Hoop Love at Last!

I've finally taken the first step towards something I've been interested in for a long time. Hoop Dance!

I became interested in hooping over 2 years ago. When we found out we were coming to Japan, I scoured the internet for months looking for anything and everything I could find about Japan. That's actually how I found many of the blogs I follow now.

In my obsessive searching, I came across the absolutely hoop-awesome Sushi Zume Tokyo. Deanne is just.......indescribable, a hooping goddess. She's funky, fresh, hip, oh-so-creative and totally addicted to hooping. When I first started following her blog, she had just started hooping as a hobby and was still teaching kindy. Eventually she stopped teaching to hoop full time! She's built this whole hoop-tastic world where she teaches hoop dance and does her own hoop dance free-lancing thing where she puts on hoop shows and clubs and parties, etc. So awesome.

Not long after I found Deanne, Lulu, who also lives in Japan and who I'd already been following began hooping too. I still have dreams of the three of us hooping together in Yoyogi park. Although Lulu will probably be spinning with Goma-chan strapped to her back!

As always, I procrastinated in epic proportions, and never got around to getting my big ol' booty inside a hoop. But that ended today! I ordered a rainbow hoop from eBay and my sparkly bit of circular fun arrived yesterday. Big thanks to Amanda, the Supa Dupa Hula Hoopa, for making my first hoop! She's a beauty!

I've tried it out off and on all today. I've only managed to keep it spinning once, for about 15 seconds. Grrrrrrrrrr But it's really fun (and funny, apparently) and I work up quite a sweat in my efforts. The girls have been showing me up all day (when they weren't bustin' a gut laughing at me) hooping for 15 minutes straight, doing all kinds of tricks, double hooping, I'm thinking they both may find hoops under the tree on Xmas.

In my disasterous hooping defense, I've never hooped in my life. Not even as a kid. Otis was surprised to learn that I didn't own a hoop as a little girl, but it just wasn't my thing back then. I did, however, kick butt with a Lemon Skip It - did anybody else have one of these? You put your foot through the loop and it rests around your ankle, then you skip and jump over the cord as you spin it round and round with your foot. I totally rocked that lemon when I was kid, I think my record was like 550 skips!