Sunday 27 January 2013

Hooping with the kids.


It's been a sociable summer for us this year. Nearly every weekend John and I are invited out to parties, drinks or barbecues. Being an introvert, I have a limited tolerance for social gatherings but I do enjoy getting together with friends on a sunny evening for some good food and good conversation.

We had a barbecue for some friends at our house on Friday night, and afterwards I reflected on how much hooping has changed my social interactions. Most places I go I take hoops with me, and I often end up hooping with a bunch of kids on the back lawn. On Friday night I spent at least an hour hooping with my friend Brendan's 11 year old daughter, Laura [she's wearing the white t-shirt in the photo above]. I showed her hooping tricks and while we hooped we talked about her favourite books, her school, and her family.

I used to be the person who talked to the women about their children, and the men about sport and politics [and yes, I still do that]. I never took much notice of the kids. But kids - both boys and girls - adore playing with hoops and usually don't have the inhibitions their parents do.

So that's where you'll usually find me at parties these days. Hooping with the kids.


Saturday 12 January 2013

Summer ... and some goals


Ah summer ... I love you so.

My summer break was all too brief – six days off at Christmas – but it was enough to spend a couple of days with my love at a bach in Himatangi, just across the road from the sand dunes.

We ate simple meals, turned our phones off, read a lot, slept a lot, walked on the beach, and watched a thunderstorm at sunset from the top of the dunes. We even had our first surf of the season. Bliss!

And, of course, I hooped and he kicked his football around.

My hooping has been spasmodic over the past few weeks. I’ve hooped every day but it might only be five minutes when I first get out of bed in the mornings. My gym membership has run out and at the moment I can’t afford to renew it. So I’m limited to hooping indoors [mind that television!] or in the garden when the weather’s fine and not too windy. When I do hoop I feel quite unfit!

I’m not worried. These past 10 months I’ve thrown myself so utterly into my hooping that it’s good for me to have a break. I’m hooping purely for the fun of it and that's exactly what it is.

Soon enough my classes will begin for the year, and that will be the time to start my practice again.

These are my hooping goals for 2013:

+Attend New Zealand Hoopfest 2013

+Complete Level 1 of Hoopnotica Teacher Training

+Expand the range of hoopdance classes I teach

+To give a hoopdance performance [eek!]

+Learn how to make my own hoops and sell them

+Master knee hooping [my nemesis!]

+Master shoulder duck-outs

+Complete the Budding series of hoop tutorials