Leftover Devil's Brew

Last November, after several requests for me to sign up myself,  my husband set up a Twitter account for me.  I wasn’t sure what this was going to do except provide another way for us to connect with each other.  Who knew that phone calls and text messages weren’t enough?  As I explored Twitter, I soon found out that the hooping world was already there.  I found hoopers all over the country and the world to follow.  I found a few people with Hoopnotica.  One of the people who followed Hoopmamma from Hoopnotica was from Arlington, Texas.  The more I looked at her little picture, I thought I recognized her from the hoop class Beth and I took with Rayna.  Sure enough, she was in that class and guess what?  She was in the process of doing her long distance training through Hoopnotica to teach hoopdance.  Over the next several months, ARoundJoy and I, along with several others, became friends 140 characters or less at a time.

At the end of April, I found myself at the end of the unemployment line.  In May, I sent off for my Hoopnotica Long Distance Training Kit.  I knew I wasn’t ready, but I needed this goal.  I’m sure most people (non-hoopers)  were thinking, “What is this fat girl doing? Hoopdance Instructor? Uuuuuuuuhhhh, OK, sure.”  As they  shake their heads.  For the next couple of months I rarely cracked open the manual.  It took a long time for me to get my self in shape enough to  have the strength to learn the moves I still needed to learn. I don’t think I could hoop longer than 20 minutes at one time.

While ARoundJoy was practicing and studying, she started a hoop group in Arlington called, “Woo-Hoop!”.  They met about 40 minutes away; it just didn’t work out that I could make it over to her group.  I wasn’t going to give up trying, but I had no idea when we were going to be able to get together.  ARoundJoy had several friends from high school and college who lived on my side of town.   Several of them had asked her to come over and show them hooping.  We then decided that she would come over to White Rock Lake for the first  hoop group gathering.  I needed a group to practice teaching and she had a group that wanted to learn. ARoundJoy led the first meeting, I took over after that.  This happened on Saturday July 25th.  The crazy part is that this was the first day we had seen each other since becoming friends on Twitter.  Since the Arlington group was called Woo-Hoop, we decided to call the new one – White Rock Woo-Hoop.

The above picture (me, ARoundJoy)  was taken right after our first group meeting at White Rock.  WRWH is growing.  Some days there are only3 of us and others we will have 8 or 9.  We meet twice a week.  It’s made all the difference in the world for me.  My confidence is growing as a hooper and a teacher.  I’m totally amazed by the others in my group and so grateful for each and everyone of them.  I’ve made some great new friends.  My body is toning up, even when I’m not paying close attention.  And I’m enjoying the lake; Tuesday nights at sunset are my favorite.

I also left hoop class with the first Hoopnotica DVD. We realized that we had a few holes in our skills and some terminology was missing. I’m pretty sure I watched the DVD a few times. Then I let life get in the way.

Still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, I participated in an alternative teacher certification program. The week Rayna was in town, I was attending a crash course training session for new teachers. I was a theater major/english minor in college, so I was going to teach jr high or high school theater arts. While trying to wrap my mind around this theater concept, all I could think about was how can I incorporate hoops into my classroom. Soon that was all I would think about, hoops – not theater. Didn’t think it was fair to sign up to teach a subject that was no longer my passion.  The desire to pursue teaching waned.

The busy season started at work. Hooping was happening maybe once a week to rarely happening. I read about it, talked about it, daydreamed about it, but it still wasn’t a part of my everyday, or even three times a week routine.  There was progress, however slow, still it was progress.  We started making smaller hoops, closer to the size of the Hoopnotica Travel Hoop.  I think ours have ended up being about an inch smaller than theirs.

The smaller hoops were more difficult.  At first it felt like I had to relearn every move.  I was frustrated (Pipe down inner dialogue!) the first few times I hooped with the Travel Hoop.  It kept falling down.  This was not a problem I was used to having.  But once I revisited the DVD, things started to click.  I stopped dropping my hoop and the new moves started to happen.  Occasionally I would use a bigger hoop to practice a new move that I was having trouble with in a smaller hoop.  My brain doesn’t communicate as fast as it needs to when I am learning something new.  It helped to have those couple of extra seconds provided by using a bigger hoop.  Then, once the brain caught on, I moved into the smaller hoop.

