Method
My exploration follows the belief that the hoop's signature function is the ability to illuminate and amplify the inner spirals -and figure-8’s- fundamental to our body's mechanics. With the right imagery and physical understanding, it has the power to soften and enhance those functions and to grant not only a powerful meditation practice but also the euphoric reward of being swept into momentous gusts of folding waves and spirals.
Over the years I've meandered through chapters guided by this framework : Transitional Space, Barrels, Figure 8's, Floor Hooping, Shoulder articulation, and a class called Riding the Elements. Each is an addition in the web of understanding.
Click on one to learn about it and check out these ways to jump in
aka: "The Wave Current"
So before I turned into a psycho-nerd, a lot of my hooping was inspired by an imagined landscape
of colorful textures that surrounding me. An oil painter at the time, I responded to the imagery as I saw
it underlying the music I heard, often throwing myself into it and using my hoop as a craft-like vehicle to
surf through it.
I looked incredibly high. It's okay, though.
Transitioning between planes is sometimes a matter of willingness to let it happen, physically and mentally:
On a physical level, the hoop is inevitably going to fall if you stop applying force to it. That's science. Yay. So in small doses, a loose handling allows for it to develop it's own path in finding a resting point. And with that mentality we can just enjoy it.
Being comfortable hooping minus a "move" is where new movement emerges (even if in glimmers, when we lose it and find the recovery). There are pockets and pathways and ramps that become the tools for navigation, rather than the map to where you are. There's a softening into that experience and even into the space itself. And it can be paired with and carried into our dynamic movements as well, giving new wind to the moves we love.
For the sake of context and functionality, the class does contains a grid-like framework to be built from.
But in an ideal world (aka, my f*cking website, bitches), this is a class about "catching waves": Engaging the space with our hoops; listening to nuances in balance and subtle hints in momentum; forming ramps and seeing them through. It's a personal fav. I think you'll like it. :)
This class has had a few different incarnations, so there's more on it written below. But generally, this is a class on spinning. Spinning on the vertical plane and sometimes isolating the hoop while doing that. I like to rely on an exchange between myself and the hoop that carries me through the movement. I think that some of the most spectacular looking maneuvers can be made much easier by establishing a studentship to them.
Following the hoop at times, actually waiting to be pulled and guided by it, can help to bring us there. There are more tools for this than I will ever come across. But in the meanwhile, as far as this class goes, I'm primarily interested in taking note of the tension that arises in the preparation of movements; the strain that occurs despite the physical elements that could rather be working in our favor. Often hoop movements are accomplished in spite of the elements at play, rather than in response to them. But the hoop can actually be used at a compass for this- our awareness to nuances occurring. Sometimes I like to say that the "move" is actually the experience. ...and
Alternation
Everyone has their thing. For me, it’s staying in flux.
Remaining just off balance, teetering asymmetrically around the center of gravity, I really enjoy developing a rhythm of alternation; not just between myself and the hoop, but between the upper and lower halves of my body. I love it when a spin is perpetuated by an exchange in leadership this way. The hips and legs pull the chest and arms that then pull the hips and legs, etc. etc. With a hoop at hand, it’s all the more: like having an upper-body tail-- an extension of the top half that adds both dynamism with its added momentum and softness with its signature curve.
In that way the momentum (or “flow,” as it feels to be) is never set stagnant or stabilized in a set position, but rather sent circulating between ourselves and the hoop; the hoop serving as both a facilitator in the movement and a measuring stick by which to observe our fluidity of motion.
In a “Barrels” class that includes the word “alternating” in the title, we will mostly likely be adding a secondary spin to the initial roll I like to teach. After following the hoop through the first barrel, the momentum should be returned to us, allowing for an additional “pop,” with any luck, at a nice rhythm. And there’s arms and feet and backs and heads: a TON of understanding to be gleaned from adherence to the pathway of this undulating circuit. It’s a lovely time. And it’s looks good ;)
Body Consciousness
For just a minute, let’s assume that effort to be smooth and flowy is just a catalyst for gentler movements that don’t hurt your body. My guess is- that by allowing the hoop to lead at times, we can be taught more effectively by it: not just because of the attention brought to the hoop, but also because of the awareness brought to ourselves in reference to the hoop.
To make it brief, I’ll just talk about me. I can say that the way I adjust myself structurally is inspired by the effort to catch the wave of momentum I feel with the hoop and to emulate it, often as subtly as possible. It’s a work in progress that I’m discovering what comparative effect the hoop actually has on our bodies. I recognize that it has a very specifically coiled and twisted nature, perhaps not entirely for the better. So who knows?
But on my part, I’ve taken interest in the understanding of joint ranges and useful body limitations that have definitely resulted in making the hoop moments really soar and recycle. It’s an exciting system: two objectives incidentally facilitating each other and creating a dynamic alignment. It’s the most entertaining form of self-care I’ve come across, at least.
And in this class it’s very conspicuous, the benefits of listening to the limits are point blank and may actually even ignite a new interest in more of the same in other movements.
