Tips for Hooping Every Day

xposted at Hoop for 100 Days Challenge @ Hoopcity.ca

A challenge can present itself with struggles which require creativity to overcome. Whether you are using the curriculum I have posted in the beginning ----100 Day Hoop Curriculum-----or you are just trying to hoop for 100 days, there are going to be some tribulations! Having gone through this before, I may have some tips that you will find useful to maintaining a daily hoop practice and completing a 100 day challenge!

- Pick the right music. If you are hooping in silence or to tunes that the radio chooses, you will find you are going to be lacking inspiration. I research music that makes me want to move and then I put it on my playlist during my hoop time. Its very important to have the right motivation. Anything that gets your hips moving will do.
- Anytime is the right time. You may not have 60 minutes to devote to hooping at any point in the day. If I hear some music while I'm out gardening that makes me want to dance, I do it! Break the hooping time up if you have to.
- Make sure you are still focusing on your health on your rest days. Its important to use your rest days to do something new and exciting. It can even be a walk in a new place or to spend the entire day at a spa! Something that takes you out of your element will help.
- Warm up with a short exercise. Whenever I go for a 10 minute walk or do a vigorous activity that elevates my heart rate, I always hoop better! Its also better for your joints to have them properly warmed up. So don't forget to stretch or warm up!
- Integrate dancing styles. I love to take different dance or aerobics classes and add elements of it into my hoopdance. I love belly dancing for its arm movements and salsa for the footwork!
- Research other hoopdancers. I love to use Youtube to find other hooping techniques or tutorials that I want to master. It can be very exciting/confidence building to conquer them as well!
- Get in your alone time. Sometimes you have to "dance like no one is watching"... I'd like to add the caveat that you should also dance like you aren't watching anyone. haha. I have 2 kids and I cannot watch and hoop without it taking away my attention every second. So I make sure to get my time alone - away from the house if need be. Which leads me to the next tip:
- Find a new place to hoop. Location, location. Hooping in the park near strangers who may in fact be interested in that circular dance you got going on can be a great motivator. I find myself going into performer mode and hooping with better fluidity and speed with an audience. You will likely find an admirer, even if you're not "all that" of a hooper. Prepare for compliments and questions. Bring a stereo and an extra hoop! Jam it up!
- Hoop Jams! There are often hoop jams in major cities and if there isn't, you should definitely join FOSTERING HOOP COMMUNITIES@HOOPCITY.CA and make one! There are a lot of great tips there. If there is already one in your area you damn well better be there on hoopday. If you can't make it then I suggest connecting with others that go and see if they would make a new day with you somewhere else!
- Teach a friend. I guarantee you have a friend that would love to hoop if they knew how. You will definitely learn by teaching, too. When you  have to break down a move for someone step by step you will make realizations you would not have found otherwise.
- Caffeineeeeee. I don't like to promote drugs: but caffeine and B vitamins are definite motivators for me sometimes. I will make an ice coffee or take a B Complex Vitamin before I want to hoop and then I will be out there by the mere energy that these supplements provide. Even if I didn't want to hoop when I took them - they never fail me.
- Mind over matter. If you don't want to be a vitamin popper or jittery java queen/king, you can always use the tried and true mind over matter. You know you will love it when you are out there. You are going to be happy when you are finished. You can do it. Affirmations rock! I also like to keep EXERCISE QUOTES printed out and posted on the fridge to keep me on track with my health.
- Meditation and Prayer. I have cried hooping, laughed hooping, labored a child hooping... I have hooped myself out of depression, out of a weight gain, and into a new sense of self. I became someone who has less fear, more strength, and patience. I like to think the hoop brought all of that to me. Or at least gave me the direction and the time to find it.
I also use it to pray. I meditate health in the sickly and peace for the world. I think it works. With each revolution I imagine a loved one's tumor shrinking or my metabolism eating away at my fat stores. The energy is there. I am producing it with each push of the hoop. I don't see why I can't spend a small amount of my hoop time to step away from the world for a second and feel my heart chakra reaching out into the world and spreading the joy of that warm white light within all of us.