Sandra, what was it like to win a Hoopie? She told Hooping.org, "It's so heartwarming!! I remember looking at the Hoopies last year and saying to myself, 'Sigh.... I wonder if I could ever win a Hoopie.' At this time last year I had started creating online hooping tutorials and publishing them to my YouTube Channel. So many videos I'd seen online were labeled as a 'tutorial' but most of them just displayed the trick. I had just finished up my teaching degree and decided to offer my skills as a teacher to the hooping community by making the step-by-step tutorials that I'd wanted when I first started."

So how did you start hooping anyway? She explained, "I first saw hoop dancing at Shambhala and it was a girl fire hooping. Six months before this I had started spinning fire poi and was completely addicted to fire spinning. So when I saw the fire hoop my first thought was, "Wow! That is way hotter then poi! I have to try that." Later on in the festival a girl named Lain lent me her hoop to play with and I was hooked."

She made her first hoop in November 2006, just a few months after Shambhala, and really started hooping then. Sow how often does she hoop? She said, "Not as much as I used to. When I first started I would bring my hoop to the University and hoop between classes. Sometimes I would have three hours to kill on campus and it was always more fun to be hooping then doing the things I was suppose to be doing; like writing my term papers. Lately I hoop every couple of days, I always hoop more in the summer and whenever I'm at a festival you can catch me hooping most of the time."

Has hooping changed your life? She responded "I feel different about myself. I'm more confident and actually believe I can do something if I put my mind to it. Teaching yourself forces you to learn about who you are, to be patient with yourself, and keep trying. I never had the kind of discipline with myself like I've had with my fire spinning and it's shown me how to have more self control in other areas of my life." I asked about what one of those areas might be and she said, "I want to create more sustainable self-employment so I can focus on doing what I love. When we follow our dreams we can make a much bigger and better impact on the world around us than if we're forced to spend our lives trapped in the daily grind of work that to us is insignificant."

We asked if she could share a favorite hooping memory or two with our readers. She said, "My favorite hooping memory was when I first met my friend Laurie in Hawaii. She had heard that I'd be in Hawaii and while I was still at home packing in Canada she called me to ask about having a private lesson in Honolulu. About a week into my trip we got in contact with each other and decided that rather then her flying to Honolulu, I would fly to the Northern Island of Kuaui to tour that island for awhile. Laurie was the most amazing host I've ever had, she was so kind to my travel buddy Jaime and I. When she picked us up from the airport she was so friendly and excited. She apologized to us saying, 'I'm sorry that I don't have any leis for you, but here, have some Malibu Rum!' Really, who couldn't love this woman. We were invited to stay at her house and she lent us her jeep to tour the island and see the sights. I had a blast hooping with her and sharing our hoop stories. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how amazing it is that two complete strangers could have a shared experience like that all because of some plastic tubing."

Her favorite hoop right now is one that her friend Alisha made for her. "At first it was really stiff and painful, but now I really like how it responds. It was around this time last year that I had my first serious performance. I made a costume and decided to record myself hooping in it to see how it looked. I used the hoop Alisha made me and the video turned out great. I was actually surprised because I hadn't seen myself on video in awhile. About a week later I stumbled onto a site called Clipstar and they were having a video competition. I figured, 'What the hell, I'll put up the hoop video.' Two months later my video had won in the dance category and the winning prize was $10,000! I was blown away at how the whole thing had unfolded. It's the same video that was nominated for a Hoopie this year too. I'll always have a huge fondness for that hoop because of the opportunity that came from it. Over the summer I took hoops to a festival for kids to play with and that hoop went missing. As I searched around the edges of the field I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I whispered, 'please... not that hoop, any hoop but that one.' Just as I was about to burst into tears I spotted it under some tall grass. It was shocking to feel how attached I'd become to this hoop.'"

What music does she love hooping to the most? She explains, "I'm all over the place with hoop music. Some favorites are Imogen Heap, Bassnectar, Paramore, Rise Against, Eastern Sun, Atreyu, Coheed and Cambria, Regina Spektor, and AFI. I find different hoops work with different kinds of music, depending on speed and beats. Smaller hoops that are dense and react well to breaks are perfect for fast, aggressive music while flexi, big hoops are nice for slow ambient tunes."

We asked what quality she most admires in a hooper. She said, "I admire hoopers who can dance in the hoop. The ones that you watch and think, 'man, it's like they're dancing and the hoop is just magically there!' That's something I want to work on, I've never taken a dance class in my life and now seems like a really good time to start." So what does she see as her most marked hooping characteristic? Her response, "I have no idea."

We had to ask if there was a DVD in the works. SaFire explained, "I will be teaching online classes that will each include dozens of detailed video tutorials through my SaFire Dance Hooping Community. I've been asked by dozens of hoopers when I would be releasing an instructional DVD and these online classes are my way of releasing a DVD without the negative environmental impact of packaging and shipping a DVD."

In closing, we asked that if she had one piece of advice to share with someone picking up a hoop for the very first time, what would it be? She said, "My advice to new hoopers is to drop your hoop lots, make mistakes, smack yourself in the face with that hoop, get bruised, scrape the stucco off your ceiling and break lamps. Trust me. It's fun."

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There's more SaFire at:

SaFire Dance: Circus and Fire Performer

SaFire Dance Hooping Community

SaFire Silhouette

SaFire: From Your Knees To Your Waist

SaFire: Multiple Hoops

SaFire: Verticle Step Throughs

SaFire: Duck In and Drop On

SaFire: Chest Hooping

SaFire Rocks It

SaFire: The Helicopter

SaFire: One Leg Hooping