khan, i think you make some good points. i agree that hooping is far more isolated than other spinning disciplines. why is that? i’m not sure. because in some ways it is more accessible to the mainstream than poi or staff? because it is being pushed as yet another way to lose 20 pounds by xmas? because beyonce does it? don’t get me started…

one of the best things i’ve done in the recent past is to join a multi-disciplined spinning group. being able to see other peeps do their thing with different tools (that sounds dirty) has been an inspiration for my own hoop creativity. i think there should be far more cross-pollination, to everyone’s benefit. i also agree that there is this kind of pc-edness, for lack of a better word, around hooping. and, i concede that hooping is still in its adolescence, with all associated weaknesses. perhaps over time some of these issues will be ameliorated, as you suggest. i hope so.

but, i don’t agree that hoopers don’t display the same kind of drive and curiosity that other spinners do. in fact, i would argue, it is precisely those hoopers who do display those qualities (like you, for instance) that serve as my personal inspiration. the peeps who i am constantly learning from are always reaching beyond whatever classes they have taken. this is what i would like to see more of.

However, I disagree about the cause. I don’t think the blame rests on the teachers but on the students. Having taken classes from a number of teachers (including a couple that I think you’re referring to) I can say that in my experience, there is no pushing their way as “the” way. They in fact do encourage students to find their own voice. The problem is, the students (most of them) don’t take them up on that challenge.

I have seen this happen in other object manipulation disciplines as well, particularly with poi a few years ago when flowers and antispin were all the rage. There were a couple of teachers that had a disproportionate effect on how people spun poi. But the thing is, as time moved on, that blip of everyone doing the same thing turned out to be just that — a blip. The concepts the teachers in question introduced were novel, and looked cool, so everyone learned and practiced those, but once fully integrated, people moved on and began exploring and discovering other things.

There are a couple of aspects as all this relates to hooping.

1) Hooping is not at the same level of development as poi although there are way more hoopers than poi spinners. I think what’s going on now is the styles of hooping that are dominant at the moment are dominant because the teachers in question are pretty much the only ones operating beyond a local level and are offering techniques that are (were?) pretty unique. It’s all at a stage of assimilation at the moment, but when the moment passes, as it eventually will, people will hopefully move on to new/different discoveries.

I say hopefully because I do see something else as the cause of the sameness you bemoan and that’s my second point. How to say this diplomatically? Most of the hoopers that I encounter in person or online do not have the same level of curiosity and drive to develop new things themselves at the same rate that poi and staff spinners and jugglers of all kinds do. In those other disciplines, yes, there have always been a few teachers/performers who are particularly influential, but then there’s this whole other way in which people who learn from them go on and do what they learned with their own take and build on it. I don’t see that in the hoop world, but I don’t think it’s the fault of the teachers: hoopers in general just do not display the same kind of drive and curiosity that spinners of other types do.

Another symptom of this is the fact that the hoop community is largely segregated from the rest of the spinning world. At spin meets and juggling conventions you see poi, staff, diabolo, devilsticks, toss juggling, bounce juggling, contact juggling, club swinging and more frequently now hoop manipulation. There’s this really rich cross-pollination happening. But hoopers (as in hula hoop based hooping) by and large don’t show up to those things. There are no teachers to blame for that.

Another symptom of the lack of drive/curiosity amongst hoopers is the fact that whenever someone posts a video, no-one will say anything critical ever. On poi and staff videos, no-one has any qualms about saying “your planes are sloppy” or “that transition doesn’t really work” but hoopers (generally speaking) just won’t go there. Hooping won’t progress if no-one is willing to critique. Again, not the fault of the teachers.

So basically yes, I see the same thing you do and it bothers me as well, but it bothers me for different reasons.