In the last few years, however, the differentiating line began to blur. Old school circus hula hoopers like Mat Plendl, Miss Saturn and Marawa The Amazing became our friends. With the rising popularity of hooping too, new school circus performers caught the bug and even started putting their acrobatic spin on it. Poi spinners and other object manipulators, originally reluctant to hoop, discovered they liked it too and began shrinking our hoops into smaller, light-weight circles for weaving and what not, making it easier on their hands. Someone decided hanging upside down from an aerial hoop was hooping too and soon the Cyr Wheel and mini-hoops came rolling our way. They’re both hoop shaped so they count too, right? And as things expanded further and further the luminaries from the fringes cheered it on saying, “We need to keep pushing it forward!” And today I whole heartedly disagree. While Hooping.org has followed the hoops for years, in whatever direction they were traveling, the time has come to say enough already and roll it on back. Here’s why.
Rolling It Back - Hooping.org
Its a bit controversial, and I'm not sure I agree with everything, but I appreciate what (I think) Philo's points are.
To elaborate on what I think about his four main points:
Philo warns against the constant downsizing of hoops as an aspirational target - I agree this puts off newbies and people who for whatever reason need bigger/appropriately sized hoops to get the basics down before deciding for themselves when / if / how much to downsize. That said, I also empathise with Bags' point (in the comments) that although core hooping (body-rocking) is fine if that's your thing, perhaps it isn't, perhaps you want to throw around tiny, light hoops and that's fine too. Basically just everyone do your thing, and stay respectful of people, no matter if they hoop differently, it's not difficult?!
Re: the increasing ammount of internet trolling and negativity: I must be blind to a lot of this (I don't as a rule read comments on other peoples' posts, especially on YouTube), but the few times I've seen hoopers be critical of others videos when their opinion wasn't asked for - (if you ask for it then kind of fair game? But even then its possible to give constructive criticism without being overly negative) it makes me livid, and is why I have a firm personal policy of not judging or reviewing submissions here. But actually I think that its unfortunately inevitable, not at all unique or original to 'the hoop community' - its just an aspect of online culture and the security that anonymity brings.
I agree that someone who's been hooping for a while sees things very differently from someone who's completely new to it, or even from experienced hoopers outside their immediate social circle. And I agree that instead of dismissing certain styles, moves, or concepts as out-dated or uncool we should ideally try and see this as a joyful thing, that there's just SO MUCH to hooping, so many avenues you can explore with it.
Now that its so easy to consume hooping media, follow certain hoopers videos and admire their styles, its inevitable that this will inspire people to try and emulate things they've seen other people do, and that can be a great thing; but I agree we should all be cautious of getting too hung up on trying to move like one person at the expense of trying out new things that are truly our own.
Eh, I dunno. I guess I don't really disagree with any of his general points, but I don't think they're all well made; or that there's realistically any chance that the negative things he mentions will stop. I suppose I'm of the cynical opinion that they're just familiar sociological patterns and problems that exist in pretty much any niche community.
Do you guys have any thoughts, opinions on these things?
