Saint Laurent Paris released this stunning hooping video. Inspiration Ahead!
(Pssst...love the song? So do we! It's called "Trick or Treat Dancefloor", by Cherry Glazerr)
We hope that this is just the tip of the high fashion hooping iceberg! Which apparel company or brand would you like to see feature a hooper in a campaign?
MSN shows the world why it's a great idea to take hooping for a spin... "Kelly Osbourne's skinny secret: Hooping 
So now that you've fallen in love with hooping, you'd like to share that joy with others, right? Our Facebook Inbox often gets messages from hoopers like you looking to connect with other hoopers in their area. So here are our top tips for finding hoop buddies in your neighborhood! 1. Find a Hoopnotica Instructor Near You To get "linked in" to the hooping circuit in your area, start by finding a Hoopnotica class near you. Going to class will not only give you the opportunity to learn new moves but will be the perfect opportunity to meet other hoopers in your area. Start connecting with other hoopers today by searching for a teacher/class in your area with the Find an Instructor function on our website! You can search by exact address or ZIP Code. 2. Search Facebook for a Local Hoop/Flow Group Molly Billinski, a recently-certified Hoopnotica Instructor and hooper-networking pro, suggests that conducting a simple Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr search for hoop groups in your area might be all that you need to do! Next time you're on Facebook, for example, simply search the Name of Your Town/City + Hooping or Hoopers and see what comes up under the "Pages" or "Groups" Category. You may be surprised to find that there is a group of hoopers in your area that you didn't know about! 3. Find/Start a Hoop Jam on MeetUp.com If you've never tried MeetUp.com, it's a great site for connecting with people in your area who share your interests whether it is biking, gardening, or owning a cat! MeetUp has been a great online resource for hoopers looking to connect and...you guessed it...meet up with other hoopers! Try going on MeetUp and searching key words like "Hoopers" and "Hoop Jam" and chances are there will be a listing near you! 4. Hoop in Public! "My hoop starts a conversation wherever I take it," Molly says. "If all else fails, get out there and hoop! Find a spot in a park or field, play some tunes, and hoop your heart out! You might not feel confident in yourself at first, but the spectacle that you are creating will draw lots of positive attention to you. You’ll find people coming up to you that you’ve never met before asking what you’re doing and wondering if they could try. (For this reason, it’s always good to have a couple extra hoops handy.) When people begin to notice that you’re at the same spot regularly, they’ll want to get involved. You have the power within you to share hooping. Spread your love and passion, it’s contagious!" And if you find that you have a knack for teaching people hoop moves, you may want to consider the following... 5. Become a Hoopnotica Certified Instructor Don't Dream It, Be It...and do what Hoopnotica Director of Teacher Development Jen Moore did in her hometown of Rochester, NY and what Molly did in Fleetwood, PA: get certified to Teach Hoopnotica and become a founding member of a thriving hooping community in your area! Molly says, "I'm not saying that there was no hooping community in my area before I began teaching classes, it just wasn't as accessible to me because I didn't know it was there!" As a newly certified HCI, Molly was able to fuse an existing group of hoopers in her area that she found through Facebook with the new hoopers she was creating through the Hoopnotica classes she offered to build the ultimate local hooping community: "It's really important to find a balance between having students and having hooper friends who also teach. It builds a larger community when everyone is working together to achieve the same goals, whether it's to have fun, build confidence, create flow, or even just to socialize with like-minded people." Have you made friends through hooping? How have you met hoopers in your area? 
See what happened when Hoopnotica Accountant David Huntsman stepped in to do the "test" for a Jacqui Becker Hooping tutorial shoot....
David made a valiant attempt to mimic Jacqui's teaching flare and flow but unfortunately got a little tangled up in his version of "off body" moves. Thanks David for being such a good fill in and for being a good sport about us publishing your test footage!
Moral of this story: We at Hoopnotica absolutely love what we do: working to delivery hoopiness around the world! Oh....and there's only one Jacqui Becker.
