Vertical Hooping Video

I finished a long treadmill run/walk workout and decided to take a quick video of hooping.

Vertical Hooping

A breakthrough! I finally had my aha moment with it. Chest and shoulder hooping are still a hot mess. I thought I was getting chest hooping until I took a video. My boobs are too big. It creates a slant, going up at an angle when it hits my chest, then down at an angle behind me. It needs to be a nice, flat spin. And shoulder hooping is getting better if I pivot in a circle, cannot do it standing in place.

But vertical hooping, I finally figured out how to bounce in my knees in order to get my body to push the hoop around. Can actually feel the points of contact giving the hoop momentum to keep spinning. After a good, long while, it starts to get out of alignment, like on my right side, it drops, and starts to bump my right knee. Need to figure out how to keep it in its plane.

Maybe over the holidays, I'll take some video...

What's easy?

What's easy? I have often dismissed anything I could do well or what came to me easily. If I think it's easy, it's easy. But I need to stop this. I need to learn how to appreciate what I can do and accept that just because I feel something's easy, or something comes easily to me, doesn't mean it's easy.

Problem is, I focus a lot on what I can't do or what's hard for me.

Shoulder Hooping

This is coming along, not quite there yet. Thought I had an aha moment, if I keep my hands held together in front of my body, arms straight, can seem to keep it going longer, not indefinitely yet. Except I found that's not correct.

Then I showed my husband a cool trick, chest hooping, right arm in to shoulder hooping. He was impressed. It's harder to then get the left arm in, as well, but I did it once, kept it spinning about one or two times.

Now to work on shoulder hooping with more neutral arms. Don't want to learn the wrong way.

Knee hooping is still about a 50/50 hit or miss.

Title

It's been too damn cold to hoop outside, but I have been spending time here and there working on hip and chest hooping. Shoulder and vertical hooping still allude me. Every so often, the hoop will fall to my knees and SOMEtimes I can keep it going, other times not.

I'm also struggling for a cool title to this blog. I keep changing it. I'll leave it as edge and flow for now. I want something that captures everything from figure skating to derby to hooping. Figure skating is all about egdes and footwork. Derby is about skills and endurance and agility. Hooping is flow and off-body tricks.

I'm not so creative.

New Hoop!

Yay, it arrived last night. I let it gradually uncoil from the trip and snapped it together this morning. I did a simple hoop flow with it, working on smear variations and some basic waist hooping. I LOVE the color. And I do like this brand, Canyon Hoops. They make quality hoops with quality tape.

It's their Control Flex hoop, a 3/4 ID hoop, so a bit over an inch thick. It's 40" in diameter. And it weighs 20oz. With blue and sparkly violet grip tape. So pretty.....

My hoop collection

Now to incorporate more hoop flow sessions into my days and weeks. And master hip hooping and chest hooping and just generally fall in love with hooping again.

oops

oops. It's been ages since I've hooped. I'm still going to derby. Although I did skip last Thursday's practice. Boss came into town. I was expected to be in the office, an hour away, three days in a row. And by the third day, I just couldn't stick around uptown to head to practice. I came home. And crashed. I just live too far from anything to not be tired commuting every which way. It's why I no longer ice skate. I just live too far away.

The hoop thing, yea I'm a little ashamed. I've been trying to analyze why I've basically abandoned practice. That new hoop. I hate it. I hate that I bought it. I hate that it was such a cluster with color. Some of the tape is snagged, too. And especially because it's just too advanced a hoop for me. I never spent my birthday money from my mom, so a new hoop got purchased yesterday.

This one will be thicker, like the hoop I've been practicing with for a while. It's a control flex, 3/4" inside thickness. But this one is 40" in diameter. My previous hoop was 38". Again, I got ambitious. Ridiculous to think I was no longer a beginner. I'm a beginner.

Here's hoping my new hoop will re-energize me. I bought it from Canyon Hoops. I trust them. The last hoop I bought, with the cluster in color and snagged tape (she still hasn't sent me more tape like she promised she would), yea I won't buy from her again. Live and learn. Die and forget it all.

stupid scale

Went to derby last night. Was the only rec skater, as expected. Burned a shitton of calories. Got on the scale this morning.

