Hooping… Architecture… Whatnot…
I made this (and yesterday’s) diagram for the NorthWest Hoop Gathering. I’m hoping to have an 8.5″x11″ layout to give everyone that will include all of the moves and exercises we work on. So if you are coming to FLOW, you’ll see these diagrams again. My hope is that with a brief description, the diagrams will help people be able to reconnect with the moves. They also provide an additional modality for learning the move in the first place.
FLOW is right around the corner. If you’re planning on coming GET YOUR TICKET NOW! The button above will send you to Mollie, “HoopDazzle’s”, purchase page. For information on all the presenters, look here.
Schedule of Events:
FRIDAY, APRIL 10TH
· Arrive by 5pm at Summit High school. Check in until 5:30pm
· 5:30-6pm Introductions
· 6pm-8:30pm The Hoop Path Workshop with Baxter and Ann
In the first half of this extended inaugural workshop, Baxter will guide us towards Opening ourselves to the Way of Flow, exploring techniques that will clear a path in us so that we can experience this potentially transcendent force. Using his expertise as a group facilitator, Baxter will walk you closer to that quiet place within that is ready to both receive experience as well as listen to your own unique internal muse.
In the second half of the shop, Ann will lead us in the delightful play of Vertical Rolling, an off-body technique in which the hoop remains for the most part perpendicular (as opposed to horizontal). Off-body hooping can be a welcome break from the rigors and habits of core hooping, and it is also, incidentally, loads of fun. We will begin with a single hoop and slowly work our way up to two! Even if you’ve never hooped twins, you can enjoy some fun two-hoop play off-body in this workshop. Fear not, Yes You Can hoop with twins!
SATURDAY, APRIL 11TH
· 10:00-11am arrival/vending
· 11am-1pm SPIRAL
The Fabric of Flow:
Effort, intention, shape, weight, space, time, Flow. Using ideas of movement theory combined with hoop-specific exercises, we’ll explore beyond the idea of Flow as simply continuous movement and seamless transitions and look at different facets of initiating movement that imbue hoop Flow with emotional depth and stylistic range
· 1-1:30pm Break There will be lunch available for sale there or bring your own.
· 1:30-2:15pm FLOW PANEL DISCUSSION
· 2:30-4pm RICH
Diagrammatic Hooping: This class will explore moves through looking at the hoop’s relationship to space rather than the hoop’s relationship to the body. We will focus on the geometric patterns created by isolations and anti-spin. You will learn basic anti-spin, anti-spin quadrants, isolation variations, isolation transitions (isopops & isobreaks), and working with different isolated points. We”ll build off these elements to introduce concepts in creating high-contrast motions and explore the visual patterns created by the hoop. Once we learn these different geometries, they can be combined to create new interesting flow patterns.
· 4 to 5:15pm CANDICE
What Moves You Matters! Join Candice Schutter, Nia Black Belt & Life Coach, for a massive group coaching circle! Candice will lead us on a somatically-guided visualization journey to dialogue with the Radiance Within. We will spend time intimately connecting with what moves us, activating our most brilliant potential. The workshop will include journaling, hooping, and community interaction. Dive deep, connect to the truth, and send your life soaring.
· 5:30-7pm CHRISTABEL
Amplify Your Creativity with Floorplay and Zoom Hoops:
The seminar with has two parts: floorplay and ecstatic dance with micro twins. During the first hour, you will learn how to comfortably floordance while hooping (with a regular sized hoop). Explore how to maneuver expressively on muscle and soft tissue while pivoting, sliding, rolling and whirling. Surrender to the floor as a supportive dance partner. Achieve flow by allowing a rigid surface to relax tension. Part two of this seminar is an ecstatic dance experience with twin micro hoops! The purpose of Zooms is to create sacred geometries and other shapes for contemplation. They are tools for movement meditation as opposed to tools for fancy, athletic or high impact tricks. Zooms invite introspection and prayerful dance. Play with a variety of handholds and shapes. The goal is to use the smallness of the hoops to spark creativity in your dance. Bring: kneepads, your regular hoop and your own pair of 21-25 inch micro hoops or pre-order both to pick up at the retreat by emailing admin-AT-hoopgirl-DOT-com by April 5. There will also be a limited number of pairs on site for sale.
· 9pm-1am GHET DOWN DANCE PARTY. Enjoy getting to know everyone and groove the night away with a few of our f favorite local DeeJays who put the whomp in whomp whomp. This is a NO HOOP event, yeppers, that’s right. Show off your dance skills instead! Feel free to come as you are in the most outlandish attire or simply come in what feels good on your body. No host bar.
SUNDAY, APRIL 12TH
· 11-12:15 KHAN
This workshop presents a philosophical categorization of different hoop techniques. As such, the focus will not be on how to do specific moves, but will instead concentrate on theory and concepts of movement and how the conscious application of these can open up our flow. The goal is to help the hooper more easily click into flow, and to break out of ruts and plateaus. Participants should bring a small notebook or pad and something to write with in addition to their hoops.
