Oh Snap — Attitude Is Everything! (by Che’ Rippinger of Hip The Hoopla)

Ever see a boring drag queen? Heck no, Honey! Know why? Because “Attitude Is EVERYTHING!”

There’s something really awesome about dancing with flow props: we get to hide behind the moving distraction of an object. It can be mesmerizing. But even the best attention-capturing pretty moves are rather limp noodles of lifeless effort, unless you put your personality and individual stamp on it. How you ask?

3 Quick and Easy Tips

to Boost Your Awesome Attitude,

Increase Your Stage Presence, & De-Stress:

1. When you mess up, make it look like you MEANT to do that! This is one of my favorite “tricks.” Own it. The good news: If you drop the prop, the people watching may just realize how challenging this stuff is, and how much practice it takes to make something look easy and effortless. Ha! If they only knew!

2. Smiles make everything brighter and lighter. Understandably not every piece of music or dance requires a plastered on fake smile, but it sure beats squishing up your visage into what I call my husband’s guitar solo, “Constipation Face.” And I am not immune to this foible–I find myself having to make a conscious effort to stop my own “Muppet Face” (strangely wrapping my lips over my teeth with a concentrated knit brow look like a Jim Henson puppet). Luckily, I weened myself off of “Michael Jordan Face” quite a while back (that’s the one with the tongue hanging out in utter focused “in-the-zone” movement).

3. Have some “mess-up” recovery moves practiced. If you know some pick up tricks when you drop your hoop, or something unplanned happens, it really helps with those awkward, “Oh-Crap-Now-What” moments.

***Bonus Tip #4*** “Fake it, til you make it.” I remember the fear of dropping my hoop during a performance. Well it happened…in front of all of my peers while under the big lights. In my mind it was a slow-motion catastrophe that seemed to last for an eternally long minute. When I looked back at the video, it was a mere split second of real time. And somehow, I kept spinning and swooped my hoop up and got right back into the dance. It didn’t feel very smooth like that from the stage, but I faked it, and apparently, it worked! (See Video below.)

In another scenario, I was in a big variety show and was just as surprised as the rest of the audience, when a professional belly dance friend’s top came undone on stage. Without missing a beat, she gracefully grabbed her goodies before all popped out, and whisked herself off stage. Before we knew it, she danced back on stage and finished beautifully–with her quickly-fixed top, back in tact. After the last beat, she did a playful self boob-grab, hit a double “thumbs-up” sign, winked and curtsied. Now that’s how you do attitude right!

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Che Rippinger of Hip The Hoopla at the Hooping Life Film Premiere

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