Everything flashes to dark giving life to my senses. My skin clams up in the humid air. The man next to me smells like curry and in that instant I felt as though we were all family. The rattling under my feet throws me into the next seat just as the lights come on.“Grand Central station, next stop!” I hadn’t been back to NY since I planned my moms funeral in 1991. Now, it’s 2001, October.
What the hell am I doing here again? I left the best job ever and all my friends to be here? Last month I was 13 thousand feet above people, spinning my prayers on top of a mountain peak. And now I am… the subway doors open and the waves of people push and pull me effortlessly out into Grand Central Station.
I grew up in Westchester County and occasionally would run away to the city with a few close friends from high school. We would come down to shop, try to get in to small jazz clubs and drink. There was that one time where they all left me because I said that I would rather talk to the Social Studies professor who was living in Grand Central station by the east entrance. First he lost his job, then his wife and child, home, car, teeth. The only things you could see that were most impressively his, was his clear mind and his open heart.
The hallucinogenic effect of NYC had kicked in. Women were stressed out and running in high heals. Shiny briefcases were swinging to catch the attention of coworkers. Men with shiny, squeaky shoes race walking to the closest exit and me standing in the middle of it all, in a cotton wrap around skirt, holding 20 oversized rainbow colored hoops and a boom box.
First stop; all the firehouses on the west side. I was thrilled at the opportunity to teach Hoop Dance in the city. I knew that as soon as one steps into a hoop they feel its’ vortex. And on some level, when they spin it, they can feel safe, open, moved and like a kid again.
I was planning on moving to San Diego earlier that year. The location was a good choice for growing my Hoop business. It was close to LA for getting better media exposure and close to the yoga center where I used to live and where my friends and teachers were. After 9/11, I kept having dreams that geographically, NYC was the place where people needed to spin. To spin, with intention, much like the Whirling Dervish, can heal a person. Rhythm, breath, timelessness and sense are all lost and found and lost again, while in this movement.
As it turned out, it took me an hour to walk about 50 feet to the door. 2 police men, a bagel maker and a tiny polish woman all summoned me to show them how I hoop and to teach them. After this, I opened the heavy doors, walked out into the sunshine and took my first big breath of NYC air. Fresh coffee and urine! Ahh…my adventure had begun.
I am a dreamer of what, I don’t know. I plant my vision in every flake of snow. And as it falls upon your lips, speak your dreams to all who will listen. For without your dreams, life is indecision. I remembered that quote from someone and thought, Betty, you might look like a freak right now but you came here to laugh with people through the hoop.
In the weeks that passed, I hooped with hundreds of people. I gave hoops to policemen for their kids and to giddy Firemen for a rainy day activity. I usually went into the city by myself and never did by a digital camera until recently. So most of my adventures were not documented.
The hoop craze was growing. By 2002 there were 3 other hoop businesses in the country. They were mostly performing at the time. They would teach others hoop tricks and how to execute cool techniques. Some hoopers entered Burlesque shows. Though I thought that would be fun, I really just wanted to travel around the city and help others heal through Hoop Dance.
Construction workers with their pants hanging dangerously too low, would yell to me from scaffolding, “Yo! Wait there I’m coming down to give that thing a spin.” And they would. Right there, in the middle of Time Square, tool belt and all, these men would grab my rainbow colored hoops and have a blast. Then I would go to Wall Street for lunch time. That was a show. I would slither my way upstream in the crowd and it wouldn’t be long before men and women would literally grab the hoop off my shoulder.
There faces would glow just looking at the hoop and once they were spinning it they would all transform into children. Giggling and playful. You could see their mental stress wash away and their breath expand in their chest. They seemed grounded, relaxed, present. Just the recipe for healing Post Traumatic Stress.
In the weeks that followed, I convinced some people to hire me. I am not very schmoozy nor do I know how to conform. I traded in my hiking sandals for open toes shoes. I safety pinned the hole on my skirt where my hoop had worn through and I used a nice pen in to hold my hair up instead of tying it in a not on top of my head. I guess my conviction and passion convinced certain locations to hire me because it certainly wasn;t my corporate pitch or presentation.
My Hoop Dance program was now being offered at Bally Total Fitness locations, Public schools, Private schools, Catholic Schools, a Jewish Community Center and a KidsYoga Studio. One of my favorite memories was in White Plains NY. I was teaching in a fishbowl room surrounded in glass. The room had 20 spinning students with barely enough room for us to partake in my popular Hoop Limbo contest that pops up in the middle of each class. From the front desk all the way to into the weight room, members were watching with anticipation to see what techniques everyone would do next. There was a huge foggy spot on the glass wall. I continued to teach and call out different ways to adjust the body to execute a certain technique. I hooped my way over to the spot on the glass. Behind it was a woman whose face was pressed into the window so hard, it looked like she was licking the glass. Her head was making the circular motion of the spinning hoops on the other side of the wall. I will never forget the look in her eyes. It was like the first time you look out the window on an airplane. The amazement and shock from the powerful energy beneath you, the desire to let go and connect to the real speed of the plane. Making yourself hold back from yelling, Holy Crap!
I spent 12 weeks teaching an after school program at Hommocks, the middle school I attended in Larchmont, NY. These 25 kids were fantastic. After a few classes, the wallflowers suddenly blossomed into class clowns. They showed off during Simon Says Hoop and helped the slower learners. The kids who came in with something to prove discovered that they were good enough not to have to prove anything. And there were a few who, after becoming shut down on most levels after September 11th, began to talk and cry.
In the spring of 2003, I felt that it was time to return to the mountains. I missed the nourishment that the lifestyle provided. It was so hard to leave my classes though. New Yorkers are raw and edgy and some of the most enthusiastic people I had the pleasure of dancing with.
They say that you become a product of your environment. I found myself giving the person driving in front of me the finger on the Henry Hudson Parkway because he did not use his blinker and cut me off. I realized that I needed to take the sign off my car that said
‘Hoops4Healing’and ‘Kids Parties’ with my phone number and website if I was going to perform road rage. I figured that I should go home to the mountains and regroup my perspective of my Self and my business. Soon after I returned to Colorado, I started developing my National class and train program as well as the 4Element dvd and Padded Collapsible hoop.
