Reflections: Northwest Hoop Gathering—Part I

It’s Monday night at the Portland airport. My entire body feels altered—there’s a lightness in my joints and bones, and a gentle heavy awareness in my muscles that can feel like pain if I move quickly. What’s been descending over the last few hours as Baxter, Beth and I said our goodbyes to Rob and Donna (our incredibly groovy, lovable hosts in Bend) and drove over the snowy pass back to Portland, is a hoop melancholia, a lovebuzz hangover that is the by-product of too much joyful dance, conversation, and belly laughter. Would that all hangovers were the result of such overindulgences…

Having to travel to and from the East Coast, my post-hoop-fest reflections are regularly subject to the mundane interruptions of desperate pre-flight sleeping, cross-country hoop transfer, and car rental return. This trip in particular we were compelled to soak up every possible minute we could with our delightful hosts as well as the scores of dear friends we were so lucky to have all in one place at one time (not even counting workshop presenters): Heather HooperPower and mARTa, Jasmine, Xta, Sparks Evolution, Doug Snowflake, Jennaluna…the list could go on ad nauseam. I can’t even believe we got to sit down and have a meal with just about everyone above PLUS SaFire, whom we met for the first time (and who ROCKS), Doug’s fiancé Dara (who made us cookies—choco chip and dried cranberry—oh my god--), THE Philo, Dave & Christine--our hosts in Vancouver in ’07, Jonalyn and Natasha (feeling a terrible dread I have your name wrong—but I do remember you and your gorgeous happy blue eyes!), the beautiful Miss Rosie, sweet Serena Doodlebug, PLUS Hoopalicious herself and her man Franck! Not only that, Revolva made a heroic journey to Bend, altering her schedule at the last possible second to come & bliss out with us. And the thing is, I haven’t even hardly gotten started yet…

Here’s the deal: The Northwest Hoop Gathering in Bend surpassed every possible expectation I ever could have had. I had hoped it would stir the conversation about our theme, Flow, into a community-wide exploration. What happened was that my fellow workshop presenters freaking blew my mind in serial fashion and in my opinion occasioned a full paradigm shift in the world of hooping—a great leap forward into a land of conceptual frameworks and meshing theories where our art pings off of ideas developed through more traditional disciplines such as movement, design, and physics. In my wildest hoop dreams, I couldn’t have come up with anything better.


Reflections: Northwest Hoop Gathering—Part II

Back home in NC, rested and replenished. Wanting so much to record some pieces of this phenomenal weekend before they fade away!

So, as I was saying, to me this gathering represented a real paradigm shift in hooping, away from simple mechanics and/or styles, into deeper and richer terrain—the land of the intellect (one of my favorite places) where philosophies can turn into shapes, conceptual frameworks take on mass and velocity, where our academic and critical traditions make resounding collisions with a bunch of colorful plastic rings---if you will, the NW Hoop Gathering was, for me, the thinking person’s hoop retreat. Not to dis any other event (including out own BELOVED Annual Hoop Path Retreat—coming up on Year Three in June 09!)—but for me the overall scope and ambition of this event was clearly different from anything that has gone before, and I feel deeply enriched by it.

Baxter and I were honored to kick things of with a dose of soul (Bax) followed by a shot of literary tradition (yours truly). I hoped to bring people’s awareness closer to the ways that the Hoop Path’s focus on myth and archetype fits within humanity’s age-old practices of storytelling, myth-making, and hero worship. I wanted to show how these practices help us build on our human strengths, which are every bit as real, powerful, and important as our oft-lamented weaknesses. I thank my Honey for opening the space for me and for all of us to share our insights, no matter how wacky they might sounds to non-hoopers---the moment I remember best is Bax shouting into the microphone, to everyone’s delight: “I AM A SPIRITUAL HOOPER! I AM A SPIRITUAL HOOPER! I DON’T CARE HOW WEIRD IT SOUNDS!” That was exactly what we needed to shake of any apprehension and dive headlong into the wilderness of hoopgnosis, which sustains us all.

Strong, shining Spiral opened Saturday morning with a workshop that blazed new trails in the evolution and re-contextualization of the hoop movement by bringing in the ideas of a branch of movement theory called Laban, a whole system for understanding human movement which isolates its various qualities and properties. This was a delightful shift in awareness, bringing focus to some of the more abstract and subtle dimensions of movement, and I felt new connections everywhere. These ideas feel very much in line with a specific pleasure I’ve felt more and more as my practice becomes more nuanced. Here is a wiki quote that touches on this correspondence: “Laban described a complex system of geometry based on crystalline forms, Platonic solids, and the structure of the human body. He felt that there were ways of organizing and moving in space that were specifically harmonious, in the same sense as music can be harmonious.” There’s so much more to say about this, but for now I’ll just give big big thanks to Spiral for bringing in this fascinating piece that gave me so much to think about.

Next up we had Rich of Isopop, who brought a whole nother realm of thought into our hoops: diagram and design. With an absolutely nifty professional pamphlet, showing simple, precise visuals of what he was discussing, Rich turned our focus to the geometric, asking us to be aware of the shapes the hoop made in space around us (we were using the hoop off-body, in what the Hoop Path would call the Vertical Plane), while at the same time remaining focused on the center of the circle and/or, as the case may be, on its point of rotation—all different aspects of the hoop in space. Seeing the hoop, arm, and core as design elements again changed the framework—now I could concentrate on the hoop primarily as a shape and notice all the differences, as it changed its relationship to the core, in terms or pure geometry. Another refreshing shift that gave me new ways to think about and play with the hoop. Rich—you are a badass! Thank you!

The divine Candice of SHiNE pulled us inward to look at what might be holding us back from reaching towards or being open to growth. She invited us to reconsider which voices we allow to guide us—are we listening to those that might be afraid of transformation and change? What is coming between us and our biggest, craziest dreams? Could it be something as small as a judging voice? These are the vital questions I took from Candice’s talk and our discussion. They continue to resonate.

Our dear friend Christabel closed the day with a delicious relaxation into the floor—I loved having yet another reason to step away from my habitual relationship with my hoop (me standing, the hoop either on the core or off-body on the horizontal or vertical plane). Instead of standing on my feet, I was invited to sink down to the floor and enjoy the full sensation of support as my hoop swung above me. It certainly shows the limits of my imagination, that I had never even explored lying on the floor with my hoop! I enjoyed attempting full rolls on the floor while passing the hoop behind me—very, very challenging, but wonderfully feminine and fun. I also loved revisiting sitting and kneeling with the hoop on the core—another different relationship I often forget about. Christabel finished the day meditating with the tiny mini-hoops. My set are 21” diameter and I love playing with them, though mine are in perpetual motion when I pick them up. It was lovely to hold them still and explore yet another configuration with core and hoop—holding the minis separately, or twinned in a spaceball, I felt a sense of peace and unhurried-ness as we ended our day in contemplation.

Sunday started off with another real conceptual advance: Khan’s discussion of particle-wave theory with regard to the hoop and its relationship to the body. This is another set of ideas I feel a strong kinship with, having had many experiences inside my hoop where I felt new understandings of the principles of physics, subatomic and macro alike. The simple pairing of velocity and the circle just on its own could constitute a book’s worth of discussion. Khan’s overview of the behavior of light and matter on this quantum level brought language and form to some of these early hoop experiences, where I could at times, rolling the hoop off-body, sense a grid of possible energetic paths it could follow, and “see” this grid in my mind’s eye. I was powerfully inspired by this workshop (Khan’s FIRST!) and I look forward to see the next wave of ideas he surely will be rolling out. Thanks, Flow Bro!

Next up was the delightful Philo who wowed us all with his leg prowess and his hilarious tales of hoop days gone by. Honestly, he should post the story of how BAH came into being somewhere—either on video or in writing—it’s priceless! I was truly impressed as his versatility on the legs and the way he brought everyone in on the lesson—inviting students to show any leg move they could think of. It was a really fun departure from some of the more serious, heady themes of other workshops—which I was obviously ALL ABOUT, but still, it’s great to take a break and just play and romp around with the hoop. Philo also impressed me with his utter relaxation and natural humor. The chillaxed air he brought to the class allowed everyone to have a good time with what for most of us is the most difficult part of hooping—using the legs. Thank you, Philo—you are awesome.

And finally—what could anyone say?—Anah Hoopalicious herself! She stunned everyone into jaw-on-the-floor silence with her demos (some of which have already been posted on Facebook) and in general brought it all home with a strong sense of hoop-family and just the most unbelievable manifestations of Flow, leaving everyone with the ethereal moving picture of her impossibly limber and lithe body truly dancing with the hoop’s revolution—I have never seen and probably never will see anything like Anah’s hooping. She gave us insight into the separateness of each aspect of moving with the hoop, able as she is to isolate so perfectly almost muscle by muscle and reveal exactly how much variability there is in the core. Her shoulder hooping is like magic. I’m at a loss for words…

Despite the blatant appearance of long-windedness, I feel I have only brushed the surface of this seminal weekend. It was most definitely path-altering for me, in that I now know I can look forward to more conceptual and theoretical growth in the hoop movement, which will undoubtedly continue to enrich my practice in unexpected ways. Thank you Bend, and thank you Mollie HoopDazzle, for bringing this weekend together. I can’t wait for next time!