So how did Hoopadelic find herself in a hoop? She told Hooping.org, "My first hooping experience is actually a three part story. My very first Wham-o hula-hoop experience was as a chubby, easily intimidated, painfully shy child. Feeling terribly awkward in my body, I felt incredibly challenged and because of my stubborn low-self esteem I became easily frustrated and never played with it again, admiring those who could hula-hoop well. Then
lo-and-behold on November 1st, 2005, I became enamored with hoopdancing. It was the day after Halloween, a day I would describe as of perfect coincidence. A string of events occurred so I would coincide with hooping at a specific time with a specific person. I was at an outdoor psytrance party, the kind where people would drive from as far as San Francisco to attend. Though it may have seemed like another weekend gathering, this would be the gathering that changed my life from that day forward. A friend named Mirielle Lambert, who is a rock-star on the dancefloor, managed to trump herself with her incredible hoopdancing and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to witness it. My partner and I were sitting on the sidelines with some friends from SF socializing and observing the dancefloor, and our friend Mirielle was just dancing away in her signature style to loud thumping psytrance with a huge, brightly taped hoop! She was hoopdancing and it was mesmerizing! The timing was perfect, I was open to the presence of this powerful gift. I wanted to know everything there was to know about hooping. I wanted to find out how far I could go with hooping. I wanted to free myself from so many limiting programs that existed for far too long in my consciousness, and with the play of hoopdance I have accelerated in those stuck areas with incredible joy and discovery."

So what happened next? She explained, "It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I actually got inside a hoop in the privacy of my home. I knew if I could be that moved by witnessing hoopdance I knew there were hidden treasures within me to be discovered. I discovered a store called the Electric Grasshopper in my neighborhood of Silver Lake that carried hoops! Wouldn’t you know I lived down the street from this store for a year and never knew about the hoops until one morning when my partner and I were having brunch at Madame Matisse across the street, and there on the storefront above the entry door were hoops! So I bought one and gave it a whirl in our then teeny tiny apartment. Though I felt I had no agility and laughed uncontrollably as I awkwardly attempted to hoop, when I did manage to keep it up, wow, I couldn’t believe it! I was really hooping! I had this thought, 'if I could hoopdance, I can do anything.' I really believed that then and I still believe it today."

Two-and-a-half years later she's made a name for herself in Hoopland. How often does she hoop? "Back then I would hoop for hours on end everyday. I'd hoop when the sun was still up and warm and by the time I reluctantly wrapped up my session it was night, damp, and time for bed. If I wasn’t hooping I fantasized about it, and if I wasn’t fantasizing about it I was either doing it or dreaming about it. My husband Matthias Beeguer tells a story about when he saw me hoop in my sleep. He says, he walked into the bedroom one night and there I was asleep and moving my hips back and forth, I was hooping. It was obvious, I had a new passion in life. As life went on I still maintained a pretty regular daily hoop practice, but lately, life has been developing at an accelerated rate. It feels like I find myself with just 2-3 sessions of personal hooping a week - 4 if I'm lucky, and I commonly hoop for at least a good hour either indoor or outdoor, wherever I am able to, with or without music."

While it's clear that hooping has changed her life, we asked her how it has changed her life anyway. She said, "Hooping has awakened in me such incredible transformation that I finally feel satisfied as an artist and even more so as a person with a purpose. The artistic satisfaction I searched for in a variety of art forms, from visual arts to healing arts, finally blossomed through hooping. The beautiful thing about hooping is that it allows me to continue to use all of my creative joys, such as writing, dance, photography, and even the culinary arts - to develop Hoopadelic.com as a heart-to-heart service that is delicious in many ways. Hooping has given me a way to share a message of love and that living truly starts from within. Even when I’m not hooping the power of it is an inspiring force in how I live my life, so this physical activity actually does a lot of non-physical healing for me and for a lot of people I’ve met. Hooping has strengthen and sculpted my body, mind and soul and has been an incredible companion in developing my life purpose from what was once an abstract idea to one that identifies a solid and greater global purpose. I’ve always enjoyed being of service, I just didn’t know what path to commit to until I met hooping. I spent a good deal of my adolescence and some of my adult life very unhappy and depressed due to deep unresolved childhood issues of abuse and abandonment, so being in my body and allowing myself to create, give and receive positive energy and attention through dance is an incredible transformation for me."

What is a personal ostacle or challenge in her life that she's currently working on? She responded, "Well, the issue of abundance and self-worth. I’d like to touch upon this for any hoop facilitators, anyone working as an independent contractor, healers and anyone with money issues to simply know you’re worth: never sell yourself short when offering a service of the heart because whether or not you know it the energy, time and the Divine source that comes through in those sessions are well worth more than any going rate that is currently out there. Set a price that you would be happy receiving, be honest with yourself, and go for it! It takes time to build a practice, five years seems to be the consensus amongst well established freelance artists I know who live an abundant life; so just focus on hooping with integrity and the rest will follow. I remember my aunt always gave me a great advice, and one of them was “do what you love and the money will follow”. She is right, the Universe will always support you when we come from the heart."

