In Defense of Hooping

B (my ex-spouse) and I got into a debate recently because we were talking about hooping (which – he insists – is a term that hula hoopers unfairly ripped off from basketball players), and he was describing a girl who he would always see these past few summers around Uptown and Lake Calhoun, hula hooping. After asking a few questions I figured out exactly who he was talking about. I know her. She was one of my inspirations to try hooping. He said she seemed like a “freak” and was walking around in these super skimpy, cutesy outfits and dancing with her hula hoop, “trying to get attention.” That last part really, REALLY hit a nerve with me, with all the agonizing I do about the questionable image I present by choosing to hula hoop in public in a smallish Asian town.

“Okay,” I said, “So, B, you’re good at writing lyrics and rapping, and you love it, so you get up on a stage in front of hundreds of people as often as possible to show your talent and entertain them and hopefully inspire them, and be inspired to get better at what you do, right?”

“Yeah?”

“So why the f-ck couldn’t she simply be doing the same thing with a different form of creative expression?! Because it’s sexy? Oh, GOD, you can’t possibly be doing something that could be interpreted as sexy unless you’re a promiscuous, sexual attention-craving freak, right?”

Issues.

Issue, issues, issues. We all have them. All kinds of different people, for all kinds of different reasons.

(To B’s credit, at the end of our discussion he admitted I had opened his eyes a bit and he understood better that it’s a form of performance art, which he hadn’t realized.)

This woman, I told him, is an older (like, OUR age), single mom. She is – as far as I know – THE pioneer hooper in Minneapolis. She inspired my friends to learn hooping, and they in turn inspired dozens of others, including me. She teaches hooping for a living. She supports herself with it, and the reason she is so good is because she has dedicated a HUGE portion of her life and her time and her energy to getting better and better. To be one of the best. Why should she not have just as much of a right to show her talent to others as you do? Because she’s not selling tickets? Because she likes to dress sexy when she does it? Because her openess made you feel weird or embarrassed?

I had a bit of a freak-out session, but I calmed down. It’s just my own internal struggle, lately.   A performance-identity-crisis, or sorts.

I tried hooping at first because my friend Kara, who I idolize and adore, was doing it non-stop. Just like everyone else, the only thing I did at first was hoop around my waist and try to keep it from falling to the ground as long as possible. The first time I tried it at one of the notorious Kingman Studio parties, in front of people, I was feeling out of place and insecure. It was a couple years ago and I was just starting to be able to go out and really socialize again after my divorce, but still felt really fragile and vulnerable, and was in need of a social-lubricant/protectant other than alcohol.

I hooped with one of Kara’s practice hoops out on the dance floor, experimenting with timing my movements to the music the DJ was spinning, and discovered I could sort of dance and hoop at at the same time. Then a guy approached me.  He was wasted. I didn’t want to talk to him. I kept hooping and in doing so, I created this physical barrier of space between us. I couldn’t hear him over the music, from the distance the barrier created, and I just smiled benignly at him and kept hooping.

Eventually the unwelcome jackass stepped into the orbit zone so I could hear him talk, and knocked the hoop out of the air. I was irritated by this, because I’d had a nice rhythm going. But I picked up the hoop, handed it to him, smiled and made a gesture that said, “Well, you knocked it down so you go ahead and try it now!” Of course, just like nearly every straight guy, he tried it about three times, felt embarrassed and silly, and handed it back to me.  Perfect.

I had discovered a way to carve out my own little space bubble when I wanted a safe place to enjoy the party.

A little time went by and I was asked to model at a fashion show in the warehouse district. After modeling the dresses, both Kara (who’d been hired to hoop and dance) and Brant encouraged me to hoop, telling me (when I hesitated) that even though I didn’t really know any “tricks” I had a sense of the music and timing (from DJing, etc.) that made my simple waist-hooping fun to watch.

Their encouragement meant so much to me. I was almost instantly suspicious, because it seemed like too much encouragement, but this was during that precious time when we were all becoming very close friends and sort of falling in love with each others’ energy. They knew my past and knew my present and must have felt that it was really important to encourage this new potential form of creative expression. And it was a crucial time. I really needed it.

A year later I was performing with Kara and Nicole, going to grueling and (for me) nerve wracking practice sessions at the studio. They were both so much more experienced as dancers, learned new moves so much faster, were so much more graceful and more sexy than I was. My own nerves and comparisons to them severely hindered my progress.

I know that now because as soon as I started hooping again after my pregnancy (once my waist disappeared at 5 months, I had to stop, really), which was just after arriving in Thailand, I improved by leaps and bounds I hadn’t thought myself capable of. Why? Because I was the only one doing it. I had no one to compare myself to but myself. I was already the best, in my own little world, and I could only get better.

At the same time, I was also  becoming  addicted to the workout it provided. It got my heart rate somewhere close to 165 at its highest point, I’m guessing, and worked out every inch of my body. Best of all, it was giving me a path to experiencing my precious Dubstep music in a physical way, once again, now that I’d left the Dubstep scene in rainy England far behind.

Things seem balanced, strong,  revolving and evolving when I look toward my future with hoop dancing.  I’ve never felt this about any physical activity before, and I am incredibly grateful for it.

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