The stupid scale and its stupid numbers. I don't understand how I can be up 1.5 lbs when my tracking says I should be down that amount. I weigh and measure everything I eat, write it all down. I eat 3 servings of non-starchy veg about 5 days a week. I workout 5 days a week. I've even increased my steps to 10k/day this week, to improve NEAT. I just do not understand how I could not be losing weight. All these weeks of doing just this. Eating at a 500cal/day deficit. Carbs average 100g/day, so some days are higher, some days are lower. Protein averages 100g/day. I've been tested for insulin resistance and low thyroid. All apparently normal. I'm beside myself and don't know what more I can do.

It just drains all energy and motivation. I have no desire to hoop. Good thing derby doesn't come back around until next Tuesday. I'm sick of working so hard and doing everything right. My BMI says I'm obese. I know BMI can be an unreliable indicator of health but not at the obese levels. And I'm obese. Feels like I'll always be obese. I've always been obese.

I hate it.

Hops

Derby on Tuesday was rather pleasant. Our trainer was off skates due to a minor surgical procedure she had done, but I wasn't the only one on skates. Another skater showed up about 20 mins late. We did lap drills and then moved onto hopping.

I feel like I made some real progress there. I had two very advanced skaters just watching my form and able to pick apart what I was doing and have me work on corrections. I fell a few times but safe falls. Nothing scary. We also worked on lateral hops, since this is a fairly new addition to the formal assessments.

I may not ever actually take assessments again cuz our league just makes it so miserable, no thanks. But I would like to know for myself whether I can actually do everything on it. As we were breaking down the movement of the lateral hop, jumping to the side at least 18 inches, the other skater pointed out how far I was hopping and how it's a perk of having long legs.

Never been accused of having long legs before...for my height, I'm all torso. I have short, stumpy legs for my height. Only a 30" inseam at 5'7". I have a friend who's 5'2" with a 28" inseam. So yea, I'm all torso. But this skater is a wee short little thing, so I guess relatively speaking, I have long legs.

We ended working on some whips, per my suggestion. I enjoy these. That burst of momentum that I have trouble generating on my own is quite fun.

Tonight is practice with the main league. There are a shitton of newbies, so it shouldn't be too overwhelming. I will probably be the only rec skater again. Knowing this heightens the anxiety. I've been the only rec skater before but left for practice thinking others would be there. There's a strong urge to stay home. I'm fighting it. We'll see which side wins.

Hoopskating

Not sure I'm ready to try this...yet

New Hoop Woes

ah, the joys of a new hoop. And by joys, I mean frustrations. It's like re-learning everything! Even off-body as this hoop is thinner and way more whippy and much harder to control. The one thing I had going for me, my off-body tricks, now gone. I thought the bigger size would help with hip and chest hooping. Not so.

And forget vertical hooping. I'm ridiculous. I do not understand how to move my body properly to keep this spinning. I know I need practice. Lots of practice. But how does one even practice hooping if one cannot even get it around a second time? Will it just one day click, how I'm to move my body? Why is waist hooping SO EASY while the rest is so freaking difficult?

I feel like I look like those blow up dolls at car dealerships.

And the hoop is still yellow. And I'm still not liking the color. boo.

What size hula hoop should I buy?

Let's not talk about derby last night. Let's talk about my experience buying hula hoops. I have three now. And each one isn't quite what I wanted. Good thing I have money leftover in my "allowance." Hooping is not a cheap hobby, but it's cheaper than a lot of my other hobbies.
*cough* ice skating *cough*

The bigger the diameter of the hoop, the slower it rotates, and therefore, the easier it is to learn. 

For a beginner, even someone like me as a beginner/intermediate, you want to measure from the floor to your belly button. I'll use my measurements as examples. My belly button is 40" from the floor. As a beginner, I knew I wanted at least a 40" diameter hula hoop. Stores just don't sell these generally, so I had to order online. I hate ordering online because returns are practically impossible, plus you have to pay for shipping.

Then you want to measure around your waist. As a beginner, you definitely don't want a hoop with a smaller diameter than your waist measurement. You probably want to add 4"-6" to that number.  My waist measures 36" so a 40" or 42" is perfect. But if you're as tall as I am with a bigger waist, you might want a bigger hoop. And vice versa. 

I found a weighted fitness hoop that was 42" from Canyon Hoops. I primarily focused on waist hooping when I started, for cardio and core. To make things more difficult, I would turn 360, march forward and backward, learn hooping in the opposite direction to which I was most comfortable (I prefer to hoop counter-clockwise, so I worked on mastering clockwise hooping). With my Fitbit Charge HR, I was able to track how my hoop workouts affected my heart rate.

