Why I'm not teaching anymore.

After thinking about it for a while, I've decided I'm not teaching hoop any more. Well, maybe not for a couple of years.

I'm just not ready for it.

I know that might sound silly, since I taught my first class when I'd been hooping for just six months. I'm happy to teach informally, as I do at the River City Hoopers, but I don't want to teach formal classes any more.

I've noticed that it is acceptable for any one who can swing a hoop to set themselves up as a teacher. That's what happened with me. That's the ad hoc way the hoop community operates; and there's nothing wrong with a hoop enthusiast teaching interested people how to hoop [especially in a place where there are no other hoop teachers].

But for me, personally, it doesn't feel right any more.

I have been hooping for just over two years - I'm hardly an expert. If I'd been learning ballet or football for two years, I'd never think of setting myself up as a teacher. I consider myself an intermediate hooper, and I probably will be for another couple of years. I am still very much finding my own flow, my own language, within the hoop. For now, I want my own learning to be my main focus.

The other issue I have with teaching hoop is that I haven't yet learned to teach authentically. Hooping is so much more to me than just physical exercise, but I find it difficult to communicate this to others. I want to learn how to do this before I teach again. May be I will take some teacher training to help me with this.

Of course, this doesn't mean I will never teach any one any thing to do with the hoop, ever again. If I meet some one who wants to learn from me, I'm not going to turn them away. The more hoop love there is in this world the better!

Happy hooping,
Anne-Marie x

On comparing myself to others.

The hoop is a source of such joy for me that I hate negative emotions coming any where near it.

Yet some times the hoop has difficult lessons to teach me, such as uncovering a dark part of my personality. Like … ooh, let’s see, my tendency to compare myself to other hoopers.

Eek.

I’ve written before about comparison and how futile it is. But it seems that learning not to compare myself as a hooper is going to be a long journey for me.

I noticed recently that I had started feeling dissatisfied with my hooping. Winter doesn’t help, but there was more to it than that. It often happened after I had been on Facebook, where my feed was dominated by posts from a very large hoop group. While every person in that group was drawn there by a mutual love of the hoop, I seemed to have very little in common with the majority of them.

I started comparing myself to them. Unfavourably. Because, let’s face it, I’m not a 20 year old in a teeny tiny bikini, doing astonishing things with a teeny tiny hoop after just six months of hooping.

“Well, that’s it. You’re a failure,” says the very nasty voice in my head.

And it doesn’t stop with hooping. A friend posts about her world travels. Another friend is making a decent living as an artist. And I hear about yet another who has just snagged a book deal.

“Look at them. What are YOU doing? You suck,” says that nasty voice again.

Perhaps I should cocoon myself from the world so I don’t ever have any one to compare myself to? Nah. Sounds a bit lonely, doesn’t it?

I did have some thing of a revelation while I was hooping the other day. When I’m comparing myself to some one else I’m thinking about the other person and what they are doing, rather than what I’m doing. I can’t control what other people do. They’re just trucking along, doing their thing.

So may be that’s what I need to learn how to do. I can’t be any body else. I can only be me, in and out of the hoop.

Happy hooping,

Anne-Marie x

The best ever chicken casserole {and that's no lie}.

Wow, winter has arrived with a vengeance here in New Zealand! After last year’s complete lack of winter, and a very mild start to this winter, it’s almost a relief that the cold weather has finally arrived. It’s July – we’re supposed to be scraping ice off our cars in the mornings!

Casseroles are a must-have in my recipe book for winter, and I am always on the look-out for new casserole recipes. Feel free to share any. But I reckon you’d have to go a long way to beat this fantastic recipe for chicken and white wine casserole. It’s easy to make, it’s warming, and it can easily be doubled or halved.

I serve it with lots of brown rice or cous cous, and fresh bread if I have it on hand. You can substitute the vegetables I’ve listed here for any you might have on hand - cauliflower, kumara, green beans, pumpkin would all be good. Although I do think carrots are essential.

CHICKEN AND WHITE WINE CASSEROLE

Serves 4.

