Twistin Vixens Hooping

January 30/30 – Week 1

For the third year in a row, I am undertaking the January 30/30 hoop challenge. 30 minutes of hooping for 30 days in a row. It’s been a great way to trim off holiday indulgences and reignite my connection with my hoops year after year. I invite all you hoopers to join me! Follow me on Instagram @colleenhurley to keep up throughout the month.

In past years, I spent my daily 30+ minute practice doing free flowing hoop dance sessions to whatever music is most inspiring at the moment. It has really helped me to develop a seamless flow. But, halfway through January I usually hit a dead spot and find myself thirsting for a challenge. This year I am committing to push myself learn new tricks, and spend a good amount of my time twin hooping.

I am going to watch one new hoop tutorial each day, and spend time drilling that move and working it into my hoop flow. At the end of the month I hope to make a video showing off my hard work. Check back here each week to follow along and learn some new hoop skills with me!

WEEK 1 TWIN HOOP TUTORIALS

Sunday: Double Hula Hoop Tutorial – Butterfly Hinge variations – Beginners to Advanced by LiveLoveHoop

Monday: Twin Hoop Tutorial: Sexy Windmill Tracers by MissJasmineFluteStudio

Tuesday: Twin Hoop Tutorial: Hug Weave/Crosser by Kathryn Lyn

Wednesday: The Fountain – A Tutorial for Two Hoops by Caroleeena

Thursday: The Double Wedgie – Intermediate/Advanced Doubles Tutorial by Katie Emmitt

Friday: Twin Hoop Tutorial CAPs : FireDrums XIII by spinityflowarts

Saturday: Isolation Fisheye Hoop tutorial by isopuppy

Gift Idea for the Holidays

If you’re on the hunt for a fabulous gift for a loved one, look no further. We make unique, custom hula hoops and have an arsenal of beautiful tape to create a unique gift that’s sure to be enjoyed for years to come.

Hoops are available in or near Saint Cloud and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Please contact hoop@twistinvixens.com if you’re interested in your very own creation.

Fall Hoop Classes

We spent five awesome Monday nights this fall with an amazing group of hoop dance students, and for that we feel very lucky. We focused on flow for this course and had fun whirling, twirling and building a dance relationship with our hoops. The progress made by our students was phenomenal and we had so much FUN along the way. It’s so refreshing to see passion and a spark from our students for this newly found art form – that same spark that I saw in myself almost five years ago.

We’ll be teaching more classes in the Spring through Sauk Rapids Community Education so please keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested.

Dance Choreographers Beware of This Scam

On September 18th, 2016, I received a text message from the number 302-308-1276 (a Delaware area code) with the following request:

“Hello, My name is Chris King. I got your information online for dance classes. I’m organizing a surprise dance (like flashmob) for my daughter’s wedding, So I want you to teach the Bridesmaids choreography. Let me know if you can do this.”

I don’t want to go into my lengthy details about the oddities of the situation, but I can point out the key factors that became apparent red flags that this was a scam after our lengthy week long text message communications.

They insisted I accept a credit card (by means of a long emotional story), but not using Square or Paypal.
They asked that I run the card for more than my quoted amount in order to pay a driver that would be bringing the girls to and from the dance lessons.
The two email addresses I was given for further communications were plc120593@gmail.com and another to bash@myiprivate.net
The phone number I was given to communicate with a bridesmaid went to a generic voicemail recording and my call was never returned.

After putting forth a bunch of efforts to help out a father of the bride, I decided this whole deal was too weird to go through with. I was set to make a decent amount of money, but passing some of the money from a credit card charge into a third party’s hands was the deal breaker for me.

It’s hard to imagine you are getting scammed when you are the one who’s earning the money, doing something you do on a regular basis. This person is a twisted individual with a whole extravagant scam planned out by means of playing on your emotions and feelings while still being vague about details. The real icing on the cake? One month and one day later I received the same text message from the same Delaware area code 302-400-0427 that read word-for-word:

“Hello, My name is Bryan Jones. I got your information online for dance classes. I’m organizing a surprise dance (like flashmob) for my daughter’s wedding, So i want you to teach the Bridesmaids choreography. Let me know if you can do this”

Yikes, right? I hope that this warning will help prevent anyone else from getting burned by this scam in the future.