Figure 8's
Weaving and tipping, darting around, “navigating.” Like a fish. Actually, the imagery we
all picked out one year was of the “Stevie Wonder fish,” because of the head sometimes
swaying back and forth in a figure 8.
As it applies to the Barrels class, I like to use the basic “weave” in introducing a moment of limbo (or redirection), wherein you can take the momentum from a spin or “roll” and send it off in the direction of your choosing. The weave is good for this: shifting one way and the other: clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise (relative to you body, not the space). And the redirection of the “8” is portrayed very directly in the weave. You can find it in other movements as well, however, that share this undulation and can similarly ride the tail of a barrel roll and branch out into the transitional space.
Where it really interests me is that by understanding how to slightly adjust your body to accommodate these patterns, we can learn how to essentially get “out of the way” of the redirecting momentum and “navigate” the space very smoothly.
And once again, the smoothness can be alternately used as a catalyst or a measuring stick for toward better understanding of your body. Sometimes a simple drop of the shoulder or shifting of weight can change everything. Asymmetry plays a roll; observing gravity. It all fits together in a woven combination of elements that we can choose from an reconnect in riding these “waves of flow.”
Dynamic Floor Hooping:
n.
- Contemporary dance movements that utilize the hoop’s momentum and promote a continued exchange. This class is not as hard as you might think. I like to go deep rather than big (..though deep becomes big with momentum) so we’ll be starting real small, and at a pace that you decide…
For me the hoop has always been a teacher that grants a uniquely internal sense of fluidity and rhythm that defines it for me as a practice. So it’s fortunate for us addicts, that this signature element is just as apparent while hooping on the floor.
More so, the experience of being led by the hoop reaches a whole new depth here --as the discovery of “new feet,” in our thighs, backs, forearms, etc. invariably invites a new sense of listening-- and in a very safe way that’s more accessible than you’d think. …seriously.
Why :
So, the first time I ever envisioned this stuff was attending a class called the "Axis Syllabus" in San Francisco. The teacher was an astounding dancer and teacher named Kira Kirsch, who'd learned with its founder, Frey Faust.
The phrases and sequences I saw demonstrated in class appeared to be the height of organic movement (imagine the whole room of dancers as fallen leaves swirling across the floor). And though I couldn't emulate any of the movements that day, I could feel it all in my body. I was determined to take it all home...
and spend what turned out to be the next several years integrating the hoop into those movements.
Incidentally, that particular study turned out to be much more complex than any set of movement sequences: tiny bones and micro pathways and strict joint ranges defining the safest path of least resistance. To say the least. It aspired toward an "ideal" that the founder, himself, said would never be met.
Rad.
Having taken the hoop as another ideal for so long, it seemed appropriate to get those kids together.
"Floor hooping" was from then on a deepening of research into the hoop: what influence does it actually have on our movement when applied to our bodies' ground zero, ideal mechanics? The pursuit of determining what the hoop affords us may finally have a control to work with.
Could it possibly add a sweeping current of wind to those leaves, adding vortex and gusto, bringing roundness and expediting the process via its reference? Or is the hoop just a tack-on, distorting the physics for the sake of maintaining the hoop niche?
...the answer so far: somewhat both, but mostly the good stuff.
So the great "Floor Hooping Experiment!!!" has been established and continues.
I put in a lot of work.
I've mapped it; taught it.
And others now do with it as they will.
...and one of them are probably going to break something one of these days,
and don't look at me.
In a collective art form we don't choose what sticks. And that's important to accept.
I never planned on my transitional waves class to turn into "the smear."
And I never planned on floor hooping to take off with such break-dancerly ambition -though hot af.
It used to irk me at first- when material was performed by others without the nuance that defined it for me.
But in the end, thank God it's out of my hands.
Seriously.
It's a true honor that I can only take as the highest artistic achievement within our tiny little niche here, that the things I've worked on have all outgrown me -and they look damn good on other people.
Shoulder transfers and everything around them are totes my jam. They were the first set of tricks I was into and now there are tons of them. This class could really be called "lifts, stalls, sweeping, breathing, shoulders and circuitry. and pow!
It covers one of my favorite movement circuits: the one I use to ground and build power on the horizontal plane. By lifting in an alternating rhythm and adding some on-body stalls and dramatic sweeping, you’ll find a whole spectrum of engagement with the hoop- from responsive to assertive. Adding attention to the breath and slight bounce then encourages a more full-bodied experience, right on time for the shoulder transfer (around the back, from one shoulder to the other) to come into play and send this circuit outward.
An interactive exploration of flow genres within an imagined ecosystem. Land, wind, water and fire; tied together by infinity! This class is fun, expressive and as deeply technical as you want to go. For anyone familiar with my “Waves” class, this is a similar exploration with added options for personalization, as well as group interaction and technical nuance. I think you’ll like it. Remember this description later, as this is actually an accurate description of the class.
