Mandala Hoops
 
Spiraling through pregnancy and birth...
My hoopdancing practice has certainly shifted in this last year, as I became pregnant and gave birth to my new son Jeva. Here's a video of me still hoopdancing at 41 weeks pregnant, and I even danced during my labor. Hooping and dancing was wonderful for me through the pregnancy and is really great as I'm getting to train my body again postpartum.
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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?
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Photo of KaRa by Sean Stuchen from Epic Eden Hot Springs Retreat
“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.
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We came whirling
out of nothingness
scattering stars
like dust

the stars made a circle
and in the middle
we dance...
- Rumi

When hoopdancing, the hoop whirls around the body's axis, and the velocity of the spinning keeps the hoop aloft. I love spinning while hooping, that is rotating my whole body while the hoop is also whirling around me. I find spinning, both of the hoop and my body, to be deeply peaceful and centering. When in a continuous hoop spinning flow one enters a meditative space. The practice of whirling is utilized in numerous sacred dances around the world, most notably by the Sufi dancers, the Whirling Dervishes.

The easiest way to spin while hooping, is to spin your body in the same direction that the hoop is spinning. Spinning in the same direction as the hoop, allows you to perceive the hoop spinning slowly around you. While the hoop is still spinning at the same speed it ever was, your simultaneous spinning allows you to observe more details of the hoops whirl and move with the hoop more gracefully.

Rotating your body/axis in the same direction your hoop is spinning makes learning tricks, especially hand tricks much easier. When spinning with the hoop, you perceive the hoop to be moving slower and thus have more time to complete the move, and bring more grace and flow to your dance. If you spin fast enough, you can stall the hoop on a chosen part of the body (i.e. the low back, chest, upper back, shoulder, hand) and whirl together at the same speed.

Spinning in the opposite direction as the hoop is spinning is slightly more challenging. You have to move your body much faster. I find that I like to make multiple little fast steps in the opposite spin, rather than one big gliding spin, that I might use when spinning in the same direction as the hoop.

My favorite way to spin, is to spin with my hoop in one direction, then change directions of the hoop, and spin with the hoop in the opposite direction. That way my hoop and I spin in both directions together, bringing balance to the dance and to the movements of my body.

When learning to spin, start with just a few minutes at a time, and stop and rest if you feel dizzy. The more your practice, the more your body will accommodate to allow you to spin longer periods without felling dizziness. If you do feel dizzy, when you stop spinning, plant your feet shoulder width apart on the ground, bend your knees, tuck your pelvis, and bring the palms of your hands together. Bringing the palms together is a mudra for balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and planting your feet solid on the earth is grounding for your body.

The Earth spins around the Sun, the Sun rotates upon it's axis, and the Solar System spins through the Milky Way. As hoopdancers we too can whirl on our own axis - our spine) while the hoop spins around us.

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"Remember what you have seen

Because everything forgotten

Returns to the circling winds.”

- Navaho Chant
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Dancing with the hoop creates a vortex in which energy is transformed, recycled, and created. The hoop is a torus, and toroidal shapes in nature are dynamic spiraling fields of motion that create vortexes of motion. When hooping we tap into the primal movements of the torus and torsion - the hoop and the spin.

Everything in nature moves in spirals. Nassim Haramein, of the Resonance Project, is a physicist who has developed a Unified Field Theory based upon an understanding of torsion - the primal spin of the universe and everything within it. He proposes that the primal force of the universe is the power of spin.

The universe, galaxies, planets, elements, atoms, and everything are all spinning. When nature becomes out of balance, it is the spiral that alchemically transforms energy into something new. Spiral forces are the potential of growth, and are creative, transformational, and energizing.
In our modern world which is precariously out of balance we are witnessing the increase in nature’s powerful spirals to transform this energy through destruction and then re-creation.

Within the center of the spiral is the stillpoint, the calm eye in the center of the storm. Dancing within the hoop trains us to access our inner center no matter how fast the world around us is whirling. Through dancing the mandala, in the alchemical vortex of the hoop, we can transform chaos, sadness, and discordance into beauty, peace, joy, and coherence.

Through conscious dance in the vortex, we access our center and the infinite creative power within our core to transform our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirit. It is within the dynamic center that we find the stillpoint. The knowingness of our deep internal connection to the whole of the cosmos and the inner recognition of the holos through the hoop. Holos recognizes that the whole is holographic, and that through accessing any point of the whole we can download all the information we consciously choose.

