I got the remark " I can't believe you are making money hula hooping!" --Hooping has given me a nice side income!
Ignore those who don't understand.
Hooping is awesome.
Music I like to hoop to: Sam Bush - the Peaks of Telluride, Michael Franti - Yell Fire!, disco, oldies, Black Sabbath, the blues - for a good female blues group I suggest - Saffire - the uppity blues women - feisty. UM. I love girl singers.. Victoria Williams, Patty Griffin, Dar Williams, and Ani Difranco - but with these singer-songwriter-y types it is sometimes a challenge to 'feel' a slower song. ( I grab a larger hoop for slower songs.) Ani rocks - of course - you will find many hoopgrrls will hoop to her!
That should give you some food for thought - for now.
Franti seems to be super popular with hoopers.
I like Bob Marley also. I just read his bio.
Best wishes to you Mimi! HOOP ON!

I actually was being mocked at work about this the other day - generally my protests of, "It's an adult hoop!" are drowned out by laughter and cracks about my hooping bruises. There's not much you can do except point them towards some videos (Safire's Clipstar clip is a great one, for instance) and watch them realize just how tasty that foot in their mouth is :)

As far as music goes, I hoop to a lot of poppy clubby stuff - I don't have the attention span for house music because I can't really focus on music without words. My current favorite tracks are "The Girls" by Calvin Harris, "Stripper" by Sohodolls and "Shut up and Let Me Go" by the Ting Tings. All of these are available on Youtube :)

There's actually a tribe for this, it's called "Hoop Music".

The hoop life is about how you feel. Not about others. Don't take their distance from their inner child interfere with your fun.
Same thing happened to me, so I just kept it under wraps from friends. Only my neighbors saw me hooping, then one day, they started coming out of their apartments and hooping with me. They saw how much joy it brought me and wanted some of that. So, now I have a lot of friends who are hoopers, and the one's that aren't are way too impressed by my hoop skills to tease me anymore.
I'm not saying go underground...I'm saying it's your fun! People's reactions are projections of their own unhappiness, so sometimes you just have to let it go and hoop some more.

Music: Dark Matter spins some wicked sets to hoop to. And I like Moby. His stuff is fun.

I live in SF, so we have more options as far as personal expression here.

So, when I am out hooping, people usually wished that they could do what I am doing. I got stopped by the garbage man one day and said that he wished he could do it, but his back is bad. I told him that I do it because I have sciatica and a weak lower back and hooping is helping keep my back flexible and less prone to injury.

Also, when people look they usually smile and say oohhhh, ahhhhh or at least smile.

Music:

Orbital
Orb
Moby
Talvin Singh
Buddah Bar (Any of their CD are great)
Electric Skychurch (Together)
Ikarus (Touch the Sun)
William Orbit (Strange Cargo III)
Black Eyed Peas
Vitus Dance
Album: The best of Cafe Del Mar

Hahaha just do your thing !! lol, how do you think I manage?

I will be two years in on Jan 19th 2009 and still loving it.

Everything has been so positive and I have met some fantastic peeps.

At the mom i'm into the black eyed peas with Sergio Mendez, Wicked Brazilian Music which just goes round in my head constantly. And his latest "Encarta" .. brilliant !!

Yes... I have my playlist posted on a new tribe I started called "The Hoopers Playlist". When you hoop often the music gets stale quick. I'd love to see what you have on your ipod. and...

Yes... when I tell people that I teach Hoop Dance they usually raise thier eyebrows, smile a tight lipped smile, shake the head and humm "ah ha" like.... OOKAY. But they people who see me doing it usually drop thier jaw.

So one day when your good and confident, do it in the parking lot at lunch time. I bet some of them will want a hoop too. Or least try yours...