The change of seasons are so refreshing, after a long summer, its nice to feel the brisk fresh air of Autumn. I love the smell of fires being lit as you walk the streets, cold ears and noses, scarves and gloves. As it gets colder outside, if you’re a hooper who loves to hula hoop outdoors, you might be finding yourself wondering, “Where in the hell am I supposed to hoop now?” Here are five suggestions from hooping.org, to help you make it thru the winter while still keeping your flow a Go.
1. Layers of clothing: Stockings, legwarmers, shorts, sweat pants, thermal top, T-shirt, jacket, scarf, gloves and a hat. Once you’re all dressed you’re ready to hoop and you can slowly strip the layers down as you begin to warm up. You will be amazed how far you can go. Make a game out of it.
2. Accessorize Plus: Leg warmers, the 80’s dance scene has found a revived home in the hoop community. I, for one, couldn’t live without leg warmers. See, I love leg hooping; I can literally spin that puppy around my thighs for hours. Pants, however, are a hindrance – even in winter. I need my short shorts offering lots of skin to help keep that sucker spinning. And if bare legs is a must for your hoopiness as well, make knee socks and leg warmers your new best friend. You can also vamp up your gloves. I loooove hand and arm hooping too. But imagine my dismay when trying to hoop with gloves on; they go flying off in all kinds of interesting directions! So what’s a girl afraid of frostbite to do? Experiment! My solution, two words: Puffy paint. Get yourself a dollar pair of cotton gloves, a tube of puffy paint and paint the palm of the glove. Works like a charm. It can also be used on the soles of your socks to make them grippy on hardwood floors, which might be the case now if you’re hooping indoors.
3. Alter Your Practice: I love throwing my hoops in the air and catching them. That’s one reason I got an LED hoop – I was tired of losing that sucker in the dark! But when it comes to winter hooping and moving my act indoors the big tosses need to get traded in for smaller and more precision based moves. Work on your twins or minis. Look up some videos of hand balancing and hand/arm rolls. Challenge yourself to a 30 day waist and/or shoulder only hooping challenge. There are a ton of alterations you can do to make it work that don’t require having a huge space or grand ceilings.
4. Winterize Your Hoop: Sometimes when adding all the layers of clothes, I often go back to a hoop with a larger diameter; it just slows things down some. I have also been known to add some extra gaffers or even tennis racket tape to the inside of my hoop to make it even stickier for winter. It aint always as pretty, but it’s highly functional.
5. They Have The Heat On Over There: I am lucky in the fact that my area on the Northern Beaches of Sydney has a few great community centers. Look around, what does your town offer? Will they let you use a dance space as long as it is not being used? Can you use a corner of the basketball court? What about a squash court? Most places will let you pay the entrance fee and use the specialty rooms when they are not in use for no extra cost. You can also approach a local dance studio and ask about costs for renting a room.
See if you can get enough hoopers together to pay for it. You can have an indoor hoop jam every week where everybody chips in. I mean why go it alone? I am sure there are a few people in the same boat as you. There may be a yoga studio that could use a few extra bucks. One group I know found success through their local library. There are lots of possibilities.
Those are my suggestions and some of you probably have some to. It’s always tricky to keep up a good hoop practice when you’re forced to be indoors for months, but with a little creative thinking you can make it just another leg in your hoop journey. Before long the clouds will part and the flowers will break the surface and we can all head out into the sunshine again, but until then, happy hooping and stay warm. Its gonna be a cold one out there.
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