is being said even though it’s not English. I realize that I am listening to something being said in Japanese and it’s requiring no effort on my part. I am comprehending without having to translate. I have direct access to the meaning of the words. I have “clicked in.” It’s a wonderful feeling.

For me, that idea of fluency and flow rings true when I am in the hoop. When the words begin to roll off my tongue or the “moves” flow from my body without the self-conscious effort of thinking, “I am now performing a chest roll,” or “I am now saying ‘I wonder what’s up with Kato-sensei today?’ in Japanese,” then I have achieved some level of fluency that allows me to bypass the tedium of translation and tap directly into the source of meaning. The mechanics, the muscle memory is there, but also a deeper and more direct connection to what it is I want to convey. My expression is untethered by translation.

In fact, there are things that I can say in Japanese that I cannot say in English. There is often no direct translation. Learning the language of the hoop has given me access to a Self that would be hidden from me without the hoop. I have discoverd ideas, feelings, associations and understandings that would have been unavailable without the immersion into the Flow of the hoop. Without fluency, there is no Flow.