In case you've never seen Brecken,
http://spirithoopcake.co.uk/BreckenRivara.aspxIt's really long, so to spare you from reading the whole thing, here are the parts that resonated with me and I think are relevant to liquid.
Ok, I know I always ask these sets of questions but I'm interested in your very early days and experiences of learning hooping. Did you find acquiring those beginner moves easy, which moves, if any, took you a bit longer to master? What advice or encouragement would you give a new hooper who was experiencing the learning process at a slower pace than they would like?Man, I had the biggest hoop. And I loved shoulders (like duck-out style). But mostly it was a whole lot of core hooping for a while. When it came to off body I know I built off of a handful of basics, and they did get more ambitious over time. But it luckily became more of a contact thing, where I’d basically just flail around ignoring the hoop and somehow recover. The path it took getting back to me was the new move. And the more I acquired the faster new ones came. It got exponential, where the more I discovered the more I felt there was to discover …I might also mention that I was somehow under the impression that everything I did was completely unprecedented. It’s actually funny looking back, how much of my momentum was gathered under the assumption that I was a f*cking genius, and accomplishing feats not yet conceived of in the history of man. (I hear this is still a trend among a few scattered newbie’s out there)
So to the non-delusional beginners: I’d say that things really take off when you’re working toward the development of the art form, as it’s own collective entity…rather than “being an artist” or trying to be. It seems often easy to get stunted by the effort to establish ourselves within a certain element, rather than recreating that element and thus releasing any boundaries we’ve tied to ourselves.
Plus, hooping is definitely branching out into a number of genres and there’s plenty of opportunity to get that artist’s high. So you can probably screw what you’ve seen unless it really strikes you and forget about filling in the gaps if they’re not ready. I think you’re more likely to experience a really inspiring evolution when it’s out of curiosity and not a defined accomplishment. But if you can glimpse the feeling of breaking new ground- that’s the practice. That feeling. It’s that level of confidence in your capacity to learn directly from the hoop and yourself that’ll fill the gaps in for you, as needed, if needed. And that’s the process that’s worth it. You’ll know what’s holding you back when it comes up, and it’s that comfort in dance that provides the foundation from which the moves can emminate. So look at other dance forms and combine, or pick one solid move and exploit the hell out of it. Sing. Roll on the ground. Throw it against the wall a thousand times. Whatever. “It’s just a hula hoop,” is sometimes the best thing you can say.
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It also makes it so that you pretty much CAN’T screw up. It’s just further opportunity to go with it at any point and allow your body to follow even the tiniest impulse, knowing that there is no necessary call to straightness. If it falls on you… twist with it, if it twists mid-air then ...wait til you’re planted and follow. Whatever. Let it find a plane on your body or in the air when there isn’t one in motion yet. It’s getting comfortable with options. …and it makes for some damn nice pace change.
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When you are practicing do you have any kind of structure or agenda (something specific you want to achieve in a session) or completely free flowing? Can you expand further on how you use your time to experiment and play with the hoop?I don’t know if I have much of a structure, but I’m sure there are a few consistent elements. I basically figure out what’s tight pretty quickly and then stretch it. Depending on the music, I might just jam out for a while, but I tend to go into a bit of everything and bounce around between genres. If I remember something I haven’t done in a while, I might take it on for a bit- there’s always something to practice that’s not quite as good as it used to be. And if something new comes up, I’ll delve into that for a while; see what needs to be improved on through it or if I can take it further. Lately I’ve been trying to polish my workshop, so I stop a lot to dismember what I’m doing, and thanks to the new performance effort, I’ve been stopping to take notes on what everything “says” to me. Generally, though, there are a few staples: run around, get low, shake and wiggle, stretch with and without the hoop, dance without the hoop, core hoop while focusing intensely on the hoop, core hoop while dancing freely and ignoring the hoop entirely, and just go with what feels right. I sometimes like to feel the space around me for a while and then compare the difference felt within my body. Chances are, there’ll be a completely different vibe the next day. I bounce around a lot.
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I really like the way that you dress when hooping, from the shorts and bikini top to your loose trousers and baggy tops, you look really honest to me and some how avoided, lovely that it is, the hoop fashion that seems to have gripped some hoopers. Is this done consciously?Ha. Thanks. That is a BIG question, actually. About a year ago someone came up to me at a gathering, looked me up and down and said, “you know what you’re doing.” And by that she either meant that I was making some kind of a purist statement or that I was secretly asking for attention by feigning the opposite. Either way, at the time they were the most refreshing words I could have possibly heard.
It’s really just what I’m comfortable in, but I’d be lying to say that it hasn’t brought a mess of conflict, when considering the flippant nature it might exude. Or evoke. At first (…and keep in mind that I was that token pajama-girl in high school and spent the next four years in a painting studio) …at first it was just what I wore to stay comfortable, both physically and mentally, to allow myself to feel low-key and casual enough that self-expression was even possible and that the awareness of an audience didn’t worm its way into my hooping any more than it had to. But it became a real ego trip- throwing down in a t-shirt while everyone else was dolled up. It felt good to show people up like that… and then it just felt rude and had become the ultimate costume. Odd paradox. It reminds me of someone who’s arrogant about their spiritual humility or something. Where do you go from there?
Ah well. Now I’m just comfortable.
Almost done! What has the hoop given to you that you weren't expecting? (ie a better physique or opening up your consciousness or physical expression)Oh, I didn’t expect any of this shit. That’s what gets me. Um… currently, it’s providing a rapidly increasing respect for a process-oriented mentality. Early on it was a truly startling demonstration in how to learn through letting go and I saw how universal all of our basic conflicts are, as they were able to show up metaphorically with my little plastic toy. I had reached a breaking point with my artwork and perfectionism and thus gave up, exhaustedly, on my search for the profound. It was that abandonment of art and depth that allowed me to re-discover it ten-fold, and –given the simplicity of the medium- realize how far-reaching those lessons are.
And now there’s a whole new bag …like in performance for example: I feel like it’s become about relaxing enough to let it all seep in; remaining substantial enough to draw the attention, only once you don’t need it. There’s a lot of paradox in hooping- as in everything, I guess. It’s the same old game we experience everywhere- where wanting something is the surest way not to get it and you find the idea of something preventing its occurrence. If you stress about hooping well, you won’t. If you try to “be a hooper,” you’re suddenly not one. Maybe that’s too flighty, but if you get too wrapped up with the thought of it, you’ll start to struggle. Not only due to stress but because you’re asking for that game/preoccupation to continue, and avoiding the acceptance of the “nothing” it really is. When you get into the flow, it’s a release of all the shit you tied to it before. It’s like a “nothing” in a way. If you base your identity on it, then you’ve built a wall between yourself and what it actually is, because you won’t want to face the simplicity of it. It’s an erratic roller coaster for me- of giving up and releasing into new development; and then getting excited by the new development, thus wrapped up, subsequently stagnating, getting pissed off and finally giving up…into new release and development. Then I start all over again. Fun, right? Throw a camera into the mix, and the odds of a career in hula hooping, and we got a keeper.