The hoop creates physical and energetic spiraling movements around a conscious center.  When you step into the center of the hoop with conscious intent of spiritual connection, physical mastery, or creative brainstorming, and then release your focus into the vortex of the hoop, then the dance will transform your desires, ideas, intentions, and visions, and from within yourself will bloom forth the concepts or ideas to lead you on the next route of your journey.

Through conscious dancing with a clear mind, creative leaps of thought and innovative ideas may appear in one’s head. Emotions may bubble forth, anything from laughter to frustration. Physically, you may find yourself moving in ways you had never tried or thought of before. These are all examples of how within the vortex of the hoop dance, through intention and surrender, the soul is able to bring forth the healing and empowerment for you to fully reach your potential in all aspects of one’s life.

Hoop Dance is a powerful tool for personal transformation and healing because it utilizes the Sacred Geometry of Nature to create a primal resonance for expression, movement, and meditation within a clear boundary. Within the defined comfort of a circle - entirely round with no hard edges, one can feel safe within their own space.

Within the sacred circle one is able to fully surrender to the dance, to deepen the consciousness into pondering the divine and the mundane through the incredible mystery and cosmic synchronicity of Sacred Geometry. Hooping is a portal to accessing the mysteries of the primal spin and the dynamics of Energy.
 
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Hoop & Sound Alchemy! Enjoy this hoopdance video from 11/11/10 of KaRa dancing to the live music of Jahsah on harp, Perry on percussion, and Andrea on drum at a Cacoa and Sound Healing Ceremony.
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The heart-field energy torus from HeartMath Institute - www.heartmath.coom
Through Conscious HoopDance we can alchemically transform our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirit through tapping into the electromagnetic field of the heart. The energetic field of the heart is shaped as a torus, a torus is the shape of a donut - or a HOOP. The heart creates a large energetic hoop radiating around the body, only the center of the heart’s torus is very small and the circular radius extends up to 10 feet around the body.

The hoop facilitates the opening of heart awareness because the hoop’s geometry resonates with the geometry of our heart’s electromagnetic field. The heart creates the strongest electromagnetic field in the human body, which is 5000% times stronger than the electromagnetic frequency of our brain.

The science of neurocardiology, the intelligence of the heart, is being conducted at the HeartMath Institute. They have discovered that over 60% of the heart is neural cells, previously thought to exist only in the brain. HeartMath research shows that our positive emotions create strong regular coherent electromagnetic heart waves while negative emotions create incoherent irregular weaker electromagnetic heart waves. Our emotions create immediate changes in the electromagnetic energy of

Their research has also shown that positive emotions cause our DNA spirals to relax and unwind, while negative emotions cause the DNA spirals to coil and tighten, thus showing that our emotions directly affect our DNA, as well as our heart.

“Each of us centered within our heart 
is as much the center of the universe 
as any other creature or point, 
with equal access to all that exists.” 
- Joseph Chilton Pearce, 
The Biology of Transcendence: 
A Blueprint of the Human Spirit

The torus shape of our heart’s energy field resonates with the torus shape of all life. Physicist Nassim Haramein of the Resonance Project theorizes that the entire universe is the geometric shape of the double torus, and all planets, stars, cells, atoms, and life has this primal geometric energy field. The torus is a holographic shape, thus our heart field resonates with other heart fields, and the energy fields of all other life forms, the planet, the galaxy, and the universe. Our hearts emit a torus shape very similar to the torus shape of the electromagnetic field of the Earth.

Through consciously bringing our awareness to our heart’s energy field and radiating positive coherent energy waves, of love, appreciation, gratitude, and wonder, we can increase the frequency of all other energy fields we entrain with. Entrainment is the natural process in which two oscillating frequencies will come into synchronization together. This is the primal patterning that calls life into being, through the entrainment of babies to their mothers hearts while in the womb. This entrainment continues throughout our whole life as we resonate energetically with all life, constantly broadcasting electromagnetic frequencies transmitting our emotions and feelings to the universe.

“When the heart’s electromagnetic field 
and any other organism’s electromagnetic field, 
whether it has a heart or not, are in close proximity, the fields entrain or synchronize, and there is an extremely rapid and complex interchange of information.”
 - Stephen Harrod Buhner, 
The Secret Teachings of Plants: 
The Intelligence of the Heart 
in the Direct Perception of Nature

When you step into your hoop, let the torus shape remind you to dance from your heart. Bring your awareness the center of your heart, where a spiraling muscle vortexes your blood with its rhythmic pulsation. Become aware of the muscles around your heart, in your chest, in your upper back, and your breath. Deepen your breath and notice how your heart area is softening and warming. Expand and activate your heart energy and frequency by focusing upon the feelings of joy, happiness, gratitude, wonder, and love.