Asking her about a favorite hooping memory or two she said, "Gosh, there are so many wonderful memories. Like when I taught my first hoop class or the first time I saw my husband hoop. I’d have to say, what stands out most right now though is all the first times I was able to accomplish moves, like vortex (spiraling the hooping up and down around the core on a horizontal plane) and ecstasy (core hooping around the heart chakra and shoulders). I was a tenacious living room hooper and it was incredibly self satisfying to achieve the moves I was mesmerized watching others do. Another very dear and precious memory that I hold close to my heart these days, just took place this year when my mother discovered the joys of hooping! This happened five months after I gifted her a hoop last Christmas, when she insisted that she wasn’t interested before she really tried it. My mother and I had a very strained relationship for most of my life, up until recent years. It was on Mother’s Day this year that she discovered the joys of hooping. This was a wonderful heart-to-heart bonding experience that my mom and I shared as we connected openly as she laughed with great joy and innocence like a child, it is priceless to see my mother so happy. Now she loves hooping and calls me often to have lunch and hoop at the park. It’s really wonderful."

Does she have a favorite hoop? She said, "I go through many hoops and sometimes I end up selling used hoops while on the go. At times I discover that hoops go missing too - having gone home with someone else after a party, so I’m not too attached to my hoops. They are meant to be shared. I do love and appreciate my Dragonfly Psi-Hoop though very much, especially because my husband gifted it to me on my 29th birthday."

What music does Catherine love hooping to the most? She said, "I really love all kinds of music for hooping. Electronic music is my favorite overall, but I can be pretty moody when it comes to music. For hooping anything with a playful sound where there is a sort of 'call and response / push and pull' feeling to it, that is the kind of music I love hooping to. I love love love Sunbyte, Mary J Blige, Paul van Dyke, Alicia Mathewson, Rara Avis, Mother Amma’s 2007 and 2008 tour albums. Indian music in general makes for Awesome hoop music. I love heavy, yummy, heart-pounding, soul-illuminating, uplifting, smile and sweat inducing bass-lines, melodies and beats. It’s all about fusion."

What quality does she most admire in a hooper? "The qualities I admire most in a hooper is effortless, unanticipated flow and presence. Meaning, when a hooper is just being themselves I get to really witness their true colors. That's when a hooper transcends beyond the confines of the human body and I really see their spirit exude an incredible energy. Some call this charisma, but I feel it is more than that and beyond the ego, it’s their Divinity. It's as though I get to witness a person's true colors and that is exquisite. People can string together well-thought-out fancy moves, but when a Hoopbeing is so in-tune with his/her heart through movements with a huge smile across the face it is a deeply moving experience for me to witness their flow and signature style manifest in unison to create a dance." So what does she see as being her most marked hooping characteristic? She revealed, "Hmm, I really wouldn’t know how to answer this. Well, I often receive praise about grace. Does that count? I love to really let loose and dance - just call me happy feet."

What else does she want Hooping.org readers to know? She explained, "Hoopadelic offers conscious services, elaborate performances, hoops with purpose and much more. We are a community focused business redefining 'business' by offering a family oriented service to everyone equally just as if we were serving our own birth family. The term Hoopadelic was created as a stage name that would best describe the intense inter-dimensional experience I get from hooping. Hoopadelic activities can be an opportunity to transcend from a state of imbalance to equilibrium, freeing oneself from the stresses of daily life, psychosomatic imbalances that have manifested overtime through misaligned experiences, and self-depreciating conditioning or limiting beliefs. Despite the many many sufferings taking place on our planet, the collective state of consciousness is actually accelerating energetically as a unified open heart that creates the perfect backdrop for hoopdance to explode as an amazing tool for anyone and everyone drawn to it to transcendence through movement. I teach throughout Los Angeles with two home bases at Studio A Dance in Silver Lake and the Eagle Rock Dance Center in Eagle Rock. For more information please visit www.hoopadelic.com."

Catherine on Mahalo Daily

In closing, if Catherine had one piece of advice to share with someone picking up a hoop for the very first time, what would it be? "Go with the flow of the hoop as a loving partner not a challenge, be yourself and savor every single moment of hooping: from basic moves to mistakes, moments of 'a-ha!' and everything in-between. One day the newness may subside, or before you know it you may find your relationship with hooping evolving at an accelerated rate. When you do, identify your motivating factors for hooping and allow that to be your foundation for growth and expansion, one that you may cultivate over time, and you may find that your appreciation for life deepens in all that you do."

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You can find out more about Catherine Flournoy at:

Hoopadelic.com

Catherine Flournoy

Goldilocks and the Three Beats

Hoopadelic at FunXion

Hoopadelic at Red

Hoopadelic

Catherine Flournoy Lights Up