How Hooping Can Change Your Life - Feel the Magic

When I first picked up a hula hoop little did I know of the impact it would have on my life.

The hoop challenged me from the very beginning. I could keep it going on my core and that was about it. Spinning on my waist felt somewhat natural but adding other moves hurt my head.

As my experience grew, I realised mastering the hoop could only happen by tuning into my body and minimising thought.

Sure I may need to send ninja-precise instructions to nail complex tricks but when I keep the hoop on my body, and focus on connection, I have a completely different experience. I have to, above all else, feel until that certain something clicks just like magic.

When you hoop off body, you have to activate thought until it becomes one with your hands. When you hoop on body, you enter a magical movement meditation. 

The repetitive rhythm that you MUST tune into becomes the mantra.

MUST. FOCUS. ON. HOOP. OR. HOOP. DROPS.

No time for thinking. Feel and repeat.

Hooping is a powerful tool for calming your mind and centring your body. 

Now, if you are anything like me, you find meditation challenging! Here's a solution.

Movement meditation is a fantastic alternative (and wonderful addition) to sitting on a cushion in stillness. Whatever it takes to relax the mind and energise the body, right?

And while you've probably heard it over and over again that meditation is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your life, to which you respond yeh yeh but... there's something about hooping that sitting on a cushion may not be able to offer.

I received a lovely email from one of my students this week. She writes, 

"I've fallen in love with hooping! I do it every night and just play with a huge smile on my face blasting music. I'm feeling more cheerful and graceful, my dreams are even more vivid!" Simone

Now that's magic if we consider magic to be alchemical change.

Hooping is so incredibly creative and playful - there are so many options to choose and cruise with. Hooping on body, off body, discovering the oneness of your hooping hands with instinctual flow rather than thought. Moving with the music and dance, your whirl becomes a trance, you find yourself in a hoop romance... 

WARNING! You *may* breakup.

But were you ever really in it for the hoop itself or was it what the hoop opened up in you that sucked you into the vortex?

On a FaceBook thread in response to Sandra Safire's article, "How long can you hoop for?" I replied, 

Second decade in and still going strong with a few blowouts on the side. For me it's not actually the hoop that holds me - it's the creative energy that it ignites. From this, I can choose my own adventure - hoop, write, draw, dance, capture images and ideas, breathe, be - all within the paradigm of creative movement and transformation. The hoop is a gateway prop for navigating and enjoying life. It teaches me how to be a creative change agent.

That's what I'm in it for - to feel the magic and to make creative change in my life. What about you?

Hoop Hugs

BunnyHoopStar*xo