500g chicken breast or boneless thighs, each piece cut in half

1 cup white wine

1 cup chicken or vegetable stock

400g tin chopped tomatoes

1T flour

3 sprigs thyme

2 onions, diced

2 carrots, coarsely chopped

2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped

2 medium unpeeled potatoes, chopped into small pieces

½ cup frozen peas

½ cup frozen corn kernels

Handful chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Pre-heat the oven to 180degC.
Put the chopped vegetables, except peas and corn,  in a large casserole dish. Sprinkle the flour over the top. Put chicken on top. Pour the tomatoes, white wine and stock in, and season with some freshly ground black pepper. Tuck the thyme in to the casserole. Cover.
Put into a hot oven and cook for one hour.
Remove casserole from the oven and take the lid off. Put back in the oven and cook for a further 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and the gravy is starting to thicken.
Remove from the oven and take each piece of chicken out, shred into smaller pieces, and mix back into the casserole. Stir in the peas, corn and parsley, and serve.

YUM.

Winter hooping.

Rugged up on a chilly morning.



Summer and hooping are natural companions. Summer and hooping go together like ice-cream and jandals, like sea and swimming, like dog and walks. I love hooping in summer, especially in the long, warm evenings after the heat of the day is over.

Winter and hooping? They don't go together quite so well.

Unless you have a very spacious house, or you live somewhere that doesn't really have a winter, hooping in the cold months can be a challenge. In my part of New Zealand we don't have snow to contend with, or even a long winter, but we do get a lot of rain and wind - which can last all through spring.

I, of course, do hoop right through winter but there's no doubt my winter hoop practice is different from my summer hoop practice. Because I often struggle with the winter blues my winter hoop practice is more important than my summer hoop practice. I thought I would share with you my tips for hooping in winter.

Make yourself do it. It's not always easy to motivate yourself to hoop when it's freezing cold. But I set myself a goal in autumn to hoop a minimum of 15 minutes per day, no matter what, and so far I haven't missed a day. Only the days I only manage 15 minutes I don't feel bad about it.

Make the most of the good weather. This winter we've been blessed with a couple of weekends of calm blue skies and mild temperatures. On those weekends I may have had plans to clean the bathroom and do the groceries, but you can bet I abandoned those plans in favour of hooping outside in the sun for most of the weekend.

Challenge yourself. I have limited space to hoop inside, but I do it anyway. Having a wide open space to hoop in is great, but sometimes challenging yourself by hooping in a constrained space can be good for your practice. Winter is your chance to try things like this out.

Hoop with others. Join a local hoop jam or, as I did, start one of your own. It's always fun to have some company while you hoop.

Focus on other things. Hooping in winter may be hard but you can focus on other things that will benefit your hooping once summer rolls around again. For example, yoga is really good to keep your body supple over winter, which can only benefit your practice.

Accept it. Hooping in winter will never be the same as hooping in summer. That's just the way it is. But summer will roll around again, and before you know it you'll be complaining it's too hot to hoop!

Happy hooping,
Anne-Marie x

Hooping for dark times.

Two happy-making things.

I'm not in a good headspace right now; in fact I'm struggling to cope with a lot of day-to-day living.

I know exactly what this is about: one area of my life is unpleasant for me, and I feel like I'm unable to get out of the situation or do anything about it.

I'm feeling powerless.

I'm feeling anxious and disconnected. I'm struggling to find the joy that normally comes so easily to me.

I have, of course, been here before - more times than I wish. So I know the depression will pass; it always does; I just wish it would pass sooner!

I'm trying to keep my head above water by looking after myself physically - eating fruit, getting enough fresh air and sunshine, and going to bed early.

I've also put together a plan to make the unpleasant situation easier, and to [eventually] get away from it.

And each morning I honour my commitment to my hoop. I get up and, no matter how crap I feel, I hoop for 15 minutes. When I can, I hoop during my lunch break and after work.

When I hoop I feel better. My hoop gives me the space to be creative, to move, to free my mind from doubt and fear. I feel "normal" again - as though there is hope for me still.

This morning on Facebook my teacher, Christine [I consider her one of my teachers even though we've never met in person], wrote this:

That way that you feel when you're dancing and it's just you and the music and you've totally got this? That. That's the true you. No baggage. No garbage. Free. You.

Happy hooping,
Anne-Marie x