[Hooping.org columnist Casandra Tanenbaum spins up a closer look at ourselves.]
I like to think that my energy while hooping is always light, bright and full of fun, that hooping is nearly always a pure, wholesome experience of flowing connection between myself and my moving circle. I like to think that the hooping world is a blissful bastion of angelic interactions, somehow separate from the human ills that plague families, friendships, communities and our world at large. Alas, casting a wary, sheepish glance around my psyche I notice that there lurks a gloomy goblin, wielding my weakness as a weapon, working feverishly to convince me I’ll never be as good a hooper as THAT one over there.
OOOOOhhhh. Jealousy.
Do you know the feeling? Even if you have convinced the world of your impervious nature, once or twice you’ve been bit by the jealousy bug. We all have. For some of us, it is what started us hooping in the first place, a feeling of: “I want THAT for myself, what ever THAT is.” I remember the first time I saw another hooper, she seemed to have one specific flow of movement, and it was so wildly different from anything I ever did that I felt immediately diminished in her presence. Lacking the luster of her specific movements, I turned my envy into fuel for my practice, trying to retrofit my spinning into an alien, albeit tantalizing, combination.
While I was able to wrest some positive power from the scenario, I quickly found that riding this particularly sticky emotional wave doesn’t always lead me to the promised land of blissful flow. In fact, the pattern can be deceptively sadistic: left unchecked my thoughts lead me through a labrynth of brambles, from “WOW! That’s cool, and it looks like fun,” to “I want to look like HER/HIM/THEM” to “I’ll NEVER make it look as smooth as they do,” to “I’m a loser, no-good, ugly waste of space!” The path can take hours, minutes or even seconds, but it almost always leads AWAY from joyful fulfillment, not toward it. Worse, as I’ve practiced over the years, the “jealousy” pattern can lose traction to become “hoop snob,” a wholly different monstrosity, though they are cut from the same cloth, manufactured by an evil corporation selling the brand “I AM NOT ENOUGH” in every flavor under the sun. And it’s all lurking right there under my bushy eyebrows.
Truth be told, there can be a devastatingly thin line between “hoop crush” and “hoop envy/snobbery.” And yet they come from opposite sides of the universe in terms of emotional energy! When we admire a member of our community for brushing up against ultimate perfection for THEM, we are exalting in our individuality and cheering ourselves forward toward aesthetic excellence. On the other hand, we can easily TAKE the spotlight for ourselves, to either magnify our faults and invite the world into our private pity party, or to blow our miniature successes up to epic proportions in an effort to get others to give us the credit we keep refusing to give ourselves.
Within each of us is a rockstar hooper grasping for mastery, however we each define it. We can fool ourselves into believing otherwise, clinging to mimicry and shallow praise, letting our own psychic goblins have their way with us. Or we can shadow-box our way to the sublime fruits of pleasurable movement, shedding our caustic self-sabotage camouflage. We can practice from EITHER end of the emotional spectrum at any time. The choice, of course, is ours. For my part: I am learning to adore YOU and MYSELF simultaneously, and it is getting easier every day I practice.
——————————————
Casandra Tanenbaum has been spinning hoops and words for years at Hoopsofly and Florida Poetry Events. She lives in Lake Worth, Florida, and co-moderates our Southeast Hoopers forum.
Brilliant article, Casandra! I especially love the thought, “Or we can shadow-box our way to the sublime fruits of pleasurable movement, shedding our caustic self-sabotage camouflage.” Beautifully spoken and so very, very true.
I love the line:”… I am learning to adore YOU and MYSELF simultaneously, and it is getting easier every day I practice.” Because it is a learning process, isn’t it? Thanks for the reminder.
I adore this article (and myself simultaneously)!
Beautifully written! It is easy to see why hooping is part of your life; the flow in you is even evident in your writing.
As always, beautifully written, Casi.
I, too, have often found myself vacillating between that ugly jealous snob of a hooper to the authentically enamored admiring hoopstress. I am human, after all. And its much like other areas of my life (you know what they say, how you do one thing…) where my psyche takes me from one end of the spectrum (ego/fear) to the other (love) sometimes at the speed of light! And just as in those other areas, I get to love and embrace the green snob as well as the loving hooptress. Love makes the world go round, and in this case I feel that love shows up in the form of forgiveness, which is just self love.
Thanks for reminding me of my humanity and that I’m not alone <3
Great article, as always! It seems like this kind of jealousy is SO common in the arts, and especially the moving arts, so linked with all of our feelings about body-in-motion. If I’m feeling that jealousy, I try to check myself & see where I’m not being kind to me – it is a sure sign the focus has gone outside in a not good way, that I’m comparing my insides to another persons/hoopers outsides, and if I try to fit my dance to meet someone else’s flow, I surely lose my own…it makes me think of that Martha Graham quote: There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
Thanks for being so open & honest in sharing this likely common but perhaps under-disclosed & discussed issue.
Envy is something I constantly feel when I watch other hoopers, jealousy not so much but sometimes. Jealousy is such a negative emotional response. Envy and admiration go hand in hand for me and I can watch someone hooping and want to work a little harder.
I have felt diminished in the presence of more adept hoopers. I am over 50 and will probably never be able to jump into my hoop with any degree of gracefulness or do an awesome move with my feet, but then I think, hey, I am over 50 and having a blast. The point for me is that it isn’t a sport where I have to compete with others. Just me and my hoop trying new things, enjoying familiar groove and simply moving.
Thanks for your article. I have a tendency to think of hoopers of being all peace, love and brown rice, but we are human too! Adoring myself and you.
Wow, Cas – I really enjoyed this one. Your writing is impeccable, as always, and the message resonates. I can definitely relate to many of the emotions you highlight here. Being conscious of the negative feelings (ego/ jealousy) can help us to replace them with the positive ones (happiness/ admiration). I appreciate YOU. Thanks for bringing this to light so eloquently.