I've Got the Moves Like NASCAR: Ideally, you're supposed to practice hooping in both directions, or currents, as some like to call it--that is, pushing the hoop in a clockwise direction and also pushing it in a counterclockwise direction. After all, you'd be a pretty awkward dancer if you could only ever turn to one side. Unfortunately, I'm a NASCAR kind of hooper, and I can only turn in one direction, at least for any amount of time. When I push my hoop the other way, it only stays up for a few seconds before falling down to my feet. On the upside, this does get me closer to my 10,000 drops goal sooner! From everything I've heard, it's pretty common for a hooper to have a dominant current, and it just means that you need to do some extra work on the side that's harder for you until things even out.
Sore Hips: I'd heard rumors, complaints, and horror stories about bruising of various areas of the body due to hooping. Fortunately, I haven't experienced that yet. What I have acquired, though, is a terribly sore spot right where my left hip connects to my body. It's very tender when I hoop, and if I'm ever foolish enough to lay down on that side when I go to bed, then lord have mercy! Having a day here and there off of hooping doesn't seem to be helping either. Maybe if I could actually learn to hoop in the other direction, my other hip could bear some of the abuse...
Hoop Moving Unevenly: The thing all those lovely fitness instructors don't tell you in their videos is that if your hoop is not rotating around a relatively smooth and flat surface (aka a washboard stomach) then it's not going to move as smoothly as it does on your TV screen. If your surface (your stomach) is, shall we say, less than even, then your hoop rotation is also going to be...less than even. Hopefully this problem will work itself out as I continue towards my goal and shed unwanted pounds.
No Stamina: You may think that hooping is going to be so fun that you just won't be able to set it down. You may even love hooping so much that you don't want to set it down. But if you're out of shape and hoping that hooping will make exercise magically easy, I've got news for you: it doesn't. I always have to set down the hoop before I want to stop.
Nothing worth doing is ever going to be easy--at least not at first. But I have noticed something magical about those little numbers on my spreadsheet, the ones that record how many times I've dropped the hoop and gotten closer to my goal: they're always going up. Each day, I'm just a tiny bit more fit than I was before, and that is what will get me the stamina I need to hoop for as long as I want to. That is what will give me a more "even surface". That is what will reduce the soreness of my hip, or at least make both of them equally sore. And that is what will give me the moves like Jagger, instead of the moves like NASCAR!
P.S. If this entry has you down, you might want to go take a look at my earlier entry about the Unexpected Physical Benefits of Hooping--it has its perks too!
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Drop Update: Today I've dropped the hoop 8 times so far, bringing my total to 136. I've added more stretching to my routine to try to help alleviate some of the problems listed in this entry. I'm also looking forward to adding more Yoga to my exercise routine, to give me more flexibility for my time in the hoop. More on all that later!
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