When I wanted to begin learning off-body tricks, my weighted hoop was no longer any good. It's just too heavy. So I ordered a beginner dance hoop made from HDPE (This site is helpful in describing the types of material used.) It's over an inch thick and is 38" in diameter and weighs 17 ounces. When ordering a hoop, what I didn't know at the time was sometimes you'll see O.D. and other times, you'll see I.D. Duh for me, this means thickness measured either from "outer diameter" or "inner diameter." My dance hoop was 3/4" INNER diameter. So the thickness of the tubing increased the overall thickness of my hoop.

And it worked well for off-body. Generally, the smaller the hoop, the easier the off-body tricks are to learn. Until I wanted to start learning hip hooping and chest/shoulder hooping. The 38" is just not big enough. (Here are five reasons you can't shoulder hoop.) I went back to my 42" weighted for hip hooping, but it was too painful to attempt chest hooping with. As it is, I still have a bruise on my hip bone.

I've just ordered a third dance hoop. It's 40" in diameter and 3/4" OUTER diameter. So it's thinner but bigger, still lightweight. However, I did not fully confirm the color. These come in a variety of colors. I wanted an antique gold. What I got was a "soft buttery yellow" as described by the maker. After my order. So even she describes it as yellow, even though it's called "inca gold." If only I had emailed her before I ordered. Live and learn. Die and forget it all.

I won't be ordering another hoop for a while. When I do, my guess is it'll be smaller in diameter, probably the same 3/4" ID thickness, but I'll make sure to speak with a person first about the actual shade. *grumble*

In summary, before ordering your hoop:

• measure from the floor to your belly button
• measure your waist
• verify diameter, thickness, AND color

Hope this helps!

Beginner Choreography

Shitty week inside my brain. Fuck depression. Fuck anxiety. Fuck that negatron voice in my head determined to keep me miserable.

I was able to get outside and do a hoop session yesterday. With all this rain, it had been over a week since a proper one. I'm not counting working on booty bumping and hip hooping inside. My ceilings are too low to really get my hoop on with off body tricks.

After, I felt tons better. Oh hello endorphins, nice to see you again. Wish you'd visit me more often considering I exercise 30+ minutes, 5 days a week. And that light feeling has carried through to this morning. I'm seriously debating skipping derby tonight and just getting my hoop on again. Tough one...

Here's a little video of what I was working on. I tried my hand at a bit of choreography. Some is blatantly stolen from hooplovers.tv, but I don't think she minds. It's basically a mash up of just about every trick I know. And this was after an hour learning it. I'm tired and clunky, but I had fun, and I'd say it's pretty impressive skills considering I started learning two months ago. And I burned 486 calories with an average heart rate of 125bpm. Nice!

never good enough

Derby practice was rough last night. I'm focusing on the bad. I know I do this. Knowing I do this does not usually help me to stop. The ONE drill I was looking forward to...and by looking forward to, I mean need to work on because I suck...was timing drills with blocking. Coming at another skater at an angle to "take her space." But I was struggling and then saw everyone else not struggling and then started panicking that I wasn't doing it right and then got yelled at that I was skating away from the block when it wasn't my turn but when it was my turn, I needed to anticipate the skater and I didn't know how to do that and I knew I wasn't doing it well and something was off and I just needed to break it down further and nobody understood what I was going through...and I just needed a minute. So they skipped me. I tried watching them do it, thinking we would work on this a lot. But then they wrapped up the drill, and that was that...no more working on block timing.

le sigh

I'm never going to get this if I can't practice it often. I can't practice it on my own very well. And everyone else is just so much better at it that I get stuck in my head. I'm constantly worrying about locking wheels or not doing it right. Everyone just thinks I'm ridiculous. Or they don't think of me at all. Nobody understands.

I'm never going to be good enough to scrimmage. I need to find a way to be OK with this. To just enjoy being on skates and working on skills.

RAIN

oh my gawd, will it never stop raining? It has been raining non-stop for over a week! I need an alternative hooping space. Winter is coming. I'll need it then, too.

I remember when I learned colorguard in college, we grabbed a racquetball court because the ceilings were high enough. I suppose I could try to join the Y this winter and use their courts, maybe. My garage might work, but I'd need to be careful not to hit the garage door opener. Maybe no tosses?

