Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Burning Basket Hooping



A friend of mine, Mavis Muller, goes to Burning Man every year and then comes back to Alaska and builds a giant basket for Fall Equinox and burns it on the beach. It's an amazing event where people from the community participate in all aspects of the creation of the basket and the Equinox event. Spencer and I joined in the fun this year by spending a little time in my glow-in-the-dark hoop. Next year, I hope to spin a fire hoop at the event!



Sunday, October 21, 2007

On the Radio

So, the radio interview about Cosmic Hoops aired on AK radio for their "On the Bottom" episode. (If you click on the link it will download the one-hour radio show. My interview airs near the end for about five minutes.)

Check it out! It made me laugh. . . at myself!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Woolly Mammoth Hooping

At the Seward Music and Art Festival I hooped with a woolly mammoth! Actually, I hooped with a whole bunch of amazing creatures, mostly human, but didn't get pictures of any of them.

Have you been hooping with any strange or unusual creatures? Got a picture? Send it to me and I will post it on my blog!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Hooping.org



My website launched a few days ago, and a picture of me and some of my Cosmic Hoopers were featured on Hooping.org yesterday - I'm feeling right in the flow of things!

Tomorrow, Rebecca Sheir from AK radio is coming to do a radio show on my Hooping class, and I'll be teaching my first drop-in hooping class at the Studio. (Hopefully, it will be well attended!)

It's really amazing how hooping was just this fun little hobby a year ago, and now it's become my business and is getting so much great attention.

Amy Lowry of BlankSlateMedia helped me with my website, and I really appreciate her hard work getting my site up and running so quickly.

It's funny, I've done so many different things over the past ten years since college -- massage, graphic design, t-shirt designs, directing plays -- and this is the first things that's really just taken on a life of its own almost immediately. I think it means that I'm on the right path.

And that I'm aligned with something that is a deep part of me: dancing. After a major neck injury in high school, I wasn't able to dance like I had my whole life, so I spent a lot of time looking for other things I could do. Somehow, though after my son Spencer was born, I discovered hoopdancing and found a way to dance that actually helps my neck. The hoop automatically limits what you can do, as well as allows for a certain group of things. It's that limitation that's good for me and my neck - it means I won't go running and leaping off a stage, or swinging my head around like Tina Turner. But the hoops offers so much in the way of a dance partner that it doesn't matter that some options are out.

It's funny how you can't outrun your passions. I felt like I'd left behind the dancer in me, but then she came and found me again. Thank goodness she did.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Seward Music and Arts Fest

I had a booth at the Seward Music and Arts Festival this last weekend. What a blast! The indoor festival had a great line-up of music from Seward and Anchorage, including one my favorite bands to dance to Nervis Rex. The Anchor Town Circus put on a really fun show, and made me reconsider a lifelong fantasy of running away to join the circus!

The most fun I had at the Fest came from turning people on to hooping, though. I converted quite a few skeptical, but interested folks to the magic of hooping with just a few spins of the hoop.

I also launched my new website CosmicHoops.net this weekend. So check it out! My schedule of classes is on there, as well as my new line of hoops!