Fourth of July Hooping at Riverfest

Independence Day celebrations came and went like a flash. Either summer is getting shorter and shorter every year, or we’ve just been spinning ourselves silly whilst hula hooping and losing track of time. What I do know, is what a great weekend we had over the 4th taking part in Riverfest 2016 in La Crosse, WI.

Held annually in the city’s beautiful Riverside Park, Riverfest boasts music, food, entertainment, and fun. This year we were honored to be invited to participate in all the action for two days. July 2nd and 3rd at noon we were scheduled to host a one hour interactive performance which encouraged crowd participation. There was not one hoop left lonely on the grass because everyone was showing off their new moves. We had all ages enjoying the music and joining the hooping fun. Both Saturday and Sunday evenings we switched gears and stages for our 25 minute hoop dance show. The hooping performances showed off two choreographed routines and solos by each hooper. It was exhilarating and fun to bring our passion for hooping to the audience. The response was incredible.

The weekend was a great experience for us. We worked hard practicing and planning for this event for months which required a lot of “meetings” at happy hour. The most challenging thing was not having our beloved Colleen close to us. Colleen moved to Arizona in February and having her so far away makes it hard to choreograph a routine together. She is so skilled that she learned the entire performance by watching a poorly recorded video of three of us practicing. We were overjoyed to have all four Twistin Vixens back together again at Riverfest. Having our girl Colleen back in the Midwest felt like a dream. We got to enjoy a fantastic girls weekend in a beautiful city, dress up in matching outfits, hoop to our hearts content and munch on real Wisconsin cheese curds. We even made the local paper! What more could we ask for?

La Crosse, we love you. We met the nicest people and had the best time sharing our love of hooping with the community. Thank you to everyone at River fest who made the weekend one we will never forget.

Summer is not over! We have more hooping adventures ahead. Check out our upcoming events!

Grand Old Days Hooping Performance

We’ve always been fans of Grand Old Days in St. Paul, MN. It’s an annual celebration that includes an awesome area and community. Needless to say, we were really excited when we were asked by Growler Magazine to perform our hoop dance at their Grand Old Beer Bash and Bazaar, featuring music by The Current.

In addition to us hula hooping, the event included awesome entertainers from Dragons Fire Theater who showed off their amazing fire, belly dancing and acroyoga skills. We had fun hoop dancing to our hearts content several times throughout the day. The crowd was amazing and the energy of the festival was infectious.

Be sure to check out our upcoming events to find out where we’ll be performing with our hoops next.

Spring Hula Hoop Events

Hooping Performance for a Corporate Event

We recently had the opportunity to spread more hoop love at Performance Foodservice’s annual customer appreciation event hosted at the River’s Edge Convention Center. The event had a special Woodstock theme and we were more than happy to dress the part.

We started the night off with Amy, Nikki and myself performing our newest choreographed hoop dance routine to the classic song “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies. Afterwards, we had the audience come up and try hula hooping. We had lots of participation and were able to teach some groovy hula hoop tricks. Hopefully we inspired people to keep their eyes peeled for our next hoop dance classes, and join in on the fun!

KAYLA HELM

School Carnival Hoopers

Nikki, Amy and myself were also asked to perform and teach at St. Paul’s Capital Hill School Carnival. This event was geared more towards a circus theme and hosted over 1,500 people. We had a fun time coordinating our black and white striped leggings and our adorable fuzzy legwarmers for our performance costume. Kids are always naturals when it comes to hula hooping so this event was a crowd pleaser for sure!

Spring has already sprung into full gear with hooping events and we are excited for even more this summer. When it comes to community performaces the Twistin Vixens are more than happy to join in and make your event a super fun and memorable time!

Spring 2016 Hoop Dance Classes

Sartell Community Ed Hoop Dance Class Spring 2016

Last week we ended another great hoop dance class chock-full of our favorite tricks. The five week session focused on introducing new tricks, and learning how to transition each move into a seamless hoop dance flow. We worked with a lot of off body hooping combinations including isolations, breaks, and our class favorite, super high tosses.

Hooping is a fun activity and is beautiful to watch, but it is also a serious workout! Everyone who participated in this class would agree that hooping is a great way to burn calories, sculpt arms, and whittle waistlines while having a blast. It’s rare to find any exercise that is this enjoyable.

Thank you to all the wonderful new hula hoopers who came to play with us. Your fearlessness and unabashed enthusiasm is the reason we love to share our hoop passion.

Can’t wait to see you all hoop dancing outside this summer!