A thought provoking piece by Trixie Maru. How are you progressing with your Hoop Boot Camp goals with just 10 days to go?
Progress.
What exactly does progress mean? Of course the simple definition is getting better at something, but in my experience, I’ve found that progress is rarely a black and white affair. Of course there are some skills that are very obvious, e.g. I couldn’t keep a hula hoop going around my waist when I first starting hooping, but now I can. Fairly straightforward, right? But how do you measure the progress you’ve made from day to day? Am I a better hooper today than I was yesterday? I haven’t learned any new tricks, although I’ve practiced some that I already know. In spite of the fact that nothing I was doing today was completely new, I still dropped the hoop a few times. Does that mean today I regressed rather than progressed?
I sometimes worry that I develop one skill at the expense of another. I often had this feeling when learning languages. At various points in my life, I’ve studied (but not mastered!) 6 languages, and at one point I was even studying 3 at the same time, but I have always felt that one language was dominant in my mind. It’s interesting how this has shifted. When I was in my first few years of college, I was most confident speaking Spanish. Then, after spending a semester in Paris, my French was better. Now, after living in Japan on and off for the past 7 years, my Japanese is probably the best.
Does it work the same way for hooping? For the most part, I feel that I continue to add to my repertoire and expand my abilities, but sometimes, in moments of doubt, I wonder if I’m somehow allowing certain skills to languish when I let others flourish.
I also wonder sometimes if I am getting too obsessed with the idea of progress. Ideally, learning would be like climbing a mountain – you’d start at the bottom and make a slow and steady ascent. However, I don’t think it necessarily works that way. Sometimes you work at something for what feels like forever, waiting to see it pay off in even the most minuscule way. Other times you try something a few times and it’s like you’ve been doing it your whole life. I would like progress to manifest itself in big explosions, but what I find to be the case so much more often is that I will suddenly have a brief epiphany – “Hey! I didn’t use to be able to do that, but now I can.” While this is not the fireworks display I long for, it is elegant in its subtlety.
In a Hoop Path video, one of Baxter’s students quoted him as saying, “Hooping is not about how good you can get. It’s about how good you can feel.” And that’s the type of progress that I welcome, no matter what form it appears in.
Video of the day:
Question of the Day: What progress are you making? Have you been hooping towards your goals, grabbing what you want, doing the best you can with the time and space you allow?
Action of the day: Celebrate your progress! Today is Tink’s 1st Year Hooping Anniversary and she celebrated by making a Hoop Cake…how super sweet is that? Now that is progress!!
Affirmation: I embrace my success.
Inspiration: Happiness resides not in posessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul. Democritus
Progress, happiness and love to you all!
xx