October rolls around and it’s time to go to the fair, The Texas State Fair.  I had just had an “on” week with my hoops.  “On” meaning I probably had hoop sessions  several days in a row, let’s say 3.  The “on” week was preceded by many weeks of  “off ” weeks; not even touching a hoop.  Beth and her hoop had not been together much either, and she was feeling unconnected to it, I think.  We were having this conversation as we were walking through the gates.  I told her that by the time we left the fair, she was going to want to hoop as soon as she got home.  As we walked around Fair Park, we discussed our dreams and visions and love about the hoop.  We both wanted hoops to be a more prominent part of our lives.  How could we do that?  Work this time of year, for me, was always physically and mentally draining.  My hooping was down to a few songs on Friday evenings, if then,  and maybe ten minutes here and there on the weekend. Our heads were filled with a million ideas of what we wanted to do with hoops.  We knew of only a handful of people working with hoops in the area.   But we had never met any of them.  By the end of the day we had decided that we wanted to start our own hoop company.  We wanted to work in the growing hoop industry.  And we wanted to try and do this together.  Eventually, one or both of us will get certified to teach, we decided.  Neither one of us thought we were ready or conditioned for that challenge, but pledged to work towards that goal. The Texas Hoop Factory was born.

In November, I traveled a couple of hours east of Dallas with Beth to help encourage the sale of hoops at a church craft fair.  Beth  spent several weekends visiting friends out there and guiding them through the production of several hoops for their craft fair.  All of the items for sale were displayed in the gym.  We were given the stage at the opposite side of the room.  We lined the front of the stage with all of the hoops and took our places on the stage, set up our music, and waited for people to arrive.  They didn’t quite know what to think of us.  Two strange women hula hooping on the stage.  We hooped for a good two hours (Yes with breaks, but not as many as you might think.) before anyone would really approach us.  A couple of kids came kind of close to us but shied away before we could get them to join in.  Finally a girl decided she had to hoop.  She was hooked with the first spin.  Before you knew it, we had everyone under the age of 18 on the stage having a ball.

And they were good.  Some of them were picking up chest hooping and corkscrews mainly from watching me.  They were amazing.  Pastor Pete even tried out the hoops.  If you ask me, I think he had been practicing earlier.  We sold about half of our hoop supply.  They kept the remaining hoops, and from what I understand, all of the hoops eventually sold and went to happy homes.

In February I went to Twestival in Dallas where we donated 3 hoops to the raffle.  I brought a few extra hoops and my friend Laura brought her over-sized hoop.  We hooped most of the night, encouraging others to join in with us.  That night the regular, fitness sized hoops were very difficult for newbies, but almost everyone was able to use the giant one.  It was a lot of fun and hoops went to a new home.

The first time I ever hooped was in May of 1999. We were at Stubb’s in Austin, milling around the grounds waiting for The String Cheese Incident show to start. My new friend was hooping with a giant black hoop as I walked over towards her. She wanted me to try it out. As I was busy protesting the idea, she dropped the hoop over my head and put it around my waist and in my hands. I never was able to hoop as a child, why would I be able to do it now? Robin wouldn’t hear it. The next thing I knew I was hooping. Really hooping. The hoop wasn’t falling to the ground. I was able to keep it going, no problem. Boy was it fun. I was given verbal instructions on how to make them. Over the next few months, I gave it a few tries. I was first taught using small connector’s and pipe glue. I was told to let the hoop cure for 24 hours. I wasn’t real good at waiting and used my hoops too soon. I ended up making teardrops instead of hoops. A couple years later, String Cheese was playing at The Backyard in Austin. They were selling brightly colored hoops right next to the t-shirts and stickers. My husband bought me one and I immediately asked for another one, too. I waist hooped most of the show.

Hoops were always fun at parties or just hanging around our ‘hood. I still had a roll of tubing, but at the moment was satisfied with my SCI hoops. Fast forward to 2007. . . one evening we were hanging out with some good friends when Beth said she wanted a hula hoop and wanted to make some. I told her I had tried a hand at making some before, in fact, I still had tubing in the garage that I had moved with twice. By this time, Beth had discovered www.hooping.org and found better instructions than I had and was eager to get started. I gave her my tubing and the next week she showed up with about 7-9 hoops. This started our Friday night hoop sessions. We ended up donating several hoops to the Fraternal Order of Eagles #3108, where we liked to hoop. Many more hoops were made and given away to many family, friends and co-workers. Most of the hoops at this point were made like the hoops we had experienced at various shows; 1″ tubing and the bigger the hoop the better. To give them the sound of yesteryear, we put seed beads inside to give it a nice swoosh. We enjoyed the slow groove and always looked forward to Friday hooping.

