Join the world famous Pontani Sisters, the Maine Attraction, Strange Powers, and more special guests for a romantic holiday evening set to sultry jazz favorites with a beauteous burlesque bent. Hooping like you’ve never seen sexy hooping before: set to live jazz music! At the Birchmere Music Hall. Show details: 7:30 pm on 14 February, [...]

Contact the Hooping Powers team from our CONTACT page TODAY to order your hoop for the holidays or in time for the super pop New Year’s Resolution of more exercise (read: PLAY!). Hoops for tots to elders are available in many colors, weights, and designs. Mini hoops start around $12/each for a set of two, [...]

Friends! Hoop-Lovers! Holiday-Lovers! Burlesque-Lovers! Come out to Baltimore’s Ottobar club this coming Saturday for a rare B’more treat: The World Famous Pontani Sisters from NYC will be gracing the stage in all of their foxy adorableness. The italian stallionettes will present their seasonal revue: BURLESQUE-A-PADES, HOLIDAY INN! And, in addition to the reigning queen of [...]

A beautiful, striking shot my friend Ricardo captured during my stay in Valdivia, southern Chile, a couple of years ago. The seagulls (las gaviotas) were migrating and can be seen as a wispy shadow above my hoops (mi palabra= upas) held high, with the moon (la luna) prettily peering out, too. <3

The revolution may or may not be televised, but it will most definitely be social-networkified, and it will ONE HUNDRED PERCENT be hoola hooped! Hooping was, is, and will always will be for me a true act of revolution~ not only of the physical variety (which is so infinitely cool) but also for the [...]

I cannot believe that I did not know about spin art until this week of my life. Not only am I a hooper (so naturally obsessed with mandalas and all things that orbit) but I had never set mine eyes on a spin art machine, much less even heard of it until I got a [...]

Over the last few months, no doubt thanks in large part to the incredible musical offerings of the MXP drum circle players on Sunday afternoons, I have been able to fuse my hooping with my dancing more and more seamlessly each time I enter the ring. Hoop-Dance fusion has always been my favorite ’style’ of [...]

My dear friends were such good sports taking the back seat of my auto with hoops monopolizing most of the space en route to our afternoon park-time. Tis the life of the hoop lovers~ we’ve gotta share our space and hoop love, at pretty much any cost. : )

Recently I was lighting some cleansing sage (a.k.a. salvia apiana) in my oh-so-woo-ish way and popped outside for a quick spin with the hoop~ I kept the burning sage in my hand as I twisted within the infinite ring~ spinning my torso both counter-directionally from it- and then also conjoined in a sustained spin… a [...]

Those of us in the hoop-know are also likely well aware of the hoop-feel-and-release phenomenon. Hooping & hoopdance help to process emotions quicker- just like movement in general…so that when we feel not only physical lethargy or stiffness, but mental anxiety, confusion, depression, or fear, we can literal step into the hoop to help stretch [...]

Hooping Powers is actively and joyfully booking out spring & summertime events for all things hooptacular! A sampling of our 2011 schedule includes: performance at an end of year school social, birthday parties for folks of all ages (youth AND adults!), summer camps for special needs groups of all ages (i.e. people with disabilities, folks [...]

This beautiful mandala is one of many different ones painted on my friends’ property in Santiago, Chile. I do not know of what artist to credit- but I am thankful for their creation. I love the 12 (paralleling astrological houses & signs, all 12-step programs, and the number of apostles, etc.) points on the [...]

For many of us, hooping practice affords us a chance to clear our minds and be with our breath, grounded & embodied. Whether actively spinning the circle around your core- constantly hugging your hips and heart space, stretching with the hoop as your body follows the curve of the ring, or simply & peacefully sitting [...]

Anyone that has a hoop or two or twenty has likely become well-acquainted with the nature of what I like to call hoop funk shui- the challenge of flowful transport & placement of your hoop/s in your abode or practice space. It’s quite humbling (and often frustrating) after a super fluid and inspiring session of [...]

If you live in Baltimore City you’ve probably seen this dedicated fella named Spilly (pictured above) who has been unfailingly spreading the hoopLOVE throughout B’more for well over a year, most visibly every Saturday morning at the northern end of the Waverly Farmer’s Market. Super. Impressive. Spilly. Thanks for getting B’more hooped! Sooo… Spilly and [...]

Thanks to the sharing spirit of stilt-owner Tom yesterday at the MXPark play & drum circles, I got to go up on stilts & try my hips at hooping! I’ve been ‘up’ once or twice before, but this was the impetus for me to get more into stilting (with hooping, of course) and share the [...]

This past month’s workshop with the talented acro-hoop instructors Marria & Zach of Hoop Ninja fame proved to be a super fun (and also an admittedly exhausting!) time. Three straight hours of inversions and one-handed cartwheels and carrying another’s body weight was way more strenuous activity than I’m used to in a given day. And [...]

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 [...]

I recently came across this wonderful gem of a book: Healing Mandalas, which is of course all about mandalas and their innate healing qualities. Lisa Tenzin-Dolma offers a wealth of information to expand your consciousness and exploration of mandala meditation as the hugely healing practice that it is. Not only are the words a breath [...]

Recently I was asked in a circle of spinners to share my current favorite hoop move. My answer was actually: “Hoopstretching.” For those of us who regularly use a hoop to assist us in our various stretching practices, we know that there’s an ability to experience a broader range of movement in the rather [...]

That’s about it. Stay safe on the roads and warm hooping wishes wherever you find yourself this evening. Hope to see you all next week!
xox
sTrAnGe PoWeRs

Joe’s Movement Emporium is closed in honor and observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day~ therefore there will be no evening hoop class tonight. Happy hooping wherever you may be today. Please join us next week for more practice and play in the ring of revolution, and happy birthday Dr. King! In gratitude for those [...]

Here’s a swank-diddilyOcious hoop shot of a fancy Friendship Heights shore on the MD-DC line I spotted not long ago. Most hoopers know what a stunning symbol & frame the hoola hoop naturally makes. A growing number of hoopers are also aware of the powerful meditative qualities of the hoop or ‘mandala’ to calm oneself, [...]

There are infinite fun things you can do with hoops as props and tools for movement play- beyond the traditional & popular ’spinning it around you’ concept. Here are some of my favorites: You can make a ‘hoopscotch’ course on the ground and then jump through them one by one- or toss a hacky sac [...]

Greetings friends of the revolution! Baltimore and the greater DMV areas are beaming with more hoopers than you can shake a hundred sticks at, and methinks it’s high time we meet and greet and spin with one another. Please come out, up, over, or however you have to travel to get to our Holiday Hoop [...]