Get to know the rest of your friendly Hoopnotica Team!
For any hoopers who are interested in booking paid hooping gigs and bringing their absolute A-game, here is a some fantastic practical performance advice: 1. Keep it Simple Madison's first rule of Performance Hooping is to keep things simple! Be aware that the things that we as hoopers think are really cool (like fast transitions, breaks, and lots and lots of spinning) may not translate over to an audience in that same way. So pick some moves that may seem "simple" to you but that are visually stunning for audience members to see, such as floats and stalls, which you can perform almost effortlessly. 2. Play it up for the Paparazzi Lots of people will be impressed with your hooping skills on stage and will want to capture the moment to share with their friends. The pictures people take of your performance are your calling card as a hoop performer so make sure you're giving your audience the best photo ops! Keeping your silhouette in mind is key! You can create beautiful photo ops and an engaging performance simply by holding the hoop in the vertical plane behind or in front of you. Spend some time in front of the mirror before the performance picking and perfecting your favorite hoop poses so that you can whip them out during slow songs or at the beginning or end of your set! (For more tips and tricks on starting and ending your performance, check out our video tutorial) 3. Repetition, repetition, repetition! Don't try to go too "big" for your first hoop performances. Trying to memorize an intricate choreographed routine can get you caught up and you never know for sure what music will be playing or if the song you were counting on hearing will get interrupted. Know which hoop moves you want to put on show and then keep on repeating them. If you do it artfully and to the beat of the music, the repetition will look great and you won't be exhausted or get sloppy with your hooping. 4. Stick to the 3 Levels of Performance Hooping Madison outlines three "levels" of performance hooping as part of her comprehensive Go-Go Hooping Curriculum that can become your go-to levels while performing:1. Above the head (Think halos all the way!)
2. Behind your back (Think weaving, isolations, and dramatic posing)
3. The bee's knees! (Think knee hooping, and don't forget, while you're catching your breath with your hoop at your knees, you can move your arms to the music!)
If you decide that you want to add your own spin to this system, or haven't yet discovered the joys of knee hooping, feel free! The idea, though, is to stick to 3 basic hoop positions that you can return to time and again (repetition!) throughout the performance and which you can sustain without burning yourself out! Oh, and, here is one final performance tip from the Hoopnotica vault: Hooping is fun, so....DON'T FORGET TO SMILE!!!! Madison Orange is a professional Go-Go Hoop Performer, read her full Q&A with Hoopnotica here.
Great Summer Hooping Silhouette by Lady Luna[/caption]
Summer is spinning by fast so let's make every day count! Here is our list of hoop-related summer fun, for you to check off, one by one!
1. Hoop at sunset on the beach!
2. Learn one new move from your "wish list" of hoop moves
3. Accidentally learn another new move! (This is a great one to learn)
4. Get someone to try hooping for the first time!
5. Host a Hoop Jam at the park
6. Get one awesome hoop silhouette shot of yourself to remember this summer by! (Like the one above, by Lady Luna)
7. Hula Hoop in a sprinkler!
8. Choreograph a simple hoop sequence to your favorite song
9. Have a hoop session with your best friend
10. Hoop under the stars!
11. Take your hoop on vacation..even if it's just a day trip!
12. Bring your hoop to a neighborhood barbecue or picnic
13. Give someone a hoop (and change their life forever!)
14. Enter Hoopnotica's amazing Rainbow Pride Hoop Kit Give Away! (See our Facebook post from 8/9/13)
15. Take a video of yourself practicing, even the moves you're still shaky on! Next summer, you can review it and see how much you've improved!
How many of these have you done so far?
Hoopnotica lays out some of the benefits of hula hooping that are guaranteed to have you wanting to give hooping a try for at least 8 minutes a day. (Keep reading to find out why.)