Waist hooping was great, and now we were walking and trying to run with our hoop. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could learn some of the groovy moves we had seen people do online? Beth and I started researching hoops and hooping online. Discovered that there were lots of like-minded people all over the place. Even hoop companies had sprung up, how cool is that?! At this point we came upon Hoopnotica and really connected to their site. Beth ordered a DVD. We thought highly of our skills (LOL) and went for the 2nd DVD, first. We learned a few new moves over the next few months. Our hoops were starting to get smaller (still 1″ tubing and about the size of the SCI hoops). We found out that it was hard to do some of these tricks if you can’t reach the hoop.

In this picture are various size hoops. The black and red is the largest one we made: it always had to ride on top of the car. The next size down was my favorite hoop to use up to this point in my hooping life. This is its second tape job. The red and yellow hoops are the String Cheese hoops and the silver and turquoise hoop is my Hoopnotica Travel Hoop (1st edition).

In the spring of 2008 I got a phone call from Beth. She told me that she just found out that Rayna from Hoopnotica was coming to Saginaw, TX to teach a class and teacher training. Oh boy, oh boy, our idol was coming to town. We signed up for the class and counted down the days. June finally arrived – time for class. I brought the 2 SCI hoops and Beth brought 2 hoops that she made that were close to the SCI hoops in size. We both ended up using my hoops (which don’t have any grip tape at all on them). Beth’s hoops had seed beads and made too much noise for a class. Rayna took a second to tryout one of Beth’s hoops. We were mesmerized by her beautiful movements with the hoop. Plus, so excited that she hooped with one of our hoops. We named that hoop after Rayna and retired it from rotation. Beth later gave it to me. I call it my inspirational hoop. I use to hang it on the wall in my office. Here’s a picture of it.

Hoop class was an eye opener. I found out what a lazy hooper I was. The warm-up alone was a tad difficult for me, I couldn’t reach my left foot behind my back. Rayna was awesome, so supportive and patient with each one of us crowded in the limited space. I was used to lots of breaks when I hooped and lots of room to move around. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I got a major workout with Rayna. I left class with a new travel hoop and an understanding that I had a lot of work to do if I really wanted to master the hoop.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

I believe it was an accident that Devil’s Brew was created. Mom was making a cookie recipe and didn’t have all of the ingredients to complete it. She had already started cooking together a sugary chocolate mixture on the stove top. The end result was a chocolate fudge sauce we soon discovered was fantastic poured over vanilla ice cream. Dad named the sauce Devil’s Brew and it was an immediate family favorite. Often the cooled sauce pan of fudge would remain on the stove top to be reheated after the next meal.

One year for Christmas I received a blank book or journal. This one came complete with fancy rub on gold letters you could use to put your title on the front cover. I decided I was going to write down my progress in getting in better shape. I used it to write down my physical activities and diet for each day. I can’t remember the exact wording of my title but it was something clever like, “How to lose 10 pounds in one month.”

The first day I got up and did some sit ups and push ups (doubtful many were complete). I then wrote down in my journal what I did. 10 push ups and 30 sit ups with stretching. I ate breakfast and wrote that down. 2 eggs, sunny side up, with 2 pieces of toast. I continued with this process the rest of the day. I went on a walk, wrote that down. Ate lunch, wrote that down, etc. I walked through the kitchen at one point and eyed a sauce pan of devil’s brew on the stove. As I passed by I dragged a finger through the sauce and immediately stuck it in my mouth. Later I notated that, too, in my book. 1 finger full of fudge. And, well, once you have one taste of the fudge just sitting on the stove top, chances are you are going to have another. Another entry in the journal on down the list: another finger full of fudge.

My older brother found my journal and thought it was an absolute riot. He then found the rub on letters and put on the back of my journal, “How to gain it all back in 1 day”. The phrase, “1 finger full of fudge” will forever be remembered in my family. That almost became the title of my blog.