Visualize love entering your body and filling your heart with radiant light as you inhale. As you exhale visualize waves of gratitude radiating out from your heart to the universe. Like ripples in a pond, your heart waves radiate out throughout the universal waters.

As you hoop, imagine the spiraling energy waves of your heart field being vortexed. Through the natural spiraling movements of these energy waves you can clear and charge up your heart field while hooping through your intention, visualization, and feeling.
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Torus Model from Harvard
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Spiraling in... 10/23/2010
 
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Photo of KaRa at Eden Hot Springs by Sean Stuchen, www.seanstuchen.com
I am spiraling
in the presence
of the infinite
cosmos

I am bliss
expanding
from the core
of the circle

I am the Hoop
of all people
of all life
of all that is sacred

I am One
in the vortex
of the holographic
spinning whirl

I am movement
changing all things
shifting beliefs
of what is possible

I am conscious
of my choice
to create peace
in this universe

I am dancing
in the love
of circular
co-creation

I am hooping
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Digital Alchemy by Jahsah Ananda
“Even the seasons form a great circles in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is in a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.”
- Black Elk

The circle creates the connection between spirit and matter. Ancient peoples have always connected to spirit and nature through the sacred circle, the sacred hoop, and the medicine wheel. Dancing and singing in a circle are ancient ways of worship and devotion.

The circle is the source of the healing. Co-creating in the sacred circle with ceremony and focused intention forges a link with the vital oneness that is at the core of everything. The Sacred Hoop represents the great wheel of life. It is the whole universe, to teach us of ourselves and our right relationship to all living things.

The four directions circumnavigate the Sacred Hoop, representing North, East, South, and West, and the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The fifth direction is the Center which corresponds to Spirit. Standing in the center of the Sacred Hoop there are two more directions, Above and Below, the Universal and Planetary energies, our Evolutionary and Involutionary Energies. Gravity anchors us to the Earth, yet this expansive energy extends our spines upwards towards the Sky. From our center we feel all the seven directions and honor them.

The Sacred Hoop offers us the Medicine Wheel, a sacred circle for honoring Spirit and Nature, and a compass for right living upon the Earth. Dancing in the hoop creates a primary way of communicating to the Earth. As you dance upon the Earth, you are drumming out a rhythm with your feet and movements, you are massaging the Earth with the vibrations of your dance. The vibrations resonate throughout the body and into the Earth and the Earth sends loving conscious vibrations abundantly up to us in return through our legs. In this manner, hooping barefoot upon the Earth is the most powerful way of dancing and connecting with the Earth energies, however this exchange between our bodies and the Earth is continuous throughout our lives in a spiraling exchange.

People around the world have honored spirit and connected to the divine energies of ecstasy through dance. Maypole dances, Sun dances, and Whirling Dervishes are examples of Sacred Circles Dances. The Sacred Hoop is the symbol for all life and with awareness and the sacred space of dancing in the hoop with heart centered consciousness we can tap into the Sacred Hoop. This connection and resonance with the Sacred Hoop allows us to both learn about ourselves and our relationships to all life, and to send love and healing energy to the Wheel of Life to transform the world and manifest our highest visions into being.

Hoops can also be used to create sacred space for group ceremonies, rituals, or circles. Create a hoop altar in the center of your circle. Create a mandala of hoops in the center. In a ceremony, hoops can be used to mark rites of passage as people step through the portal of a hoop into a new stage of life.
People increase the spiritual potency of their hoops through many ways to magnifying their intentions and energy with their dance. The colors chosen for decoration may connect to various archetypal, elemental, or chakra energies. You can add powdered crystals, sand, salt, flower essences, essential oils, and written affirmations to the inside of your personal hoop when you make it yourself.

Bless and charge your hoop in the light of the Sun or the Full Moon. When you step inside your hoop make an intention for your hoop session, and spiral your vision into feeling and being. When hooping you can vision your energy and body clearing as you hoop counterclockwise, and growing and tonifying as you hoop clockwise.

The hoop represents the Medicine Wheel, the energy grid of living energy all around us. Spinning the hoop around our bodies creates a prayer wheel with the hoop, amplifying our conscious intention and vibration with each rotation. Spiraling with the hoop can elevate the consciousness to the ecstatic realms reached by the Whirling Dervishes. The hoop is a sacred tool for conscious movement, meditation in motion, energy activation, and prayerdance.

