Welcome to the official week 1 of Hooping Idol 7!  Here’s a little behind the scenes of my personal journey here.

I’m so honored and amazed to be a part of this worldwide competition…the most important event happening in our planetary hoop community right now! There are 21 contestants with such different backgrounds, countries, styles and skills.

Why watch a bunch of hula hoopers do their thing, American Idol style?  Well, it’s very entertaining to watch the videos for one. And the reason why you should, is to vote. There are 4 judges for Hooping Idol 7 who are not only famous for what they do, they are extremely respected in our field, aka “hooping.” Anah Reichenbach, Babz Robinson, Lisa Lottie and Lila Chupa-Hoops will critique all of our videos and judge on: 1. Theme 2. Skills/Flow and 3. Presentation.

It’s quite the challenge to produce a whole story video, complete with a theme, costumes, videography, location scouting, asking for help, getting techie, shooting, editing and uploading…in 4 days! Yep our first video was due on Easter Sunday. No Easter-egging for me this year. I missed chewing off some chocolate bunny ears and my hubby’s 2 big music gigs, trying to get final shots, switching and learning new editing software, and losing most of my finished edited file, while my software crashed over and over and over (I made it into a drinking game, without actually drinking!).

So some funny things happened during my video taping…not the least of which was not funny…getting stopped by a cop/state trooper.

Me, pleading,”I was doing it for my art, officer. Do you want to see the video??”–Officer on a nice BMW motorcycle, “No, you just absolutely can’t be here, ma’mme.” Me, “That’s a gorgeous motorcycle officer.” –it was! He left and I shot a tiny bit more outside of the arbitrary self standing 30 foot of miscelaneous fencing–footage I used, thank goodness!

Weather–pretty gorgeous for the most part…but…We had wind. That makes dealing with light silk veils and hoop release moves, really, really entertaining for retakes!

I started feeling sorry for supermodels. They get to go to exotic locations and be stunningly beautiful, but you don’t see what they have to do to get certain creative shots–ridiculous poses, adverse conditions, etc. Now I’m realizing for real, these are hilarious, hard, and sometimes…an itsy bit dangerous. Really, don’t try some of this at home, lol–just hide the breakables–just saying.

I welcome (sort of, lol) getting out of my comfort zone. Though, this is like stepping out on steroids, with Red Bull, and triple espresso! “Eeeeeeeeeek!” which I reiterated, from one of my fellow contestants.

Luckily the Hooping Idol 7 entrants are extremely supportive of one another in a private Facebook group. Boy when they say no one else knows what’s going on for each of us like our fellow competitors, that is SO true! It’s a secret lounge, so that info gets to stay in Vegas.

Oh, also, I talked to a very pro videographer yesterday who had all to do to not laugh out loud for my request for this assignment: Him: “This will take about a month and around $400-$500.”
Me: “Well I have a “no to low” budget, and it’s due tonight, what would you recommend instead for a video novice that has to learn software and produce a video before my deadline?”
Him: “Adobe Creative Cloud–use a student address and get a great discount otherwise it’s $50 a month.”
Me: In my head, Uh, well I already spent money on an expensive software that doesn’t work for this and Adobe is for uh, pros…and although I can get there, probably not TODAY.
What I actually said, “well I respect what you do, and thank you for your time.” (Yes I studied this stuff in college for my degree, but that was a long time ago, several careers back, and technology has gone through a time warp of amazing new things coming out daily! Yes there’s an ap for that, I tried many, but don’t have a lot of time to piddle around and experiment.)

So that’s it for me at the moment. It’s the wee hours of the night…aka Morning. This roller coaster ride just started. I hope to hang on for dear life, while learning and growing at hyperspeed!

Hey, remember, with your help, I can move on. 6 talented people get cut THIS WEEK! So Please Vote at www.Hooping.org on the “70’s Week video page” when it’s up which will have the specific directions. I’ll post the specific link when I get the info ♥ Thank you in advance ♥

In case you are wondering, without further ado…here’s my entry to enjoy. See if you can spot the cop scene, or if it got edited out!

Also, Yes, I actually do have this album, though I had to borrow a record player. It was my momma’s who this video is dedicated to ♥
YouTube link:   https://youtu.be/hGl6HfHH4Q4

Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/213482617

Hooping Idol 7 – 70’s Week – Che Rippinger from Che R on Vimeo.

And in case you want to get a behind the scenes check-ins when I can, here’s a minute update (which I post on Instagram @hipthehoopla, Twitter @hipthehoopla and my Hip The Hoopla Facebook page and I’m hashtaging, too #hipthehoopla):

Ok, now that I have officially, earned a teeny tiny breather, I’m going to get a little sleep in while its still a bit dark.

Oh…and if you want to see how this all started…here’s the link with my audition video and the start of this process for me:

Che Rippinger in Hooping Idol 7!

♥ Hoop Love, Ya’ll! ♥~ Ché Rippinger, Denver, CO USA

Representing Colorado and our Fab Over 40 Hooping worldwide hoop community group.
4/20/17 UPDATE:Voting has Closed…And I made it to the next round!!!
Here’s the Results
Older part of this post–
****Vote for me today 4/19 until 7pm PST! http://www.hooping.org/2017/04/hooping-idol-7-super-seventies-week/ (scroll to bottom, ✔ check box for Che Rippinger) Viewer votes count 60%! (I’m video #18)~Thank you!!!***

~Che’ Rippinger is Hip The Hoopla‘s CHO (Chief Hooping Officer)/Owner/Founder and head humorist, with heart. She’s been hula hooping since 2008 and founded Hip The Hoopla in 2011 – while teaching, performing and making pro custom dance hula hoops. A dancer most of her life (30+years), Che’ has also been a humor writer/columnist, illustrator and cartoonist for The Denver Post and her Touché! Cartoons have been featured in PLAYGIRL Magazine.

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