I'm slowly reconnecting with my hoopy nature, after being relatively spinless for a few months. I'm not sure how I drifted away from it; likely it was a combination of circumstances - work, travel, weather, ennui, etc. Like any practice, maintaining it can be a daily struggle.
While physical fitness was my initial motivator to pick it up again, it's the mood smoothing effect that keeps me heading outside for a twirl. I find myself kind of pissy as I go about my life these days (we'll leave that for another time), but after a couple of weeks of regular hoop practice, I'm definitely a little less wound up.
I've also been craving the sense of femininity that hoop dance brings. Any dancing can energize your body and spirit, but shimmying inside a hoop, like belly dance or hula, can really pump up the self esteem by bringing out the grace, the sensuality of being a girl. I'd like to think it doesn't matter if you're a sweet young thing, or a more savory morsel like some of us, though age should probably inform choice of outfit.
But then again, this whole idea of "age appropriate" is grating on me lately. None of us want to look like a horse's ass or, as Mom would say, "mutton dressed as lamb." However, does that mean that we're supposed to swath ourselves in neutral colors and kindly take ourselves off public display as we hit middle adulthood? Does our hotness license expire, condemning us to a future of shopping the Orvis catalog? Are we banned from shakin' our groove thangs and feeling the joy in being alive? Of course not. But what to do about that voice, the one that whispers "you're too old to be doing/wearing/thinking/acting like that?"
Turn the music up.
While physical fitness was my initial motivator to pick it up again, it's the mood smoothing effect that keeps me heading outside for a twirl. I find myself kind of pissy as I go about my life these days (we'll leave that for another time), but after a couple of weeks of regular hoop practice, I'm definitely a little less wound up.
I've also been craving the sense of femininity that hoop dance brings. Any dancing can energize your body and spirit, but shimmying inside a hoop, like belly dance or hula, can really pump up the self esteem by bringing out the grace, the sensuality of being a girl. I'd like to think it doesn't matter if you're a sweet young thing, or a more savory morsel like some of us, though age should probably inform choice of outfit.
But then again, this whole idea of "age appropriate" is grating on me lately. None of us want to look like a horse's ass or, as Mom would say, "mutton dressed as lamb." However, does that mean that we're supposed to swath ourselves in neutral colors and kindly take ourselves off public display as we hit middle adulthood? Does our hotness license expire, condemning us to a future of shopping the Orvis catalog? Are we banned from shakin' our groove thangs and feeling the joy in being alive? Of course not. But what to do about that voice, the one that whispers "you're too old to be doing/wearing/thinking/acting like that?"
Turn the music up.
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