VICTORY!!!!!!

[swingchickie]

freaking A, i am SO psyched!

there's a hoopdance move that i've been trying to learn for forever and just couldn't get it ("float up" or "corkscrew up", for bohemianrapsody and anyone else who knows hoopin')... it's a really basic move, one of the first things you learn in hoopdance, and for the life of me i just kept screwing it up. i kept beaning myself in the head, dropping the hoop, everything but getting it to float around my body and up into the air. we're talking weeks and weeks of struggle here, to the point where i was actually starting to give up. it's hard enough that hoopdance isn't as social as swing dancing, and there are no classes here, so i'm stuck learning by myself in my living room... but to not be able to get a basic move had me really pissed.

this week has been so crazy, i haven't had a chance to hoop at all. and i was so frustrated anyway, i wasn't really broken up about it. but today, i came home at 4pm to call in to a teleconference... and with 10 minutes until the call started, i threw caution to the wind and decided to spend those few minutes studying one of my DVDs again to see where i was going wrong. i gave the move a try again, and screwed it up over and over... then out of nowhere, i got it once. oooo! at that point i had to dial in for my call... but as soon as it was done, i pushed back the furniture and watched the DVD yet again. then tried the move again -- screwed up, screwed up, screwed up, got it... screwed up, got it... after drilling it over and over again, my muscles started remembering what it felt like on the "good ones", and finally i was nailing it every time. i drilled the move over and over for about 20 minutes, until i was drenched in sweat and exhausted. then i pushed my luck -- i grabbed my travel hoop and tried the move on that. no luck. the travel hoop is lighter and bigger, so i'm going to have to drill on that one at some point. but hell! i can nail it on the other one! w00t!

maybe there's hope for me yet... wheeeeeee!

Comments

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

Congrats! I note that you pointed out that you hadn't had a chance to hoop this week. I know it's not the same thing, but I often find that my art skills have vastly improved when I haven't been drawing for quite some time. It's almost as though you need to get away from something that you're working on really hard to get it right.

Also - I noted something else here. You said that you had 10 minutes until your teleconference, and then you spent 20 minutes studying the dvd and practicing.

Hope you didn't miss your call, or did you just put the phone on mute and keep practicing while the conference went on without input from you? ;) (That's totally what I would have done.)

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

i'd have to agree about taking a break... i thought i'd slip down a notch (not that i have far to slip, being such a n00b), but instead i actually improved a bit. i'm able to move around a bit while hooping now, instead of standing stationary. very cool.

i waited until the call was done, although it would've been cool to keep going. hee.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet