I've recently started playing with my larger, heavy hoops again. It feels almost liberating somehow...going a little slower, feeling the movements with more intensity. I've been loving it. For awhile it was like a race to get down to the smallest, lightest hoop I could. I'm not sure who I was racing against, but when I got pregnant last year the race stopped and I maintained my hoop size. Now, I'm just finding that using different hoop sizes and weights helps me learn more about my body, my hooping, and areas that need work. It has been a great tool for teaching me about my hooping and myself....and most importantly it has been wicked fun.

I started with a smaller hoop than my 'primary' hoop - the one that I grab naturally as I head out the door. I still use a few different sizes but definitely have one where I am at my most comfortable.

I know for me, personally, I'm very conscious of how much space I'm taking up.
While so many outside sources are saying "Small smaller smallest" to me, my time with my hoop is one of the times I'm most comfortable taking up the amount of space I know I deserve in the world.

(I know I've taken this too far, but so often I catch myself with a glimmer of 'hoop jealousy' -- as in, "I wish my hoop were that small" - when in fact, like with other parts of my life, it's all about being me & loving myself for it - not the smaller version of myself)

I think rushing toward the smaller hoops seems to be kind of a trend. It almost feels like competition or something with people wanting to get ever smaller and smaller. I like small hoops okay but they take some of the fun out of hooping for me. I use a variety of hoops but I don't love the very small ones. I like the larger, slower hoops best. Small ones are okay for tight spaces but I have a lot of hoops and I almost never pick a small one first.

(I think it's actually "downsizing" though, not upsizing. You're starting with a large hoop and working your way down. Unless you meant graduating to a bigger hoop.)

This is an interesting question. Yes, I think there has been some pressure to try to move down to smaller hoops once you can keep it going and do some basic tricks. I don't think the pressure has been exerted by anyone to anyone, but I think we've picked it up just by watching. It probably applies to more recent beginners like myself than to those who have been doing it for years. They had less YouTube material and less DVD's to learn from, so they kind of worked it out for themselves. We have been flooded with helpful and entertaining material to learn from, but many of the videos we watch are from seasoned hoopers, class teachers or performers. They are often slim and petite, they are very fast and they have found their mark with smaller hoops by trial and error. We have inadvertently watched them and thought, OK, so to get really good at this we need to use smaller hoops.

Personally I'm a hoop junkie. I have made loads now. All sorts of sizes. I use 25mm pipe and 20mm pipe. When I was learning I made a huge 46" or 48" hoop (I can't now remember which it is) and I still use it from time to time for slow spins or to learn new moves with. I have 44" in both pipe dimensions and what I call my standard hoop is a 25mm 43" hoop. The smallest hoop I have is 38", but I struggle to do much with it. I'm nearly 6' tall and I'm chunky so I need room. I use a 20mm 40" hoop sometimes in the house because space is short in there, but I prefer a 42" for that.

I just use whatever I feel like at the time. My favorite at the moment is a 20mm 43" hoop. I can happily hand hoop with it and body hoop with it. I bruise very easily so big 25mm hoops on my hands, legs and arms are painful and more or less impossible on my neck if I want to move the next day.

So yes, there was a time quite recently that I thought I would not progress unless I could hoop with something small. But now I've realised that I can and should hoop with whatever I fancy at the time, and even what I think of as small is still pretty big to some. Hooping isn't a competition. It's a joy.

sad. i replied to this yesterday but tribe was being crabby.... so, round two:

i have found a benefit in using mutiple sizes and weights of hoops for me. i did start out working to a smaller and lighter hoop - i think my first hoop was about 45 inches and close to 5 pounds, and the smallest one i now use is around 34 inches and has very minimal tape. dropping down in size forced to to be careful in ways a heavier, larger hoop did not... i had to rely more on myself and less on the natural pull of the hoop, and it helped me feel more comfotable moving and dancing.

i have been picking up my larger and heavier hoops lately, just retaped one over the weekend, and it's been wonderful. moves are much easier for me to do - my lifts from the waist are much more level, and theres a calm, confident smoothness to a slower rotation that felt like hugging an old friend that knows you well. the lighter/smaller hoops were easier on my wrists and hands and allowed me to practice off-body hooping for a longer period of time, and i can feel a difference when i pick up a larger hoop now.

it's been really wonderful to experience different sizes and weights for me and i feel it's given a certain depth of understanding to how i personally move and feel when i hoop. to each her own... i forget which company's motto this is, but it's very simply "find yourself in the hoop", and I really like and appreciate that. we all have our own rythym and groove in a hoop, and the size of it is a personal comfort and choice.

I have many different weight and sized hoops and each one has taught me something different. My main hoop of choice at the moment is a 95cm (approx 37") wide from 20mm (3/4" approx) tube, but I often use larger and smaller hoops when I want to learn new skills. Each weight and size has it's own benefits and limitations. Mix and match is what I do.

While I appreciate sometimes the lightness of a smaller, lighter-weight hoop (which for me is 40-41" diameter 100psi pipe) - it's like "going back to heaven" to pick up my origina. 44" 100psi hoop! and recently I made one just a little larger. The little bit of extra weight (it's only a couple-three ounces) makes such a difference, and I love the sense of earthy heaviness and the slower speed. Or, sometimes I will hoop with two hoops of the same size for a bit. It just seems to "center" me.

One thing I discovered is that a layer of tape (mostly gaffer) adds about the same weight to a hoop as using the next-heavier tubing. That's confusing isn't it? I mean - adding another layer of tape to a 100psi hoop will make it about the same weight as a 125psi hoop of the same diameter.

I think about hoop size quite often. My current favorite(s) to hoop with is one of two 36" hoops, 3/4", 100 PSI tube, with a moderate amount of tape. I just went out and measured my first hoop - and it's 50" !! (1", 100 PSI tubing, lots of tape). I still use these large old hoops, I take them with me to the Farmer's Market on Saturdays for people to try. I really feel it's much more encouraging to a 'new' hooper to use a large, heavier (not weighted, just heavier tubing) hoop when first trying to hoop. I make and sell hoops at the market and I still make hoops out of 1", 100 PSI tubing. I sell this size to the adult-sized people and 3/4", 100 PSI for children. I make my hoops in all sizes (diameters).

I downsized every few months in the beginning, just by an inch or two at a time. I didn't make the shift to lighter 3/4" tubing until the fall of last year. I went to the Hoop Path Retreat last summer with my then favorite, a 42"(1", 100 PSI) hoop. That was tough but awesome. After coming back home and really beginning to "practice" I needed to move to the lighter, smaller hoop. It was awkward at first, but now I love how I can spin. I miss the slowness of the larger, heavier hoop but when I step back into the big ones I feel just as awkward adjusting how I hoop. Completely different hoopdancing.

I feel it's good to use a variety of hoop sizes. I agree that it helps keep you feeling connected. I'm glad this topic came up because sometimes I've felt that my big 1"D hoops aren't what anybody is using and I feel the need to stop using this material. Then I remember that my whole life is about being who I am and doing what I love. So I'm going to make a conscious effort to encourage myself and others to feel the hoop in different sizes.

interesting.

I agree that despite the non-competitive Spirit of hooping, there is this pressure from... somewhere (I know where-- watching these amazing videos of Spiral and Beth and Christabel, and aspiring...) to go lighter, especially if you're considering performing as opposed to just enjoying the company of your hoop.

I definitely am relating to people who are going up and down as it suits a mood and particular body urgings. More and more all the time.
The whole emphasis on performing that started when Christabel invited me to try out for the Allstars last September fundamentally changed my relationship with my hoop. (There's going to be a blog post about that process in the not-too-distant future.) I feel like it's only now, 9 months after becoming an "Allstar," that I'm remembering my original dynamic....That Being within the hoop, and being wholly unconcerned with what I look like (!!!). It sure is nice to be getting back to that.

Caroleena- i did mean upsizing :). For me, it was downsizing to go steadily to smaller lighter; and so when I started to experiment in the reverse direction I thought of it as upsizing back up to a heavier hoop. (The Chubby Hubby.)

What an interesting topic - I never realized how much I've ignored my bigger hoops since downsizing. For me, it's been a matter of function, a slow evolution towards smaller hoops, not a conscious choice to get smaller and faster as soon as possible.

I stuck with my original 3/4" 160psi 42" hoop for the first eight months of my hooping. It felt good and it felt right. When I finally rationalized buying a psihoop, I ordered it a little smaller (38"). My logic behind that was I wanted my hoop to move a little more quickly so that the lights would be more interesting. Before I decided on the diameter for my new psihoop, I made hoops in smaller increments (41", 40", 39", 38", and 37") to see what I liked better (still in 3/4" 160psi) and found that none of them were disconcertingly uncomfortable or unhoopable, so I just picked 38".

About a month later, I attended my first Hoop Path workshop. It was inspiring and opened up an entirely new world of hooping to me. Afterward, I emailed Bax to ask about his gazelle because I was having trouble doing some of the moves I'd learned in his class. I felt like a total wuss, but there were certain things that wrenched my wrists or were nearly impossible to do, bordering on painful. He told me that I wasn't doing anything wrong, but that some of those moves were much easier with a smaller, lighter hoop. I bought some 3/4" 100 psi tubing and voila - I no longer felt like I was on the verge of giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome.

It wasn't until I thought about double hooping that I looked into going a bit smaller. Even once I had a pair of 37" twins (100psi), I didn't start double hooping. I wanted to get used to regular hooping with them first, which was really interesting. Changing the size and weight of my hoops was like relearning certain aspects of hooping because the speed and inertia had changed so dramatically.

Smaller lighter hoops are definitely great for a lot of off body moves - the one time I'd tried doing double warrior/weave with my 42" hoops, I nearly decapitated myself and never tried again. Using smaller hoops made a world of difference there! I also like using them for a lot of Hoop Path techniques because the lighter hoops respond much more quickly.

I still use big hoops when I teach, and I like the slower groove, but I haven't really practiced with my bigger, heavier hoops outside of class. Sometimes I bring my Hoopnotica travel hoop to try out new moves because it's huge (44") but lighter than a 160psi, but I can't remember the last time I brought one of my old 42" 160psi hoops to practice. Maybe I'll give it a try this week! I have missed my favorite old hoop. It's collecting dust in my hoop pile, probably crying about how I've neglected it.

I was thinking about having Patrick cut my psihoop down a little smaller but this has made me reconsider. Hee, I've put off emailing him about it for so long that pondering it a little longer won't make much difference! Maybe I shouldn't be so hasty to snip it down.