I am pretty much in love with light, mini arm & hand hooping these days. My time in Chile just over a year ago really jump-started this relationship, even though I had done it a bit before the trip~ but without as much intention nor attention regarding the many positive & often subtle impacts it was having on other parts of my life. I recently received movie clips captured in the Valdivian rainforest of my first natural exploration with mini hoops in hand. The videos (a portion of which is shown above) were produced by my friend Karin {y Ricardo tambien} whom I had the pleasure to meet during those few months I spent in South America, falling into winter~ 2009.

Core or torso hooping helps you be embodied and feel your core energy centers hugged. What an extraordinary gift to self in this day and age: positive & joyful touch and play, in a not-so-sexual yet body-positive, super sensual and self-loving kind of way, hugging around your belly, pelvis, & heart spaces. There is perhaps nothing to the hooper more personal and basic and raw and intimate as core hooping. Or so I thought- and still do, in certain ways. However, my mind has been super-charged of late through the motion of *lightly-weighted, miniature hooping on the left and right arms/hands/sides of body space. *I prefer a super light grade of tubing for tiny minis. This I feel allows me to focus more on the dance of hoopdance. It’s really up to your stylistic preferences- remembering that heavier tubing (even if only 125 PSI) is going to go a little slower and not fly of the fingers quite as fast.

When I first began “neo” hooping in 2005, I marveled at the brain training that waist hooping afforded me. It was obvious: I could tell core hooping was extraordinarily helpful as my balance increased, and I felt steadied in thoughts & emotions through bilaterally stimulating the two halves of my brain. If core hooping is a brain-boosting college class, arm-hand hooping is the doctoral level of brain training. In the vein of Poi-style object manipulation, arm-hooping is simultaneously a challenge AND a graceful flowing mix; at once the New York Time’s Sunday crossword AND an Alvin Ailey dancer. And cutie baby hoops.

In the last year, I have started to make arm-hooping a standard part of my personal hoopdance practice as well as many of my hoop classes. Sometimes it’s challenging to leave the comforting core space~ but I do believe it’s a risk worth taking & well worth any struggle, in my humble hooper experience. The rewards abound and continue to come ’round. Have you yet ventured off your core for more?