Has spending quality time at home become a task? Have you run out of things that you like doing and want to learn something new because we have all the time in the world now that we are stuck inside? Well, here's a social media professional who is the founder of a social media branding and consultancy company called Purple Filter, but more importantly is a hula hoop artist and fitness trainer. Supriya Srivastav (32), from Bengaluru, can show you how to hoop like a pro and can also teach you how to make a DIY hoop at home. So, don't worry if you do not have a professional hoop at home, you can still follow Supriya's tutorials to learn the art of hula hooping, enjoy it and get fit during the lockdown.
Maybe you will become an expert hooper by the end of this lengthy lockdown. Here's how:
1. Size matters: The correct size of the hoop is the most important. If you do not have the correct size, it's never going to work. It can't be too tight or too loose. Supriya suggests that you stand straight and put the hoop across your body vertically and check if one side touches your belly button. Then that's your size. Once you know the size, there's no looking back!
2. Technique: Getting the technique right is quite simple. You need to go front and back from your waist and side to side. You have to keep reminding yourself of this, step by step. This will help build your muscle memory and your body will eventually know how to do that movement. You can't stop doing it because you feel you can't, you have to encourage yourself, push yourself to practise every day to get the technique right.
3. Aligning the self: Once you get these two right, then your mental body and physical body start aligning themselves to each other. As you train on your core or abdomen, it starts becoming stronger as you get on with it regularly.
4. Practise, practise, practise: Just like how in Bollywood only 'entertainment, entertainment, entertainment' works, for hooping practise it is quite similar. Do it as many times as you want, enjoy while you are hooping and then, you are a pro!
Now that you know what to learn, you would also want to know how to make a hoop, right? Here are four simple steps that Supriya explains to us about how to make a DIY hoop:
1. Use a high-density polyethylene pipe (HDPE), which is quite easily available at home, if not, you can also use a lighter pipe. Stand straight and hold the pipe, bending it to make it circular. Keep it vertically straight and if it reaches your belly button, then that is your size. Adjust it accordingly.
2. Then, you need two pieces of scrap wood (any shape will work), if you can find them anywhere in your house, which can be fitted inside the hole of the pipe on both sides of the opening. Make sure the pieces can completely fit inside both the holes of the pipe. Dip the pipe in hot water in case the wood pieces don't fit in easily.
3. Next, you will need four nails. Make sure that the wood pieces are not seen from the outside. Put in two nails on each side, hammer it into the wood pieces so that they are joined together. That is the locking system.
4. Take a tape of any colour, start from where you have locked the nails, go around the whole thing and nicely wrap it around. And that's it, your hoop is ready to use!
Pro tip: Try it out! In case it is not fitted properly or seems to be of the wrong size, then you have to open it up and redo it. There's no easy way out on this one. If you have a lighter pipe, you can put some rice grain in it to make it heavier.
Brand strategist on the weekday, hula hooper by the weekend!
For Supriya, who's been hooping for the past six years, spending time at home during the lockdown has been quite easy. "It hasn't created much of a difference as I am mostly found at home on regular days," the hooper says. Currently, she has kept herself busy with the 21-day hoop challenge where she's been coming up with one new hoop trick a day for people to learn at home. A major part of her day is spent hooping, editing the videos and posting them on her social media channels. She tells us that this lockdown has given her an opportunity to get better at it and is adding to her growth. One of Supriya's trick shot videos with a football freestyler in Bengaluru had received recognition last year from the FIFA World Cup’s official Instagram account. The hula hooper adds that there's no limit to hooping and the number of tricks that you can do with it. "It's a flow art and there's no end to a flow. And therefore, all of us have different flows and every hooper is unique," she says.
Don'ts while you are learning to hoop for the first time:
1. Don't feed your brain with negative thoughts, have a spirit of a child during the process of learning. Don't let yourself get discouraged if you are an adult. Anyone can learn hooping at any point in their lives
2. A lot of people prefer weighted hula hoops that are being sold in the market right now, Supriya urges beginners to not use them as it can lead to injury. Avoid these in the beginning, start with lighter ones and take it slow
Hoopers to follow:
Supriya's YouTube channel
Pam Hoops
Rachel Lust
Deanne Love
Rajni Ramachandran
Eshna Kutty
What kind of music can people hoop to?
Supriya got inspired by someone when she was a beginner who had told her about three kinds of music that people should hoop to:
- music that you like: happy music, it puts you in joyful mind space and you enjoy it to a level of ecstasy, you don't care about anything around
- music that you hate: it brings out all the energy and lets you challenge yourself
- music that moves you: one that speaks to your soul, lets you express through hooping, moves every molecule in your body
Supriya's playlist:
Dance Monkey
Trance
Charlie Puth
Psychedelic music while practising
Billie Eilish
Sophie Tucker
Old Bollywood music is what moves her
The music she doesn't like- DJ Snake's Taki Taki
