Conscious Choice: Is Hooping the New Yoga?

January 2007 | Yoga Chat

Is Hooping the New Yoga?

By Cara Jepsen

In most types of yoga we’re told to have a soft belly. Six-pack abs are frowned upon, and apart from cleansing practices such as Nauli, a yogi’s belly should move like a bowl full of jelly.

Yet an extra roll of post-holiday flab can make for torturous twists and painful backbends. Now, some yogis are complimenting their yoga practice with hula hooping, which burns nearly as many calories as running—and is a hell of a lot more fun.

“I’m not consciously trying to lose weight, but it’s happening,” says Chicago yoga and hooping instructor Mercedes Gomez, who shed eight pounds over the past few months. “Poses like Navasana (boat pose) are easier, and my core is getting stronger. But hooping goes deeper than core crunches and sit-ups.”

Hooping’s meditative quality has been dubbed “The Hoop Zone” by Anah Reichenbach, a California-based performer who goes by the stage name Hoopalicious. “You know you are there when all thoughts leave and all that remains is pure exhilaration and energy,” she says. “A sort of ‘flow’ and effortlessness occurs.”

Reichenbach, who has performed several times for Cirque du Soleil, is at the forefront of a new wave of hooping that dates back to the mid-1990s, when jam bands such as String Cheese Incident starting tossing them out to the audience. It appeared as hoop dancing a few years later at the Burning Man Festival and within California’s underground rave community.

The hoops are heavier and larger and easier to control than the children’s version, and are usually handcrafted out of plastic irrigation tubing and colorful tape—although Gaiam recently started selling a foam hoop and instructional video for about $30.

Local aficionados range from performers such the Hoopafreaks and the costumed, multi-media hooping marching band Environmental Encroachment to fitness geeks.

Gomez discovered hooping in the spring of 2005 at a full moon fire and drum jam at Foster Avenue Beach, but couldn’t find a class to save her life.

“In Chicago it really hasn’t taken off yet,” explains the 26-year old, who also works as a massage therapist. “If we lived in San Francisco or Los Angeles I could go to class pretty much any day of the week.”

Frustrated, she went online, watched some videos, and figured it out for herself. “I think having a yoga background helped me more than anything,” she says. “Learning how to breathe while you’re hooping is so important. It’s very meditative; you can go into a kind of trancelike state.”

In November Gomez did a teacher training course with Los Angeles-based HoopGirl (Christabel Zamor), and now sells hoops, teaches a bi-weekly class at YogaNow, and plans to add more soon (visit chicagohoopdance.com).

She says anyone can do it. “I’ve talked to a lot of people who think that hooping is something that only professional dancers and performers can do. I want to break down the barrier between audience and performer.

“It’s a lot like the first time you do a pose in yoga that you could never do before, you’re, like, ‘Oh my god.’ You get the same feeling from hooping. It really boosts your confidence.”

North Carolina-based hooping instructor, performer and yogini Vivian Spiral sees many parallels between yoga and hoop dance. “Hooping cultivates and intensifies the connection between body, mind and the present moment; conscious awareness and appreciation of this connection creates a bridge for touching [the] sprit.”

“It rewards you for being present,” says Zamor. “It gives you a feeling of happiness and lightness and playfulness and silliness as well as a sense of being in a trancelike state.”

Gomez believes that hooping’s circular, feminine movements complement yoga’s more male, linear characteristics. “Yoga students are not used to moving like that. And there’s so much laughter and playfulness that comes out. It takes people back in time. And they laugh and giggle like when they were kids. I think that’s really healthy.”

Cara Jepsen is a Chicago-based writer, yoga instructor and hopeless hooping addict. Visit carajepsen.com.

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