“Each individual describes and perceives from different points along the circumference of the Great Medicine Wheel of eternal being.”
- Ken Carey, Return of the Bird Tribes
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KaRa Hooping at the Oregon Country Fair 2005
Hooping is the art of movement with the hoop. Dance, yoga, and the spinning arts have brought a great variety of styles, techniques, tricks, and moves to hooping. While it is exciting, challenging, and fun to learn beautiful off-the-body moves, or techniques with the arms, hands, legs, and feet - I urge all hoopers to really explore their core hooping with a daily practice.

Core hooping is rotating the hoop around the primary axis of the body, the spine, abdomen, back, chest, and hips. Core hooping covers the basic moves of hooping plus provides an amazing massage of the muscles and soft tissues of the core. The hoop provides a gentle, rhythmic massage that stimulates lymphatic flow resulting in increased circulation, cellular detox, weight loss, and increased immunity.

The lymphatic system is a primary part of our tri fold circulatory system. It is responsible for waste collection, immunity, waste processing, and cell transport throughout the body. The venous flow, arterial flow, and lymphatic flow work together to circulate all the blood and lymph in our bodies. Unlike the venous and arterial circulatory flow that has it's own impulse to move, the lymphatic fluid only moves because of our bodies movement and exercise, deep breathing, and through gentle rhythmic massage.

Over 50% of our bodies lymphatic glands are in the belly, around the intestines. The next most concentrated area of lymphatic tissue is the sides of the chest, under the arms. Then there are lymphatic glands in the femoral or bikini area. Also around the neck, throat, and shoulders where the lymph drains into the bodies two main lymph ducts. It is perfect synchronicity that the lymphatic system may be wonderfully massaged by core hooping.

Core Hooping Lymph Massage Flow:

In order to stimulate the lymphatic flow and provide a wonderful lymphatic massage with the hoop, I start with hooping on my hands above my head. This provides circular range of motion movements to the shoulders and neck, stimulating the drainage of the main lymph ducts on both sides of the neck under the clavicle.

The most important thing to remember when doing this technique is to breath deeply into the belly, stimulating the back of the throat, fully expanding your diaphragm, almost breathing audibly, so as to stimulate the lymphatic drainage. Also, drink lots of water before and after hooping!

Then, I hoop around the neck, and bring my shoulders into the hoop, rotating it around my upper arms and chest. Next, lifting the arms through the hoop, allowing the hoop to rotate around my chest with my arms above. This stimulates the drainage of the lymph nodes under the sternum, the main drainage duct for the lower extremities of the body, as well as the sides under the arms, another main lymph node site.

Letting the hoop slow allows it to come down to my waist where I hoop for a long while around my core. In order to not become bored with core hooping, I will practice mudras, yoga with my hands, or just dance to my favorite music.

Slowing the hoop, allows it to drop even further and I bring the hoop to my hips, allowing the hoop to provide a lymphatic massage to the inguinal lymph nodes on both sides of the anterior pelvic region. I bring the hoop to my knees, and then spend a while playing with keeping the hoop on my thighs between my knees and hips to stimulate the thigh circulation.

Bringing the hoop back to my waist, I lift it with my hands above my head and come down to lie with my back on the floor. I hoop on each foot, alternating feet, using the circular range of motion of the feet and legs, and the force of gravity to drain the legs and stimulate circulation.

Coming back to standing, I again focus on more core hooping around the belly, then bring the hoop up under the ribs to focus on the thoracic duct, then up to my chest to focus on the important thymus, then neck, then hands above head. Breathing deeply still.
Now I dance however I well please for as long as I want!

When I am done, I like to lie on the floor on my back, with my knees bent, feet flat on the floor, and hands on my belly. Breathing deeply into the core and experiencing stillness and rest I focus on completely releasing any tension from my core. I send love and gratitude to my core. When done, I roll to the left side and push myself to sitting.

This is a very invigorating core hooping practice that will assist your body in waste elimination, releasing excess fluid, relieving congestion, detoxing your body, and enhancing your natural immunity!

The lymphatic system is best stimulated by a light rhythmic touch, so I prefer to use a lighter hoop for this benefit, my favorite is a 100 PSI 1/2 ". The deep breathing, full routine of stimulating the lymph flow from the outlet at the neck to the toes then back to the neck, and the rest at the end are all important vital elements of the optimal hoop flow for lymphatic drainage.

A daily core hoop practice will help with detox, immune functioning, and weight loss. If you have inflammed lymph nodes, I do not recommend hooping over them at that time because it could irritate them worse. When feeling ill please drink lots of water, care for your body, and get ample rest. However, a regular hoop practice will help keep your lymphatic system functioning at it's prime and keep sickness at bay!
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