The Floor Tour

By: Beth Heidemann

art; e11en ♥ vaman        
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I felt like I woke up in someone else’s body Monday morning.  Shortly after waking I wrote, 

“Thank goodness for my sore bits...because they are in the same place as last night and are keeping me grounded as I experience the extremely trippy feeling of waking up in a "different" body. I involuntarily spiraled out of bed this morning...it just came out of me. Fractaling twist as I turn to put the tea kettle on...I hope this stays with me as I really wake up..."

I spent 10 hours flowing through a hoop workshop this passed weekend.  First, two hours on mini hoops and isolations with Reil and Sennyo of Casual Arcane, followed by lunch and the first of two four-hour of Floor Hooping days with Brecken Rivera, but that is not when the flow started....

Maria Randolph Photography

Maria Randolph Photography

Originally, I was not going to be able to attend the workshop (I had some insurmountable barriers) but I knew I had to be a part somehow, so I’d offered hoopers in need of a couch for the weekend a place to crash. I was working out the details with the incomparable Ms. Maria Randolph when things started to flow.  I happened to be heading from Boston to Maine last Monday and Maria was hoping to get Brecken to town before the big snowstorm.  I easily collected her and brought her to Maria’s home just a few blocks from mine.  I felt that saving someone a trip (thereby reducing our collective carbon footprint) and having company for the ride was more than enough reward.  The lovely Brecken was the icing on the cake…and then the flow became a waterfall as she made the workshop happen for me. Just like that my barriers disappeared and I could go to the workshop…the whole situation shifted as easily as breathing.  At this point the whole universe was flowing.  In fact, the next day snow kept me home for a day of rest after a day on the road. 

The workshop, itself was exhausting…and wonderful…and mind blowing!  I’ve recently realized that I am a physical “late bloomer.”  The klutzy little chubby-girl who was always the last one chosen for the kickball team is becoming a dancer.  Hooping has transformed me and for the first time in my conscious memory I enjoy my body!  Having seen what Brecken was capable of doing on Friday night at a jam, however, I was a bit nervous that I might be in over my head but Brecken is as gifted at teaching as she is at hooping and managed to break the movements down into bite sized bits that even someone 16 years her senior could manage.

Maria Randolph Photography

Maria Randolph Photography

For four hours on Saturday, I twisted, arced, and spiraled my body across the floor both with and without my hoop.  The notion of “fractaling spirals” really sums up the work, Brecken’s art.  The hoop spirals, but we spiral, too.  A turn becomes a series of twists of arms, wrists, fingers…I imagined…maybe even felt it…to a cellular level.  Our bodies moved in arcs, swoops, rainbows.  Our arms, legs, and even butts made increasingly elegant rainbows across the floor.  We became C-Stars.  Spirals radiated from the core as the hoop “coined” around seated bodies.  Even on day two, with bruises emerging and some soreness setting in, I felt a lightness of body and soul that propelled me through four more hours.  I felt graceful and dizzy and giddy. 

Maria Randolph Photography

Maria Randolph Photography

Maria Randolph Photography

The cool thing is that I think it IS sticking with me!  I am still riding my high.  As I was doing my yoga the other morning, trying hard to heed the advise to rest and let my bruises heal before throwing myself into floor hooping practice, all I could feel were my rainbows...but not painful ones.  Quite the contrary, at one point it felt like rainbow colored light was extending from my "butt rainbow" as if I were some psychedelic peacock of happiness! The grace of movement and flow into dance will take time to be visible to others I am sure, but I feel transformed already.

Heather Halsey Photography

 Beth Heidemann is a kindergarten teacher in mid-coast Maine.   She discovered hooping about a year and a half ago in an effort to find an enjoyable form of exercise.  Hooping was an immediate fit and quickly became an obsession.  She loves being part of the hooping community and sharing hoop love with friends, family, and students.  She helped to co-organize hoop jams last summer in Rockland and hopes to expand the audience for the jam this summer.

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