A participant tries her hand (or hips?) at hooping.
(Credit: Molly V. Strzelecki)
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Thankfully, the latter did not happen, and while the workshop did last two hours and there was much hooping to be had, there were breaks to catch our breath, give our swiveling hips and waists a rest, and learn new ways to maneuver a Hula Hoop that boggle the mind.
What is Hoopnotica, exactly? Well, remember when you were five years old, and your greatest achievement was keeping your Hula Hoop in motion for longer than 15 seconds? Take that, combine it with wordless music that you'd hear in a chic nightclub, and throw in a dash of fluid dance moves and—voila!—the fitness craze du jour is born.
Sounds fun, right? And pretty simple, right? Yes. And no.
After starting off the class learning the basic front and side stances for hooping, our instructor, Rayna, showed us how to walk both forward and backward while hooping. It was surprisingly easy, once you get the hang of it, and that says a lot, coming from a girl who can barely walk forward or backward without falling over even when she's not hooping.
The best tip Rayna provided was to not look in the mirror while we were learning the mechanics of Hoopnotica. It would not be pretty, and may only discourage us. We should focus on learning these basics before we worked on the points that made hoop dancing look graceful and fluid and lovely. Best advice ever, really. I didn't look in the mirror once, so I can only imagine what I looked like, but I can tell you that it felt like I was moving around in spastic, jerky movements akin to the Tin Man running out of oil. And on the occasion when I lost control of my hoop and it fell to the floor, the clatter added to my mirror aversion.
But, lest you think that Hoopnotica is an exercise class that focuses solely on the waist, think again. We learned how to maneuver the hoop in the air with our hand. Despite more than a few hoops flying across the room, the move looks really cool when done correctly, but exhausts all sorts of arm and back muscles. And for the piece de resistance, Rayna broke down the steps of the corkscrew move: Hooping above your head and then "floating" the hoop down your body until you had it back to the basic side stance hooping. It looks tremendously cool when done properly, but This Girl? Not tremendously cool. And now sporting various red marks where the Hula Hoop hit her in the face.
Let the record show that This Girl is also incredibly klutzy, which added an element of danger to the Hoopnotica class. And danger, combined with sassy fun, combined with exercise? Totally worth it. And it sure beats the hell out of the treadmill.
