Tonight was Day Two of the 12 class intermediate HoopGirl Workout Series. After having taken a 6+ month hiatus from teaching actual classes aside from Teacher Trainings, it was an absolute joy and thrill to be there. The class material has continued to progress and clarify over the years and it has finally arrived at a place of duplication which I can share at the next Intermediate teacher training. I am so ridiculously amped by the material...

First, gratitude for being alive! No matter what is ever happening, I feel so happy for the gift of life and wellbeing! So many gifts surround me.

The highlight of my day was teaching. I got to leave my computer behind and just immerse myself in a whole new atmosphere of students at intermediate level. There is a sweetness of inspiration that emerges from working with intermediates. Quite simply, I love it. I love how eager they are to learn. I love how readily they absorb information and personalize it with their own creativity. I love their energy level and how much they push themselves. I can push my own edge while helping them to do the same. I can give them sneek peeks of moves and combinations which are fascinating me too. Its like a community of hoop geeks which get my crazy lingo. Truely, my students are one of my greatest blessings. I wish I taught intermediate and advanced students every day. I think it would be good for me! Bring it on, Universe!

This afternoon I had a two hour private lesson with one of the most angelically pure beings I have ever met on the planet. She arrived with beautiful flowers for me and a 3 page handwritten letter of thanks for the level 2 teacher training.

Her soul radiated love and she was so determined to learn! She was so observant of my dance and tried with every ounce of her being to create the same movements in her body. I was so touched! As a teacher, having a student so eager to learn and absorb from me in every way was a complete honor! I poured out everything to her. She was asking me about nuances in my dancing style that no one has ever asked to specifically learn.. so it was sweet to also realize that I can actually teach something which is my signature.

While I drove her to her next destination afterwards, she shared that my training has helped her hooping, but also helped her become a better person. She said when she is a bad mood and wants to act mean, she stops and asks herself, "what would Christabel do?" I felt like I was going to cry all over the place! I am just so darned human with all the same angers and hopes and fears and bad days and good days as everyone else, but her belief in my innate goodness as a human being made me want to become that person even more!

After dropping her off, she smiled broadly and waved as I was walking away. I had one of those tingley sensations that told me I would remember this day always. Her absolute purity and genuine sense of wonder has restored something within me. What a gift!

Wow what an adventure! Tonight we held HoopSexy at the Women's Building in the Mission District. Twinkling lights, chocolate, berries.. and fun! I had been stuck in the house all day on business calls so it felt so freeing to dress up, put on a sparkling wig and cruise out to play. A whole crew came from Santa Cruz to support and participate which was sweet. Allison came all the way from Davis and met her mom there from Sacramento! And lots of lovely locals... Karen, Amanda, Julie, Paige, Adriana, Piper and many more. It was a flowing journey through practice and play... lots of metaphors.. a dancing journey. An a real experiment in co-facilitation! I co-led with Heather from MoveHoops and we learned together what works and what can be improved. I am so grateful for all the dance lab participants who came and allowed themselves to get swept away in our tide of music and exercises. HoopSexy is so freeing and unleashing for me as a teacher. It is wonderful to have structured classes, but also sweet and so very poetic to lead a journey of flowing awakening. I am so glad that it feeds those who come, because it also heals something within myself too. Thank you!

Just in! Some fun videos of my Hoop Sexy seminar and students responses at Hoop Camp 2008!

Watch the class demo here and the students responses here.

Enjoy!

Our class posse: Danielle from Colorado, Courtney from Canada, Estafania from Ecuador, Chantel from Ohio, Julie from Palo Alto, Julie from Utah, Morgan from Nevada, and Jessica from Mill Valley along with JennaLuna and Jenny assisting from the Allstars. A diverse mix of interests, abilities and dance styles!

The training took place at HoopGirl's new Mill Valley Studio... the Masonic Lodge. An amazing space for hooping and performance with great wood floors and a fantastic stage with a shining disco ball to boot!

The first day held lots of excitement and elation for all as the girls took the stage in front of an audience at least 4 times for performances which challenged them to pay increasing attention to certain key stage skills, after which we provided feedback and guidance. They were constantly challenged to step up to the art of improvisation by dancing to music which they were not accustomed to and learning new skills on the spot.

The second day, the energy soared even higher as each woman came into her own and honed her own skills with poise, presence and increasing precision. Again, each woman took the stage many times, focusing on more and more skills at once while dancing to new songs. We also had a 2 hour make-up workshop and later, a trunk show at my house by Annieland which turned into a little dance party! SO much fun.

Day three was emotional, as awareness of having to return home to "reality" happened and group work was introduced which suddenly created a new dynamic of negotiation and co-operation which brought up challenges. All sense of time seemed to disappear and suddenly it was time to go home when it felt like we could go on for days more.

A few especially fun exercises from the training included applying the Mayan concept of natural time to picking up the hoop when it fell, stepping into various emotional states while performing and embodying the message in a randomly drawn tarot card in a stage performance.

We all got to witness the performance style of each dancer evolve and become more confident and powerful. Each one began taking risks, making more profound statements through their hoopdance and interacting with the audience more and more.

I feel inspired to add to the 70 page manual even further with additional topics of interest which arose during the training. So much to share in such a small amount of time! I am also motivated to re-shape the schedule so that the whole focus of the performance training is solo skills. While it was amazing to watch the girls produce group shows with cohesion in a two hour focus shop Sunday, I realize after the fact that it took the personal growth and transformative focus which we had been building outside of each girl and introduced new dynamics which are way too complex to address in such a short time. In short, group performance needs to be an entirely different training on an as requested basis.

I'm also inspired to refine the method by which even more articulate feedback will emerge from each attendee so each performer can receive the maximum information about their shows. There is a fine line between speaking in a fluffy and universally nice, "ra-ra everyone's great" way, and a direct and precise way which clearly says what didn't work, and then balancing that with the personal growth which is also happening. A wonderful opportunity to make a good training even greater!

I am filled with awe and inspiration. I literally had a hard time getting to sleep Saturday night because I was so excited for Sunday! And Sunday night all I could do was think about how the event went and how to make it even better... So grateful to all the women who attended! And I am super excited to share the training again in it's next evolved state!

Last night was day two of Brecken's hoop workshop in San Francisco. (Read about Day 1 here). What a amazing evening.

Being an artist, Brecken strongly encouraged us to embrace our other artistic inclinations and apply elements from them to our hooping. She emphasized that this is very important so we can each express our own original style. For example, her passion for painting inspires her to think of hooping in terms of texture, color and spatial depth. She encouraged us to be self-accepting and to make the most of what we have: matter what emerges from us, even if awkward, go into it fully...