By Jed Lanyon
It was hoops galore in Healesville last weekend as a hula hoop gathering took place in town.
Some of Australia’s best hula hoopers set upon the Yarra Valley at the Maitripa Centre for a weekend hula hooping retreat.
‘Hoop Away’ is an event run by Hoop Sparx, a business founded to inspire creativity, fun fitness and social connection through hula hoop dance.
Founder Donna Sparx said her love for hooping started when she joined a community circus program as a way of staying active.
“I was really sick of going to the gym and I used to go a lot… Someone said to me, ‘I think you’d really like the circus’. I was in my thirties and had never done gymnastics, I’d never done dance or circus, so my immediate thinking was that I can’t. Now one of my favourite sayings is that I can’t… yet.
“I joined the women’s circus community program and we had to specialise in something after 12 months. I said I wanted to do aerials because I thought that’d be cool flying through the air on a trapeze. Then I injured my shoulder before classes started and I was so disappointed and I said I don’t want to stop training circus.
“They said you can hula hoop. I thought, flying through the air on a trapeze versus playing with a plastic circle… Not that impressed right now. But I did it, then I discovered hula hoop dance and I fell in love with it.
“Within six months I started teaching and then in another six months I quit my big grown up job on an executive management team to start Hoop Sparx and do this.”
Now Ms Sparx hosts workshops, retreats, birthday parties and even makes her own hula hoops to sell.
Over 30 hula hoopers of all ages and experience descended upon Healesville to take part in Hoop Away. They took part in activities such as yoga, ukulele, juggling, meditation and more.
“There’s two people I know where two years ago it was their first time hooping in front of anyone and they are now performing. They are paid performers. And then there’s people who perform at Hoop Away and never did it again but had a great experience.
Speaking prior to the Hoop Away event in Healesville, Ms Sparx said, “I’ve got people coming who have never hooped before and then people who have been hooping for five years. I think the main thing I hope people walk away with is an increased connection to self and the hoop community and a newfound perception of what’s possible.
“I think that when we discover that through play and through movement it translates into your life and how we view ourselves in the world.”
