Many people find chest hooping challenging. In a recent comment on Facebook, a hooper commented: “I swear, learning to chest/shoulder hoop is going to be the death of me.” Hope not, but here are some helpful…

Hip The Hoopla tips, tricks and techniques to get you more successfully hooping on your chest, quicker!

Three tips (plus some other helpful hints, too) I use in my Hip The Hoopla class, will help — and FYI, most of my beginners even get it pretty quickly (and a performance video example below):

1. Begin in your warm up with chest isolation movement–without your hoop. Good positions for this are either seated cross legged, or standing with knees in a good bend (abs in, head & spine lifted, pelvis tucked in & under). I like to place hands on upper thighs and use them to push into my maximum chest extension. Move/slide/hit each position: front, right, back, left a few times.  Then smooth it out into a solid  circle…with your sternum (bottom center of front ribs) leading the movement & connect the points.  Speed the chest rotations up and then repeat and reverse that in the other direction (make sure to keep your shoulders parallel to the ground–they are not part of the chest isolation).

2. Start spinning your hoop above your sternum with your arms up and out of your hoop and just get the chest isolation going (while turning!).

3. TURN in the direction you hoop is spinning (and keep turning!). This is not only one of my favorite “recovery” methods to get the hoop back up the body (gravity makes it easy to move it down), it combines well with the other two basics:
Speed up your hoop (not waist/hip) “rotations” or “beats” as I call them–as you are focusing on using two contact points, ie., ‘front/back’, ‘side/side’, etc.
And Duck in (with a little speed wind up).

Important Distinction: When you are hooping on your core (waist/hips) you are NOT circling your body to get the hoop moving. (Way too much work…but if you really want to, knock yourself out!) Just a simple forward & back, or side to side motion will do.

…But…When you are chest hooping (above the breast line), you ARE rotating your chest!

When you want to get your shoulders inside the hoop with your chest hooping, your shoulders will be doing an alternating shoulder shrug (right shoulder up towards right ear, left shoulder to left ear). The shoulder shrug is done–WITH the chest rotations–help keep the hoop up on the chest. (Keep turning!)

When you have chest hooping you can challenge yourself to 1. Not turn with your hoop 2. Chest hoop on your knees (on a soft surface or with knee pads if you can), or  3. Seated (cross legged or seated on your knees).

Helpful tip: Definitely consider what hoop size you use. If you are working with a smaller lighter hoop, chest hooping may be way more challenging  for you than trying with a bigger heavier one. (Smaller hoop=you need to go faster/speed up, Bigger hoop=slower so you can catch up/recover more easily)

Getting specific information like this, is just one of the many reasons having a good class or teacher is really important. We can give you great hoop and technique advice, for your particular needs. And we can help you with ideas in the moment, based on what you are doing. You can tweak, correct, practice and get the moves quicker and with greater success and happiness.

With Hip The Hoopla, I like to teach with laughter and joy. That usually makes even challenging or frustrating things much easier to get!

***ALSO, please remember in your hoop practice (and as a metaphor for life):
You don’t have to get 100 of anything in a row for you to have the move. One or two successful rotations really do count when it comes to muscle memory and brain success 🙂 Keep practicing!!!
Thank you Rachyl Frank for your inspiration 🙂

♥Hoop love & blessings ♥
~Ché Rippinger, head hoopstress at Hip The Hoopla based in Denver, Colorado

Please contact for classes, coaching, hoops & performances. 303-980-6295 Che@HipTheHoopla.com www.facebook.com/HipTheHoopla  www.HipTheHoopla.com

Here’s two video channels to see Hip The Hoopla in action (more performance and tutorial videos soon): www.youtube/HipTheHoopla and www.youtube/ToucheToon
And here is a video example of my chest hooping from one performance (chest hooping at about :46 and 1:12)

Che Rippinger of Hip The Hoopla performing-example of chest hooping

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP9AaDxjIfY