Yesterday I stopped by a local Circus jam in the park where there were people playing with hoops, poi, staff, juggling, and more. I was feeling tired and just stopped in to drop off some items with a friend, not thinking I would stay and hoop. However, there was a hooper I had not met before present and I was mesmerized by her hooping style, which incorporated many of my favorite hoop elements: spinning, stalling the hoop, multiple hoops, and graceful hoop flow. Pulled in by the hooping energy I found myself taking a short spin with a hoop before leaving. This hooper asked how long I had been hooping, and I replied since 2003. She then asked if I ever hit plateaus in my hooping and how to move past that. At the moment I thought sure - I'm feeling one right now.

Today, I was listening to music at home, and a favorite song came on that inspired me to grab my hoop and start moving right there. I realized how different I felt hooping to my favorite music that makes me want to dance. I feel that music is essential to energy of movement and inspires more dance, flow, and creativity to come forth from the movement artist. As I danced to the music, I began to try some new ideas and saw how the joy, inspiration, and energy from the positive music was infusing my hooping with new variations and creativity.

So here are my ideas for how to enliven your hoop practice and recharge your hooping:

• Put on your favorite dancing music!
• Get some new music and energize your dance music collection!
• Trade favorite hooping music with your hooper friends.
  
• Try moves on a different part of your body: arms, legs, knees, feet, elbows, neck, back, chest, shoulder, etc...
• Try moves you normally do with the hoop horizontally and do them vertically instead, and vice versa...
• Try hooping slow.
  
• Spin while hooping.
  
• Hoop blindfolded.
  
• Lie on the floor and hoop on your feet.
  
• Watch videos of dancers, hoopers, and performers and let the inspiration fuel your ideas.
• Hoop with a friend.
  
• Hoop with many friends.
  
• Attend a hoop workshop or retreat. 

I hope this inspires you to pick up your hoop and try something new! What do you do to keep the hoop mojo flowing?

“Power is the strength and the ability to see yourself through your own eyes and not the eyes of another. It is being able to place a circle of power at your feet 
and not take power from someone else’s circle.” 
- Lynne V. Andrews, Flight of the Seventh Moon

The word mandala originates from the ancient language of Sanskrit and means "sacred circle". In Hindu and Buddhist symbolism, it is a geometric figure of based upon concentric circles that represents the universe. Mandalas are used in many spiritual traditions as a meditation and healing tool. The mandala in art, healing, meditation, dance, and spirituality facilitates the deeper unfolding of spiritual development and consciousness.

The hoop is a circle. The circle is a foundational shape of sacred geometry seen throughout nature and the universe. The circle represents universal oneness. The calm center of consciousness where everything is one. From the circle, all other shapes are born. The circle also represents community, family, unity, wholeness, and eternity. In the circle is the potent void, from which all may be manifest.

Hoopdancing is a creative and healing movement art in which the individual dances the mandala and consciously experiences the meditative, healing, and trance-formative union of the sacred circle. The dancer embodies the mandala, dancing in the sacred circle. The hoop dancer is always at the center of the mandala, thus the experience of hoopdancing is inherently centering.

The spinning of the hoop creates a spiral. The spiral can be centered around the core, and as time hooping grows, the spiral changes. The spiral is representative of proportional growth and transformation. Everywhere in nature that spirals are seen, in plants, DNA, seashells, and galaxies, the spiraling shape is evident of change and growth. The spiral of the hoop continues to offer new challenges, joys, and healing.
 
The rhythm is central to the hoopdance. The rhythm is the heartbeat of the hoop and it is what makes the dance come alive.  The rhythm of the hoop spinning around the central axis of the body creates the mandala in motion. The rhythm and beat of hearts, drums, and dance are known to create trance, the altered state of consciousness in which one may experience peace, oneness, and connection with the divine.

The undulating rhythm of hoopdance creates waves in the spine. When a stone is dropped into a pond, it creates numerous concentric circles that ripple out from the center. The circles move throughout the water as perfect circular waves. The wave is the movement of the circle and the movement of water. The natural wave motions of the spine created through hoopdance are healing movements for spinal health. Undulations of the spine naturally enhance posture, mobility, and strength through the vertebrae, muscles, fascia, and central nervous system.

Dancing the hoop mandala, is being at the center of the spiral. Every spiral has a center, it is the calm at the eye of the storm. The modern world is distinguished from past eras as being a time of accelerated change, transformation, and potential in humanity, nature, technology, and consciousness. Hoopdancing shows us how to remain calm and centered in the eye of the spiral, regardless of how fast things spin around us. Hooping is a meditation in transforming our selves - our bodies, hearts, and souls in growing in awareness of how our movements create waves that ripple out from us to touch everything.

The center of the spiral is literally within your heart. At the core of the human heart is a spiraling muscle that creates a vortex of movement within the blood. The new science of neurocardiology has discovered that the heart contains 60% neural cells, formerly thought only to be housed in the brain. At the Institute of HeartMath, they have researching the role of the heart's brain, and how the heart's rhythm entrains with other systems through it's electromagnetic field, which extends 8 feet around the human body.

Hoopdancing is a celebration of sacred geometry, somatic movement, creativity, trance-formation, and peace. Hooping is a wonderful practice for children and adults, and there is always an infinite amount of potential movement to co-create with the hoop.

The hoopdancer becomes a shapeshifter, co-creating an infinite mandala in motion with the changing rhythms and motions of the circle around the core. In this embodiment as a shapeshifter, the dance of the hoop may elicit alternate states of consciousness including joy, bliss, divine creativity, oneness, healing, and peace while creating evolving spiraling geometric mandalas.