· 12:30PM-2:00 PHILO
In the world of flow and hoop dance our legs are often forgotten, relegated to the steadfast and quiet role of simply keeping us standing or turning, possibly breaking out on rare occasions for a special trick and then being left behind. In this workshop we’ll be focusing on the wonder that is our legs and maximizing the contact of our hoop with them, in various ways, bringing our legs more fully into our hoop dance and hooping experience and creating greater balance within ourselves.
· 2PM-4PM ANAH
There are so many different ways that people enjoy the hoop. Meditation, yoga, performance art, dance, exercise, sensual awakener, business and probably many more that I don’t even now about! The hoop is like a blank canvas in which you can express and create whatever you wish! This workshop will help you expore your own personal skills and take them to the next level. Put THE DANCE IN YOUR HOOPDANCE!!! OH, YEAH!
4pm-5PM Massive Jam and closure of the weekend of FLOW.
Inquire about individual workshops or pay-by-the-workshop offerings in case a whole weekend of hooping isn’t in your time frame.
Contact mollie@hoopdazzle.com before April 8th.
See more pics from the Spinagogue Variety Show at Flux53’s photo gallery. See more photographs by Eric Weisz here.
SaFire is amazing. I’m stoked to get to spin with her in just a few short weeks at FLOW. This video demonstrates one more technical variation on thread the needle.
I have a lot to write on my performance for the Spinagogue Variety Show but I think I’m still processing. More to come soon.
1) Spare Connectors.
2) Digital Fish Scale. This is my favorite accessory. I like having hard data on my hoops, ie. 34″ I.D. 11 oz hoop. You can get a scale like this in any store that sells fishing supplies. I recommend the digital scales with accuracy to the oz. For hoop weighing purposes the cheap spring loaded scales don’t work nearly as well. This one cost about $30. Available on Amazon.com.
3) Bicycle lock. Lock your hoops to a bike rack outside so you don’t have to carry them up and down the canned foods aisle.
4) Tube cutters. Get some. Hacksaws are for hacks.
5) Mr. Zogg’s Sex Wax (Surf Board Wax), Tropical Water. Grant came up with the idea of waxing black sanded hoops. It works great. The hoops are super grippy, great for moves that require extra traction, like vertical duckouts. Plus it smells good.
6) 100 grit sand paper for sanding blank hoops. I also keep some other grits depending on the feel I’m looking for.
7) Large tool box with tape from Identitape.
8 ) Various tube sample from McMaster-Carr.
This is demonstration of what I call Pop -Slide – Pop.
I call a “pop” any motion where you are moving the hoop, then suddenly isolate your hand, allowing the hoops momentum to carry it in a full rotation. Does that make any sense? A “slide” is just a hoop shifting in a straight line without rotating.
I also show split time double pop-slide-pop.
Well I’ve been trying to budget my vacation time and hooping plans for the year. Then I got laid off so it looks like time off won’t be such an issue : )
Feb. 8th – Isopop: Santa Cruz Workshop
Mar. 21st-22nd, San Francisco, CA – Attending Hoop Path SF
Apr. 10th-12th, Bend, OR – NW Hoop Gathering
Apr. 24th, San Francisco, CA – Flow Show, flow arts showcase
Apr. 25th, San Francisco, CA – Temple of Poi Fire Dancing Expo
Apr 30th-May 3rd, Santa Cruz, CA – FireDrums
May 7th-11th, Carrboro, NC – Hoop Convergence
May 22nd-25th, Santa Barbara, CA – Lightning In a Bottle
June 18th – 21st, Carrboro, NC - Hoop Path Retreat
July 9th-12th, Willits, CA – Movement Play
Aug. 31st – Sept. 7th, Black Rock City, NV – Burning Man
Sept. 25th-27th, Santa Cruz CA – HoopCamp
Also, at some point I’ll be doing a workshop in San Francisco that will be called “Hooping for guys who don’t hoop.” More on that soon.
Last Spring, I started researching methods of producing lighter, stronger hoops. The old kids’ hoops from Wham-O were an obvious place to start. Could Wham-O make a better hoop than black polyethylene irrigation tubing? So I shot them an email out of curiosity asking if they had explored adult hoops. I received a very short email response stating that they had already begun manufacturing adult hoops which would be released in the spring of ’09.
Spring is quickly approaching. I’m very curious as to what a Wham-O adult hoop will be like. As far as I know, no one within the hooping community has seen the new product. Did they research size, weight, etc?
This could potentially have broad-reaching effects on our community. Since Wham-O has been pretty close-lipped about this, I can do nothing but speculate as to their strategy. Wham-O’s products are marketed to mainstream America, not to our little fanatic niche. My speculation is that they will be building low-end hoops that won’t satisfy “hoopers” but will provide an excuse to the rest of America to pick up an adult hoop. Will this be the catalyst for a second hoop craze?
Just received my new business cards. The cards say, “isopop, hoop performance teaching research.” I’m particularly fond of the research part.