So on Tuesday night, my sister and I ventured to our first hooping class. WOw! But before I go into that-- A little background first...

So far, we'd learned how to waist hoop from our friend gloria a year ago, and then picked up a hoop again at the beginning of august and since then were all self taught. I'd watch videos on youtube and teach myself in prospect park (i had soooo many bruises-- the ones on my shoulder when I was learning to shoulder hoop were so gnarly!! People on the subway definitely looked at me like I was in an abusive relationship or something!) Anyway, I'd learn the trick on youtube (which took forever) and teach my sister, Becca (or beccaboo on hoopcity!) the trick, which she would learn oh-so-much quicker than i did.

So, that's how things went for a month. We were prepping all of August for a festival called electric zoo. You see, when we brought my hoop to All Points West festival, we met some really cool new friends from Vermont. We had so much fun hooping and dancing together, and once we figured out that we were all going to Electric Zoo festival over labor day weekend and they needed somewhere to stay... well, we immediately invited them to stay with us. Invite someone to stay at your house that you'd never met before? Weird in many circumstances, but we just knew instantly that they were going people. Why? Because every real hooper I've ever met just has something genuine about them... and that was really my first experience with that.

So we had an amazing time at Electric Zoo --which I've mentioned before in my picture comments... Electic Zoo was an electronic music festival-- house, trance, etc... a VERY different scene than the hippier festivals I'd gone to in the past-- Bonnaroo, All Good, etc... not a lot of hoopers! But we got a lot of interesting attention and met some great people, and definitely inspired a lot of new peoople to hoop! I mean, how can you encounter 6 people dressed as cute animals who can all hoop really well and not want to learn to hoop!?!? We also met a few new friends, just as we did at our last festival with a hoop.

Interestingly enough, when we went to class on Tuesday, there was one of the hoopers that we'd met at Electric Zoo! Through a bit of the hazy state of the day, we'd lost each other's contact info, but here the 3 of us were, all going to Kayti Bunny's class for the first time-- and meeting up to hoop! So crazy.

The whole class was exciting. I give Kayti so much credit-- what a great set up for a class. it wasn't just teaching hoop tricks. She was really into building the community. In that evening, we all really started to get to know one another-- through talking, through learning something new (or completely failing at it a few times!)... as Kayti said, the best thing you'd learn from her was how to mess up! Its true;.. you're not going to learn how to get better at hooping if you're not ready to commit to really failing, looking stupid, and possibly (no, definitely!) bruising some really interesting parts of your body! Kayti even had her boyfriend involved, who taught us some really cool handhooping. Becca and I were both hesitant to spend money on a hooping class (what if she only taught beginner stuff we already knew?!?!) but it was soooo worth it. I learned some great hand hooping behind my back-- this has been the hardest stuff for me to learn by watching videos-- i have a hard time seeing hand positions. I also learned that I was trying to knee hoop boucing with the wrong knee-- sooo much better! I even got it up from my waist-- only once, but now i have confidence that i can get it! Can't wait to spend every spare moment of my weekend working on getting it up from my knees!! I also realized that I really like hooping with a much smaller hoop. Mine is about 38 inches right now-- its 100 PSI and 3/4 inch thick. I learned how to hoop on a huge hoopnautica hoop that's like 42 or maybe larger, which was 1 inch thick. I was using my hoop until I started working on hand hooping, and then I switched to a smaller hoop to practice with-- one that was about 32 inches and a half an inch thick, I'm guessing? Anyway, I forgot that I had traded it out and went to work on some body hooping and once i realized it i LOVED it! they spin so much faster, and I was still about to do all of my tricks (which were hard the first time I switched to my smaller hoop from the hoopnautica one). I'm really excited about this discovery, because I'm really interested in learning more of the dance aspects of hooping, and a smaller hoop is really great for this. Again, here's another area where Kayti is great-- she has such a good dance presence with the hoop! And she ends her class with a 5 minute dance time where you're supposed to be goofy with your hoop and move it in new ways... this really does help! When you're not worried about how silly you look, and you freely move, you can really start to understand how to move the hoop with (or near) your body.

When I'm in my hoop, It really is my own private world! I love how no matter what kind of day I've had, or how much heavy stuff is on my mind, I can pick up a hoop and I immediately start into a medidative state that I've never experienced before. I LOVE IT and am SOOO ADDICTED! So through all of this, i've figured out that I find my best 'me' through hooping. I can't believe I've gone my entire life without it! And how cool is it that I have a sister-- my best friend-- who lives near me and also loves to hoop! What a crazy couple of months its been! Anyway, all I can say is that hoopers have it figured out. And I'm so glad I've joined the crowd :)