Polyethylene is the standard hoop tube. Of all the tubes I’ve tried, in my opinion, it’s the best tube for most hoopers. For those who hoop extremely fast, I think High Pressure Polyethylene (HPPE) is a better tube. It’s slightly lighter and slighty stiffer. - Rich

Rich has some of the sickest isolation moves around. Check out Rich throwing down this year at Burning Man and then check out Isopop.

i’d been doing high tosses all night, aware of the ceiling fan rotating at the top of the high-ceilinged warehouse space, when i managed to tag it accidentally.  i don’t think i launched it that hard, but all of a sudden there was a blade on the floor and my peeps looking up in horror.  yep, that was me.  yep, broke the fan.  fuck.  i scrambled to get it turned off.

i can now add this to a couple of lamps (one of which involved several completely shattered glass light fixtures), beer bottles (nailed another one the same night), a bong, and multiple wall/ceiling impacts.  as to flesh wounds on unsuspecting victims, the human impact toll at this point is off the charts.  i think the u.n. is about to start the investigation.

i feel badly.  these are my peeps.  i broke their shit. working to get it fixed up all happily.  gonna have to add an interpretive dance to the mix to cheer up the residents.  maybe a puppet show.  i’d hoop but they’d probably throw things.

like i’ve started saying, with me, protective eyewear is recommended.

back pain is ugly, hella-pain.  it is incapacitating.  i don’t understand how people can deal with chronic back pain.  over the first week in particular i was like a turtle upside down in the desert.  try to shift a foot?  ouch!  cough or sneeze? ouch, ouch! try to sleep on your side?  my god- just shoot me now.

healing seemed to be done in geological time.

by the middle of last week, i could not handle not being able to hoop.  i braved the remaining pain to go perform at an obama fundraiser with my old hoop partner, hoop goddess.  i took the time to carefully stretch. felt great to move, to get sweaty, to be outside, to rock what my mama gave me.  but later, having sat on a couch for a few hours, i about cried when i tried to get up. the pain kept me up all night. serious hooppain, baby.

so now, with two hoop gigs on the horizon that i really don’t want to have to miss, i’m enduring the recovery process, fighting my tendency to want to get up and move a lot.  we’ll see if i can pull it off with the heavier fire hoop in a few days.

my point?  take special care of your back, eventhough it feels incredibly strong from hooping.  stretch!  if you get hurt, let it heal completely before doing anything political.

and have someone else move your crap.

evilBendy on taping a hoop
“buttcracks are good for many things. especially when you’re taping a hoop while naked.” - evilBendy

so, what now?

well, i’m of two minds.  i know there are several painers out there who are willing to offer their places so that we may continue to do what we’ve been doing without pause.  i think this could be quite fun, though i suspect that it will prove a bit of a pain in the ass to continue to hold the regular painfest unless someone steps up and offers to coordinate the when and where.  with the pre-burn activities now in full swing, scheduling has become something of a nightmare for many of us.  so, i’m thinking another option would be to cut down the frequency to once a month, or every six weeks.  

my other thought is to just say that the last scheduled HooppaiN next week is, indeed, the last one.  that we go out with a bang while it is still hella fun.  (yep, i said hella.)  leave ‘em wanting more, as the old saying goes.  then, at some future point, when no one is looking, we bust out a hooppain out of the blue and rage like there is no tomorrow.  something about this seriously appeals to me.

what do y’all think?

last year, dbug and i were roommates in portrero hill.  both crazy, avid hoopers, we found that the weekly bah practices were simply not enough (and that we generally hated the music).  so, we started jamming together in the living room during a couple of weeknights, pounding the upbeat music we preferred at high volume, exploring the effects of intoxicants, yada, yada, yada.  one day, blazed out of my mind, i tried to say hooping, but it came out hooppain.  i laughed my ass off at the mis-speech, and how apropos it seemed to our aggressive style, and wrote it on the whiteboard we had in the living room.  we also started coming up with phrases like, “if you ain’t dropping it, you ain’t doing it right” and “total fucking control, then let go.”  the ground was set.  Hooppain was born.

and, we kept on doing it.  pretty soon, the idea of inviting others to participate seemed the natural progression.  we both had great peep connections through bah, peeps we knew would enjoy the scene without restraint.  lassoo laroo was the first person to jam with us, joined soon thereafter by shooting star. we started thinking about having some live dj’s instead of just rocking the ipod.  the four of us began making it a regular weekly event.  we started to document with pix and video.  then evil bendy and frankenpain came into the hoop circle, helping to prevent stagnation.  the six of us made it happen for quite awhile, with occasional visiting painers.  bendy introduced the joy of sharpie art.  experimental clothing became de rigueur.  more dj’s became interested in participating.  we started hooping more at clubs together.  the tribe group became a reality, as did the website and facebook group.

soon queen pain and proud mari joined us, bringing new energy and ideas. and hilly and carl and maria and jen and doug.  lately, pixie and khan and agent peach.  visiting hoopers from all over the world started making it a point to check out the scene. dj amber, dj jaiyoung, dj showman, huggiebear, and dj noah, to name a few, have spun for us and with us.  no wallflowers.  everybody hoops.

and we started firepain.  the basic elements plus fuego.

now, it is the most reliably fun event i participate in.  we always have a fucking blast.  our hoop skills have universally improved.  we have all become tight friends.  a subgroup of us has joined solar flare for fire performances and, hopefully, conclave at burning man.

we’ve gotten a reputation, kind of like the bad boys and girls of hooping, which i wholly approve of.  we are bad asses.  we throw down.  no squirrel nonsense here.

at the core, it is still about not getting caught up in copying someone else’s style, but developing your own. we still interfere with eachother’s hooping (dbug loves to throw hoops at everyone).  these days i get more bruises from these fuckers than from my own thwackiness.  and, it is still ultimately about having a great time on hump day for a few hours with quality peeps.  as long as these things remain and progress, i don’t see it ending any time soon.

so, now you know.  if you want to join us, fill out the request for pain form.  the initiation doesn’t hurt that much…

I didn’t have any alcohol to worry about — during the day, but ask me about the night time festivities and I can tell you one Painer who really should have … well yea that story inspires my Drew Barrymore Firestarter reaction, I’m telling my power to “back off” right now.

Anyhow, back to the fest, all that heat and no proper meal or water meant that by performance time I was a fucking bear in my disposition. Luckily all my management training has paid off so that when I get in these moods I can create a filter between my asshole qp mood and what I show peeps. See the performance below? I had a headache, was sick to my stomach, and partially dehydrated. I coped.

At the end of the performance, a little girl came up to me and asked for my autograph while her mom complimented on how flexible I was (you hear that boys? *ahem*).

Maybe, sometimes, it pays off to suffer.

x.o. qp