Happy Hula Monkeys

You’ve been hooping along to the funky music in class and now you deserve a real treat! SOUTHSEA’S FIRST HOOP DISCO

When? Saturday 13th June 2009 7pm – 9pm

Where: The Priory School Upper Gym

How Much? £5.50 for adults and £2.50 for children

Places are limited so get your tickets online here:

Ticket Type

Adult £5.50 Child (under 16) £2.50

A number of The Happy Hula Monkeys are now registered for the Race for Life on 19th July. I am really proud that we are going to be part of such a good cause. Cancer Research needs our support to help fund prevention, diagnosis, treatment and research into cancer. Our sponsorship page can be found at http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/happyhulamonkeys so send this onto your friends and get them to dig deep to sponsor you! Tell them what we’re doing and encourage them to support us on your way to hooping the 5km!

Or donate here:

Week 1/Block 2 – Wednesday 25^th February

Smiley Teacher = Smiley Class!

This was our FUN NIGHT dedicated to all happy hoopiness!

We were energised by our funky disco lights (thanks to Sounds of the South) and party atmosphere tonight.

We had a mini workout and then focused on our play section. I like to give you a play section each week in which we just have fun but all the time you are still hooping and getting a great workout.

We headed straight into the turbo hooping and got those pulses racing, then onto the halo with our steps and turns. You all looked a lot more stylish and more comfortable with this move than in recent weeks. WELL DONE.

We worked on our new move ‘The Limbo’ and you all did fabulously well! Lot’s of arms in the air and hoops spinning on a vertical plane. This move is really good for working those tummy muscles and we will keep practicing so we get a good few sets out of this in the following weeks. But onto my favourite… this week I had one of my favourite party tunes on the schedule. Good old Dolly Parton! Yay! We got into the country groove and worked on our grapevine before adding those few extra steps to turn it into the ‘Electric Slide’. Another great effort – well done y’all!!! It was great to look around and see everybody really giving it a go and our whole hall was filled with crazy line dancing hoopers! I wish we’d caught that on camera.

By this time we were really in the mood for fun and got our reggae groove on with our final play section – Follow the Leader. This one really gets us sweating and giggling. I hope you enjoyed yourselves and I know you were all ready for a rest so we took a break for the second half and handed the floor over to our special guest– the Super duper Guest Hooper by the name of Bee Varga. Bee amazes me with her talent acquired after such relatively short period. We were very lucky to get her along as I know how busy she is with her performances and studies. We watched in amazement as Bee strut her stuff and dazzled us with those LED hoops (if you are interested in buying one of these let me know). Oh and that outfit – WOWZER!

Tartan around!

If any of you are brave enough to hoop it up like a pro then let me know and I can get Bee to contact you about the clothes she supplies.

I wanted to open your eyes to hoop dance as I doubt any of you have seen this before. There are lots of hoop dance styles that you can learn – Bee’s style is very fast and great for performances in clubs. You are all capable of learning the tricks and moves but fire it up with some funky attitude and make it your own. Slow or fast the key to hoop dance is flow. This is why I talk to you about transitioning between moves. If you can move (apparently) effortlessly from one move to the next then your performance no matter what style will appear graceful. It’s not all about fancy moves – in fact you may have recognised a lot of the moves Bee threw in as moves we have worked on – the reason it works is because Bee has her own style and makes it look so easy to magically move the hoop from one part of the body to the next. I love the club style and watch in amazement as hoopdancers like this whirl around at hyper speed but I also love the slower floaty style of hoop dance – don’t feel intimidated if you see a style you think is not for you. Create your own style and do it your way – for example long floaty skirts look beautiful with sustained spinning to Latin/belly dance music…perhaps this is something we can look at in the future and even try out in class.

Try it out for yourself. Go home, put some music on that you love, get in the hoop and just dance with it on your waist, get your arms into it, move your feet and have fun. Think about what styles of music you like dancing to – this would work while hooping too. That’s why I try different styles of music each week – what inspires you? If you want some pointers then have a chat with me, email or contact me via the forum.

Week 6 – Wednesday 18^th February

This was the last class of our first block and I’d like to thank you all for coming along and joining in so enthusiastically each week.

It was LATIN WEEK and tonight we covered a lot of ground and I really enjoyed myself so I hope you did too! We tried some salsa based simple steps before hitting our turbo hooping session.

I tried to give some pointers on learning the limbo move, the music really spurred you on and I was impressed to see you improve so quickly. There were lots of laughs and lots of limbo arms in the air – I wish we had the cocktails to go with them! It is nice to have such a close knit class.

People have been hit hard by the cold and flu bugs and you seemed to get quite tired out quite quickly – or was I working you too hard?! I notice that you are still struggling with arm movements while taking steps but we will get there. The more you practice the more natural it will feel and you will be stepping around freely and not having to think about keeping the hoop up. Each week you are getting so much better – you can see that when we take our walk around the room. I give you the options to add arm work but it is something to take in your own time.

We tried some floor work again and this was your real challenge! This suggests to me that we need to keep practicing this move – let’s get our bums and legs nice and toned! Keep going – I sat up half way through and you were all crashed out on the floor! Funny though – seeing you all flaked out, giggling and red faced! What is it about that move that hits you so hard?! REMEMBER TO BREATHE!

To get you back on your feet (literally) we then worked our arms again with a bit more style so this was your star move of the evening and just when you had got back into your safety zone we headed into the nights play section! Well done for getting into our dance of the week with such enthusiasm! I hope you enjoyed it and didn’t find it too silly – we’re here to have fun and get fit at the same time and sections like this are perfect ways to keep going without realising it. There were lots of smiles around the room and you all kept the hoop going – fab!

We hit a few challenges this week which is good. It proves that you are learning something new. I read through the feedback again from the week before and it is nice to see that you are surprised at the amount of moves you can do with a hoop. It really is an excellent fitness tool and next week in our performance night you will see the more streamlined dance aspects.

Don’t forget to tell me if you are planning on bringing anyone with you next week so I can add them to my list. As you know space is tight. We’ve been spoilt while our friends have been poorly so I expect 25^th to be a bit busier again but this night will be more informal and is intended as a treat for you. Come along, join in and prepare to be dazzled by our super duper guest hooper! In future classes I want to try to keep the number to a max of 20 so be prepared to get booked if you want to keep coming. You guys will have first dibs.

And so, the end of the first block…

Now we’ve come to the end of our first block tell me what you’re enjoying and what you’re not. The feedback you filled in last week was helpful but I want to make sure I work on the moves you want. Are you happy with the informal atmosphere? Chances are that if not you would have left weeks ago! Every week you are working hard and I would estimate that you are well on the way to burning those 600 calories in that hour. Work harder and burn more or relax, hoop it up and just use the hour for a bit of fun!