Where were you when you first started hooping? Not just the physical local, but what were you like as a person and how has it changed you? Well that’s just what Ali Blair of Alcoa, Tennessee, USA reminisced about in a recent interview with The Daily Times . Blair, a single mother of three has come a long way since her first glimpse into the hoop world while attending Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival five years ago. Blair reflects on the freedom found in the hula hoop, “Back then, prior to leaving my marriage, I don’t think I really knew who I was at all. I felt like that event in my life gave me permission to explore the things I cared about and not worry about others’ opinions or expectations. I represent, appearance-wise, what I was scared of or had judgments about back then. Now, I know none of those things are true. This is how I’m supposed to look. I’m supposed to have tattoos and dreads. I’m supposed to be this free person I am now.” Truly an inspiration, Blair has often found refuge in the spin during tough times, “While I was figuring out how to be a single parent and raise my children on my own, it was a wonderful tool for me to gain confidence, and it was a healthy place for me to release any sort of negative feelings like aggression or sadness.” In 2010 Blair and fellow performer Jaia McClure joined forces to create Biz’Cirque a circus arts and fire troupe out of Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. None of this would have even been in Blair’s view before all her hoopla began, now it’s her passion. This weekend her inner fire gets lit once again when she sets her hoop ablaze, joining Biz’Cirque in a performance at Market Squared in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, as part of a Halloween celebration.
