HoopPath Ninja Comes to Town
If you've ever watched any hoop dance videos on YouTube, or happened to catch a hoop dancer out in the wild, the hooper you were watching was probably a woman: scantily clad (the hoop sticks better to bare skin) and spiraling around with a sensual, feminine energy. In this female-dominated space stands a lone wolf of hooping. Well, as alone as a guy can be when regularly swarmed by hordes of very adoring women hoopers.
Hooping is growing in popularity and there are a good number of great hoop teachers to follow. Jonathan Livingston Baxter is undoubtedly a hoop ninja. He hoops in an unexpectedly masculine style that looks like martial arts fueled by the beats of hip-hop. Bax came up to NYC last weekend over a rainy Memorial Day holiday and filled up a school gym in Brooklyn with a group of intense hooping fans wanting to practice his signature style and hear his take on the hoop experience.
This was probably my fourth NYC workshop with Baxter. What keeps me coming back is this: to take Baxter's class is to go to church. It is a workout for your body, mind and spirit. This man loves you, at least for the hours you are in his HoopPath space. He loves your creativity, your spirituality, your possibility, your you-ness. He says so, and you totally believe him. When you're in Baxter's class, the hoop is a tool to unlock your individuality. The hoop brings a novel touch to a powerful metaphor used by classical dance teachers all over the world: how you dance, how you express yourself, how you create movement through the cooperation of body, mind and spirit is how you live.
Baxter's dad is a preacher and he inherited some of his preacher-ability. He can boom his words across a room and bring tears to his students eyes. I can't quite recreate that effect on the pages of a blog but I can share the gist of some of my favorite HoopPath moments below:
You are enough. We start with blindfolds covering our eyes, hooping on the waist. Baxter starts to tell us to dump our baggage. Like we're coming home and leaving all the stuff we don't need on the table by the door. You are not your job. You are not your bank account. You are not how fat you are. You are not how skinny you are. You are not what they said you are. To find your spirituality, creativity and individuality in the hoop, shed your baggage. Release all the things that get in the way of moving freely and expressing your true self, in the hoop and in life.
Write your own story. At the beginning of the workshop Bax introduced us to the origins of the Maidan. The Maidan is an elaborate story created by Bax about nature, rhythm, peace, community and a whole mess of other concepts that would be very cool if they are real. But they are. The story is not real. The story is a vehicle, like the hoop itself. Baxter had requested no beginners in this workshop so most of us had heard his metaphor of the Maidan. Bax invites us to build the story with him, to take on the different characters' perspectives in order to explore different parts of ourselves. He appoints us as his co-creators. Just as in life, we create our stories alongside each other, weaving in and out of different narratives, simultaneously the star in our own tale and the background in someone else's story.
Trust the practice. Apparently we're not as advanced as we think because at one point, Bax asks us to hoop on our shoulders, in both directions. "Come up! Come up! Come up!" We are squinching up our shoulders, getting frustrated. Hoops fall. Bax stops us. Hoops fall some more. Bax tells us to trust. We know what we are doing and if the hoop falls so what. Pick it up and start again. Focus on the practice and don't be wrapped up in the perfect outcome. If you mess up, pick up and start again, and again and again. Trust that you can pick up again and that each drop will get you closer to your goal.
There were more stories, more metaphors and more life enriching moments. For now, I'll leave you with these and encourage you to find your own power, rhythm and grace in a giant spinning hoop.