It's fall, though. The weather is the perfect temperature. If only the ground weren't so flooded.

Derby tomorrow. Working on blocking and timing. This, I need. Hopefully by Wednesday, the ground will be dry enough to do some hooping. I ordered a new hoop, but it likely won't get here for another week or two.

Anxiety

Derby last night. On Thursdays, we combine with the league. Since we haven't technically passed assessments, we're more considered newbies and can't work on full contact drills. I thought I wouldn't be the only rec skater there last night, but I was wrong. I'm not one to get full on panic attacks. Mine are more subtle. I just feel this incredible urge to run home. When the off-skates warmup started, and I didn't know anyone, I really wanted to leave. But I had just driven an hour to get there...I made myself stay for a bit. I told myself, stay for an hour and then you can go. So I just followed along with warm up. I geared up and just did what I was told. After a bit, I forgot how anxious I was. Until they split the newbies from the grannies. The newbies have assessments coming up. I wanted to stay with the grannies and work on other shit. So I did. And it was fun.

Until the trainer came up to me and told me they were about to work on contact stuff and therefore she was required to inform me that I had to sit out. I said I understood and did drills with the newbies. I hung in there until the end of practice.

le sigh

Everytime I start to feel like a real derby skater, I'm reminded that I'm not. Will never be. But I burned 1,179 calories last night. Scale was exactly the same this morning, which was disappointing. But my jeans fit a lot looser.

Calorie Burns

Derby last night was a TOUGH one. We had a guest trainer, yay! Worked our asses off. Obstacle courses, weaving, lateral movements, hip checking, booty blocking. I was so burnt out, I pretty much couldn't hang with the last drill. They were going to do a race. I said I would sit out. They did backward skating instead and told me to join when I could. I felt bad about that. I always feel bad when I hold people back due to my lack of endurance. At the end, the trainer high fived me and said I really hung in there. And then she mentioned the last time she was a guest trainer in the spring, how much I struggled. It wasn't fun being reminded of that, but I guess any improvement noticed is a good thing.

Burned nearly 1100 calories. Boom.

Today, the rain just won't quit. So no proper hoop flow. My ceilings are not tall enough. Instead, I worked on hip hooping and booty bumping inside. Also trying to get better at simple waist hooping with my feet close together, throwing in some 360 turns without stumbling. I knew I was really working hard by how winded I was the whole time. Ended up burning 409 calories in 36 minutes. Damn!

Change Direction

I'm taking this blog in a different direction. I thought about creating a new one, but I spent so much time customizing this one...I'm loathe to do that again from scratch. I don't know if anyone follows this blog anymore, doesn't matter. But I haven't been on the ice in quite some time. Instead I've been on the derby track and discovered a love of hooping.

I truly enjoy being on skates. Ice skating will always be my love, but the rink is too far away, the ice times too inconvenient. I could probably handle one of those issues but both are just a double whammy of disappointment. I have a full time job. I can't drive an hour to the rink, skate for an hour, drive an hour back, AND still keep my job. Too bad rinks are so focused on hockey as their money maker. Figure skaters either have to skate at the butt-crack of dawn or nothing else. Evening or weekend freestyle is a thing of the very distant past.

I've transitioned a bit of my love of being on skates to roller derby. I'm not very good, I'll just say that right now. I've never bouted. I never even passed minimum skills from the main league. But recently, a rec league started. No pressure. Just camaraderie and skills. I've improved a lot. I'm hoping we'll have enough skaters in our league to one day scrimmage after all, but I'm not holding my breath. We're a small group of skaters who just love being on skates but for whatever reason, do not want to join the competitive league. Some are retired hella good skaters. Some are like me, who never passed minimum skills. Some just don't have the time.

Around the time I re-joined roller derby, I started hooping, thinking it would be a great core exercise to help my derby. Little did I know I would fall in love with the dance aspect. I did colorguard in college, so many of the tricks are similar in hand placement. I also did rhythmic gymnastics as a child and never had any problem with waist spinning. All this has translated well into a thinking that I could be really good at this.

Back to this blog, since I'm no longer ice skating (I'll never say never about ice skating), I'm going to use this blog to journal my skills in both roller derby and hooping. I'll post videos. Frustrations. Achievements. Mostly so I can show myself I really have improved.