Keepin' busy

I'm covered in bruises at the moment. The calves have green patches and the hips have brown smudges and the sides of my kness have little purple dots. Why? I hear you ask as you roll your ergonomic desk chair closer to get better a look. Because I have been doing lots of this:

That's me hula hooping on our bed. Earphones in, iPod on, going for it. Has she regressed to childhood? I hear you wonder. Has NY made Meesy lose her marbles?

No, dear reader. It's all very rational and grown up. Sort of. Several weeks ago I read that hula hooping is a great workout for your core muscles, strengthens your lower back and all those invisible ab muscles that do the real work, burns lots of calories and is very, very fun.

So, being generally over the Y and its weak promise of Family Guy eps while I kill time on a treadmill or elliptical or having to swim through the brine of the Y's terribly overburdened 25 yard pool, and also ignoring the stultifyingly boring exercises outlined to me by my physical therapists, I scouted the local toy and sport stores for hula hoops. Came up with nothing.

Then, one fateful Friday night I was strolling through Union Sq and what do I see but a bunch of short fat kids hula hooping away and a glowing yoga type handing out leaflets about a hula hooping workshop in Brooklyn that Sunday afternoon, where they sold hoops too. Ofcourse!

I trekked to Brooklyn, I attended said workshop with 6 other women and 1 guy (who happened to be an Australian yoga instructor), I learnt how to spin the hoop in both directions, in several stances, above my head and on my hands, and I bought a secondhand hoop to take home. It was sweaty, funny fun: hoops fizzling at the hips and crashing to the floor, spinning across the room, bumping neighbouring hoops, bruises blossoming like clover.

Walking down Flatbush and to Prospect Park afterwards with a hoop over my shoulder attracted lots of interesting cat calls and I focused on daydreaming about how long it would be until I could audition for Circus Oz, or whether there were hooping clips of Cirque de Soleil on Youtube (there are. Very humbling).

Since then I have been having a 30 minute session every other day and my back has been pain free for the first time in months, and Justin finds it a convenient source of comedy so we're both happy. It's a surprisingly joyful activity and so I give this phase as good a chance as any of my previous leisure activity fads such as kung fu, ballroom dancing and badminton.