[Hooping.org columnist Sophie Febrey considers her new year resolutions.]
Hoopy New Year everyone! Many of you are probably looking ahead to the New Year like I am and considering what you would like this year to bring for you and your hoop. Maybe some of you are doing our 30/30 New Year Challenge. Others are probably coming to our Online Hoopjam to celebrate the new year too. When it comes to new year resolutions we are lucky enough to have been drawn to the hoop – something that allows us to accomplish almost all of the top ten most chosen ones in the western world all at once. If we want to get more out of life hooping does just that. If we’re thinking about getting fit for the new year, our hoops can spin off the pounds and tone our bodies. If we want to spend more time with friends and family this year hooping is great for bringing people together. Brilliant! It seems as though we are already on a path that can only bring us good things for 2013 simply because we are hoopers! But what about our hoopy resolutions?
When looking at my hooping resolutions list for the coming year, I realised that what I was producing was a catalogue of flaws I saw in myself and my hooping, rather than a list of ways in which to improve and bond with the hoop. When I looked at my list this year I was shocked to see lots of ‘Learn to hoop more like so and so’ and ‘stop getting this wrong’. When I read ‘I need to learn this trick to look swish’, I could feel that something wasn’t right. Now, while it could easily be argued that there is nothing wrong with my original list and other lists like them, and for some they might be even be appropriate, in reading my list I realised I was ignoring the true issues at the heart of my hooping. In making my hooping the problem rather than the solution I was trying to create shallow fixes. Worse yet I wasn’t being true to myself.
Instead of wanting to hoop like someone else, what I should really be resolving is to embrace my own style of hooping, allowing myself more time to ease out the kinks, gain more confidence within and the beauty of my own unique movement. I should be resolving to stop turning my hooping into a competition with myself and others, a race to get to ‘perfection’, when it is the journey of hooping that helps create the most awesome hoopers we have in our community today. These are my revolutions for the coming year, revolutionary for me personally as they will allow me, if I don’t lose sight of them, to connect more with the awesome power of hooping.
Why not take a look at your hoopy resolutions for the coming year? Maybe you will see a lot of what I did and find that some of my revolutions this year apply to you as well. Either way I hope by sharing my hooping revolutions for 2013 that it will allow you to take a look at yours and ensure you are being as authentically yourself as you can be, while helping others spin along on their journey too. Recent studies have shown that one of the best ways to ensure resolutions are kept is to share them with friends, as you can help to motivate one another.
As we head into a new year full of opportunity, I hope that you really do try to make 2013 a year of hooping revolutions, rather than resolutions, embracing that small wobble in your isolations and not being yourself up about the process it may take to get it right. Instead, lets all resolve to revolve and embrace our very own, entirely unique way of hooping. Let’s all resolve to be exactly where we need to be right now on our very own individual path. You offer the world and our community something nobody else can. If we hold true to our revolutions in 2013 I guarantee we will see amazing things happen, in our own hooping and within our community. Here’s to an amazing new year of hooping for us all!! So, what are your new year hoopy revolutions?
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Hooping.org Columnist Sophie Febrey believes the world would be a better place if we all shared the hoopy love! Sophie performs with Hooping Mad Community Hoop Troupe and teaches under the name HoopPixie in the UK. You can also find her on Facebook. She lives in Bristol, England, UK.
“what I should really be resolving is to embrace my own style of hooping, allowing myself more time to ease out the kinks, gain more confidence within and the beauty of my own unique movement.” I love this and it’s exactly what I need to work on with my own hooping.