Hooping is a complete core workout. (Cue the killer abs.) Hooping regularly can help to whittle your waist and strengthen your stomach muscles while blasting fat in these (often problematic) areas. (Studies that show that hooping burns visceral fat- the fat that is the hardest to get off the older you get, and also the most detrimental to heart health.) That's what we'd like to call a win-win-win situation!
...It's also a full body workout.Recent studies have suggested that hula hooping works as many as 30 of your body's muscles. Just by incorporating some of the moves from HoopnoticaDance DVD 1 you will be working your arms and thighs as well as your complete core.
Hooping will make you feel the (calorie) burn. Hooping has been proven to burn over 400 calories per hour by the American Council on Exercise, although the calorie-burn from hooping may be as high as 600 calories per hour when other parts of your body, such as your arms and legs, are engaged. To break this down even more, consider that, according to a 2009 AARP Bulletin, hooping it up for eight minutes gives you a good cardiovascular workout and will burn a whopping 50 calories, or a satisfying 6.25 calories per minute! And the ACE reported, according to a study they conducted, that hooping burns approximately 7 calories per minute! Burn, calories, burn!
Hooping is good for your heart. Hooping is an intense workout for your muscles..including one of the most important muscles of all: the heart! Anyone who picks up a hoop will notice their heart rate go up in minutes! So hooping for just twenty minutes a day can count towards your moderate-vigorous intensity physical activity recommended for improving and maintaining your health.
It improves your spine's strength and flexibility. The movements require a significant range of motion for your spine while increased practice can train your spine to a greater range of motions than you are used to, increasing your flexibility and even preventing back injuries. According to 3FatChicks, one of several online sources on the subject (and an awesome diet and health blog), "While performing hula hooping, you make very rhythmic rocking movements forward and backward, shifting your weight along the way. This kind of movement releases the tension of the muscles surrounding the sacrum (the lower part of the back) and realigns the sacrum with the rest of the spine. As a result, blood flow to the spine improves and total flexibility of the spine is increased."
It improves hand-eye co-ordination and motor skills. Like other sports, hooping requires hand-eye co-ordination and challenges your brain as well as your muscles. Hooping in both your natural direction and your reverse directions (recommended) is an excellent opportunity for your brain to engage both your dominant and non-dominant sides while guaranteeing your body's balance.
The "H" Factor. Happiness. At the risk of sounding sappy, aside from these amazing physical fitness benefits, most of us fall in love with hooping because of how it makes us feel: Happy. Besides the wonderful burst of endorphins you're likely to enjoy after a good bout of hooping, this activity can have other, more subtle positive effects on your psyche. After hooping we often feel like younger, stronger, more toned, more confident versions of ourselves...in other words, we feel like better--if not our best Selves. The bottom line is that Hooping, just like running, as a solitary or a shared activity, can be anything you need it to be, big or small: a tool you use to center yourself before or after a long day or a healthy activity you in which you take part with family and friends; an 8 minute-a-day activity (with a big fitness payoff); a satisfying career; or--a way of life.
This much we know is true: whatever hooping brings to us personally or professionally, whatever benefits (and lessons) we take from it, whether they are quantifiable or not, we, as hoopers, keep coming back for more! 
Hooping has been proven to burn over 400 calories per hour by the American Council on Exercise although the calorie-burn from hooping may be as high as 600 calories per hour when other parts of your body such as your arms and legs are engaged! To break this down even more, consider that, according to a 2009 AARP Bulletin, hooping it up for eight minutes gives you a good cardiovascular workout and will burn a whopping 50 calories, or a satisfying 6.25 calories per minute! And the ACE reported, that hooping burns approximately 7 calories per minute! Burn, calories, burn!
Hoop Tip: To maximize your calorie burn while hooping (and get into the 450+ calories/per hour bracket) we recommend you get comfortable hooping on other areas of your body aside from your waist such as your hips, thighs, shoulders and chest! You can learn more advanced moves and stances such as these from watching HoopnoticaDance DVDs Level 2, Level 3, Level 4 or benefit from the entire HoopnoticaDance DVD Collection with the Box Set.
