I've had so many folks ask me about the one-handed helicopter move so I thought I'd condense my responses to a journal entry here for reference.


The first time I ever saw the One-Handed Helicopter Move was in a video of a Russian hoopdancer and I had thought it at the time kind of unattainable, like many things. Later, I saw a more condensed version of that move in one of Brecken's first videos where she spun the hoop around one of her hands for a full revolution in a way that took my breath away. It was a momentary suspended flip of the hoop that made me think I wanted to try it.

What you see me doing in my latest videos is both: the quick one or two revolutions around the hand move, and the more sustained over hand move. The latter is much harder and I often loose it.

The first move is quick and depends on getting strong momentum, sending the hoop around the hand and then catching the hoop fluidly. I find turning my whole body helpful in both moves. If I'm spinning the hoop around my right hand, I turn my body to the right. And if I'm spinning the hoop around my left hand, I turn my body to the left. The hoop ends up feeling a little like it's in a counterspin in relation to my body, because if I'm turning my body right, the hoop turns Counter clockwise round my right hand, and if I turn my body left, the hoop spins clockwise around my left hand. I hold my arm out with my palm upwards with my fingers hooked under the hoop and my thumb on top of the hoop, placed diagonally across the palm and pointing towards my pinky. As I turn my body, I propell the hoop around the hand with a quick push downwards of the thumb while the forefinger lifts. The hoop flips around my hand for a full 1 and 1/2 revolutions, ending with my palm facing downwards. I find spinning the hoop at a slightly higher plane than might at first seem natural to help. That extra height (a couple of inches or so) gives me a little more time to catch it as it comes around my hand.

As for the sustained over-hand move, it's more about establishing a rhythm and using the same kind of flicking motion, but doing it more controlled, a little more gently. And between each revolution over the hand, there is an important sense of SCOOPING the hoop with the entire hand to keep it rotating around the hand smoothly. After that initial flick to get the hoop going, my thumb is held next to my forefinger and the hand becomes a kind of paw that flicks and catches the hoop in a consistent rhythm. The hoop is higher up on the hand than you might think and it is all in the wrist, not so much the fingers. I find visualizing the axis of rotation, from the point of the hoop that is rotating around my hand, to the "counterpoint" or in HoopPath terms, the Tip, that is opposite and is floating on the outside, to be helpful.

Here is the initial video that prompted so many questions about the move. I do the quicker version around 3:09 and the sustained One-Handed Helicopter Move near the end at 3:18.

http://www.hoopcity.ca/video/hoopdance-in-new-pants