Tandem Hooping is when two people hoop within one hoop. It’s beautiful but tricky to learn. I hope to make a video the next time I hang out with AliCat but, til then, I thought I’d share my thoughts on how to do this in writing.
First, use as large a hoop as you can find. Make one if you have to. The bigger the hoop is, the longer it takes to come around and that gives you a chance to prepare and get your bodies together so that you can push as one. Think, HUGE!
Let the person in back control the hoop. Let them start it and make sure it starts level and slow. Have the person in front place their hands atop the hands of the person in back so that once the hoop is delivered, you can grasp hands and become one body without separating. (Or at least the right hand, if you’re going CCW. You can usually grasp left hands after you let the hoop go. Try both ways.)
The person in front needs to not push on their own but wait until they feel a push from behind as the person behind pushes. That person is leading, like in dance. The person in front is following. (That’s why it’s often easiest for the person in front to turn around, etc.)
The most important advice I can share with you, though, is this — you need to become one body. To do this, it helps to connect at multiple places — left hand, belly, right hand, even knees. As soon as the person behind delivers the hoop, make sure the person in front has their hands on top of the deliverer’s hands. After the deliverer lets go, if you’re going counter-clockwise, clasp your two left hands together in the air (in dance pose) and have the person behind finish the delivery so that the delivering arm is wrapped around the person in front, just below the nipples, (along the lower bra area for women), and leave your arm there, The person in front’s arm will lay atop the arm of the person in back, kind of like you’re spooning, effectively locking the two of you into one body so that you don’t come apart as you move together. This makes all the difference. Yes, you’re going to occassionally grab each other’s boobs while learning. Laugh it off and go on. Don’t be afraid or you’ll never be able to become one, which you must do to get this move. Think spooning.
Don’t concentrate on moving your hips. You’re probably not hip hooping but waist hooping. Move your waists forward and backward. If you start at the waist and it falls to the hips, you’ll have twice the recovery time. If you start on the hips and if falls, suddenly you’re trying to leg hoop together … and while that may be possible, I’ve never seen it done.
Once you’ve gotten this, just do it for a while. Learn to breathe together, slow and deep. Once you can do this, you’re ready to integrate one person turning. Wait til the circle opens fat and full in the front and have the front person turn 180-degrees so that you’re now belly-to-belly. Immediately clasp hands on one side of the body, like you’re doing the salsa, and put the other around each other’s back (mid back at the bra strap) or on your partner’s shoulder — again, like partner dancing. This will allow you to stay as one unit and eventually walk. turn. spin and do many other things.
See how Patrick Swayze has his arm around his wife in this photo? This is what you’re going for when the two of you are belly to back. Pretend like she has her back to him, that the two are flush, and that her arm is atop his below her breasts. Their opposite hands would be interclasped and raised into the air, as in the picture above. Imagine his right arm held high and holding the hand that is against his cheek as the left hand encircles her waist. That’s the pose. That is the sweet-spot for tandem hooping. It’s like partner dancing where one partner has their back to the other.
You can do it. Just hang in there and keep trying. Switch which partner is in back and also switch directions. If all else fails. get a bigger hoop!
Enjoy!
