Hooping.org

So, I find myself struggling with internal and external flow breakers and I’ve been thinking about how to overcome these obstacles. I know that I can’t expect every moment in the hoop to be blissful and uplifting. I have to put in what Baxter, of the HoopPath, calls “Flight time” in order to get to the point of Flow. But oftentimes there are very predictable challenges that I face in the hoop, whether hooping alone, with my HP community, or in public, and I’ve been wanting to get my head around what gets in the way of Flow and what power I have to bypass the obstacles. I often find myself thinking, ‘oh gosh, here I am again,’ when I find myself facing a familiar and boringly predictable block. As many flow artists and dancers have expressed, the movement is such a perfect metaphor for our efforts to navigate and negotiate life and what I face in the hoop is so often what I face in my non-hooping life: in my relationship with my husband, mothering, communication with clients, even being behind the wheel of a car.

So I’m curious to hear about what gets in the way of you getting into the Flow Zone and what successes you’ve found in overcoming them.

Since posting this, I’ve been paying a little extra attention in my practice to this topic. I can definitely relate to the notion that certain expectations creating obstacles. This struggle with expectation occurs often for me, especially if there is a mirror close by (as is the case both in my dance barn and where we have our weekly HP jams.) I often experience a bit of a shock when I first see my reflection, but then as I dance and get into the movement, I start to see myself more positively. Funny that. I think I’m concentrating more on the flow of movement than the rather superficial critique of my face or figure that I’m prone to do if I’m not moving. Moving transforms my image, or my perception of it.

The thing that I noticed this week that was particularly significant to me was the struggle I sometimes have, both in the hoop and out of the hoop, of worrying too much about what just happened, or what might happen around the corner. My attention seems to be suspended and stretched too thinly because it is trying to connect the two extremes of the past and the future. Instead of being present, I’m regretting something, or obsessing about something that already happened. With the hoop this could be a lingering feeling of frustration or failure that I haven’t been able to nail something yet. Or a vague dissatisfaction with how something felt. It’s a deeply set pattern in me to worry over and regret past actions and interactions in my life and it can get in the way of appreciating the moment actually occurring.

Or at the other end of the spectrum, I’m anticipating where the hoop is going to go. I’m familiar with the music and am wanting to make the hoop do something on cue, and I usually botch it. Whereas when I’m in Flow, I nail it because that familiarity with the music is somewhat unconscious, secondary to my awareness of the NOW. I accomplish something naturally and organically in Flow without too much expectation that I don’t accomplish with too much forethought.

I just think that it is so typical that the lessons the hoop has to teach me extend far beyond my time in the hoop. I’m still struggling a bit to express myself here so thanks for bearing with me.