Geez, it keeps happening! Yesterday I hooped it up with Bay Area Hoopers in a massive jam circle (which ended up on stage) at the Pride festival. The music was bumpin and the grooves were hot! It was so fun to just dance before even hooping and lock into the funky beats. Street jamming was even better, and it was so interesting to notice how my flow has changed with more regular personal practices. As if my vocabulary has more ways to express without conscious thought. What an amazing afternoon!

Last night, I put in some time on Your Tube and watched some freakin HOT krump, break and house dancers tearing it up. WOW! That is really what I aspire to.. that level of being in syc with the music... with just my body or also a hoop! I added a bunch of the most inspiring to my favorites so I can keep studying them. After watching for a few hours, I felt as if I had dropped in on these other dance worshipping communities which are so culturally different from my own, yet also on the same page of celebration. Also, I was astounded my the "out there" areas of specialization which others have as well. Somehow I happened upon Etch-a-Sketch champions, yo-yo fanatics and double dutch teams which was hot. It is so neat to see how far people push their passion!

This morning I rocked my practice time with isolations and a lot of double hoop reversals to the tunes of Talvin Singh.

Now off to work at HoopGirl Headquarters.. we have a LOT of work to finish up this week in preparation for launching HoopGirl hoopdance at the IDEA Fitness Convention coming up in San Diego! I have kept a lid on this project for a while so I could focus on making it happen. Now we are wrapping up all the final details for the booth and my hoop class presentation and performances. So many details!

For the past 6 months+ I have made a huge personal shift in focus in HoopGirl to focus on whole body integrative fitness with hoops. Preventative movement medicine for body, mind, spirit and emotions. For a long time I was on stage and playing with costumes, geting high on the adrenline of the crowds and the djs. Now, I am much more interested in deepening my own personal practice and sharing information in a different way. I feel like I need to mobilize all that energy towards a focus which benefits society in a way larger than just "inspiring the crowd". I am over my personal self discovery ego-fest of endless performances to connect with my own inner power and abilities. I feel like I know who I am and how to connect now. I know how to inspire and celebrate. Of course there is always more to learn.. but my fundamental focus is now looking out instead of in.

Bottom line... how am I doing my part to change the world? I am now fully and passionately devoted to taking hoopdance as an art form and a sport the to the people in a way which is physically needed. I am so completely inspired by this organization, IDEA, which is devoted to "inspiring the world to fitness", because I feel like our goals are totally aligned. In my opinion, there is *nothing* more important that fitness. The definition of fitness has moved beyond endless jumping jacks and Jane Fonda style "no pain no gain" exercises. Now the mainstream fitness industry finally agrees that integrative fitness means being physically fit, emotionally happy and healed, spiritually connected and having good positive thoughts. BODY* MIND* SPIRIT* EMOTION. The paradigm expansion is thrilling to me because it makes space for hoopdance to play a major role. So this upcoming conference is a BIG deal for me. It is my first immersion into the mainstream cutting edge fitness community, and my first time having a booth of this magnitude or presenting my work to a crowd like this. I will be flying in directly from a Canadian TV show appearance... nothing like everything happening at once! As usual.

I am so grateful for all the people who have helped me to take this leap into the fitness industry! I trust that I am being drawn to the perfect place at the perfect time to meet the perfect people who will help me take hoopdance to the next level. I am so excited to learn new things about health and fitness and become more positive, connected, happy, radiant and stronger myself as a result. I am open to expanding my beliefs about everything related to health and wellbeing. I am willing to have an open mind to learn new ways of how to present hoopdance classes in ways which make it more accessible to more people. I am ready and willing to recieve inspiration at a level never before experienced. I am ready to meet amazing and inspiring people who will play important roles in helping me inhabit my highest potential. I am ready to share my work with the world in a confident, fun new way which is transformational for all involved. Thank you for the upcoming positive exprience of a life-time! Thank you!

*Photo by Patrick of www.webbery.com