HoopPath Peace Dojo Workshop

  I want to write about my personal, internal experience at the HoopPath Peace Dojo retreat, taught by Baxter.  It’s almost tough, because I don’t know that I’ve fully processed it all.  Not yet.  I’ll do my best. 

  I feel like I learned quite a bit more about trusting my hoop process. Trusting my process has been an ongoing battle in my life, in regards to who I AM.  I struggle to see myself.  Since the struggle is so daunting at times, I find myself looking at others’ lives.  How did they come into who they are?  Where did their confidence  come from, and how come I lack my own?  Why do they seem so put together, and I fumble over my words in conversation?  Why do I only see myself as flailing?  Doing everything half-assed? Fucking weird as fuck?  I realize the questioning I do only takes away from finding who I am.  All the observing, judging of myself, and fear I ruminate with is eating my time. 

  I found, that when I go inside of a hoop, those repetitive questions go away.  Inside the hoop, I don’t care what I look like.  I don’t care if I drop the hoop a million times.  I don’t care if I can’t grasp something quite yet.  There’s a sense of pure freedom inside the circle. 

  Like drawing and painting, how can I not feel so strongly about something that has essentially healed a huge part of my being?

 

  Most of my life I struggled to retain directions, or any information that didn’t send me into an obsession at the start. Instead of asking for further assistance, I bluffed that I understood. All the time!  I was afraid of most things.  My anxiety over life was paralyzing. 

  The things I was good at were artsy in nature.  Unfortunately, I was surrounded by a few of my peers that cut me down over the types of activities I loved and felt I could be good at.  I believed them, because I already thought I was dumb.  When you believe something, it becomes part of who you are.  These young moments left me full of inadequacy, mistrust in myself, and what people said to me.  Even as a grown adult.  It almost seems ridiculous. 

 

  What the hoop gave to me, is movement, friendship, diminished fear, energy, and trust.
  

  When I found myself not being able to wait too long before I could practice hoopdance again, I questioned this.  Why in the world do I like this so much?  This is weird.  How could I have possibly found something I can love intensely as my art process?  Aren’t I a little old to be loving this pastime?  I judged the activity, and myself, yet the hoop still provided a healing hug to me day in and day out.  This is where it hit me hard.  I questioned this one thing, even after it gave me the ability to drop this activity of self- judgment, and worrying about what other people think!  My hoop still loves and challenges me.

The movement gives me awareness and communication with every cell in my body.  All the parts of me, are like, “Hey, for once, we are all on the same page!”
 

  In HoopPath, we learned a lot about trusting the movement of the hoop, and where it’s going to touch base with you on your body.  We would do an exercise  before each class called sway.  We are blindfolded and we sway, and move our body to just breath at first, and then music with mythical story. 

  By the last class, the importance of sway came into play for me when we learned about 2- point contact.  By using your natural sway, making contact with the hoop is taken to a whole other level!
What this gave to me on a spiritual plane, is that you’ve got to trust your movement.  Your process in life.  In trusting your own dance, your contact with the world is going to be a whole lot better.

  We would also have circle time, where we’d talk about anything in regards to how we’re feeling physically and mentally.  One particular dialog was about persona.  What kind of mask do you put on when you need to be something else for a while; for the sake of making it through a moment?  It’s okay to use a persona to get you through.

  This thought came to me: I essentially live in my masks.  There’s so much of myself that I’ve kept hidden, out of fear of rejection.  Living inside of several personas is exhausting.  My real being needs some air.  Some sunlight shone upon its face.  Contact with the world. Color!  SPIN!

  For the past few years, I’ve been utilizing art as a means of peeling away these masks.  It’s yet, another tool that’s helped to open me up.  It’s a place where I always go when I feel alone.  It’s where I dive into the darkness, and in that darkness, I rearrange all that’s there to make art and light of many thoughts and situations. 

  I have one painting in particular called Authenticity.  During circle time, Baxter kept referring to authenticity, and I kept thinking about the possible connection this piece of art might have, to this moment of circle time.  To the words being spoken. 

  When I was creating Authenticity, I mainly worked on her while I was at the local farmer’s market.  A place, where at first, I was terrified to be.  What if people think my art is disgusting, or amateur? She has no business touting herself as an artist!  The painting gained its name through the market painting process.  I won’t care what people think.  I will sit here and live paint.  I am slow at painting, and that’s okay.  If people like it, great.  If not, this is for ME.  The act of the painting process is for ME.  It’s my activity that allows me to drop the gig and flow with lines and color.  Painting is a place for me to go, to gain wisdom and freedom. The market was a place for me to use both authenticity and a persona to get me through.
 

  HoopPath Peace Dojo, came together by all of us gathering there, because we are passionate about hoopdance practice.  Baxter created a workshop that brought us more in touch with ourselves, all while connecting with individuals in dance, balance, drills, and core.  It was magical in nature, with its myth and metaphor.  It was an experience fully connected with all I am in this moment, and helped to further open me up in my hoopdance artist journey; to use my masks sparingly, and to be authentic in my movement.

  I am grateful for the time spent with this group, and I look forward to the next one. 

  Thank you for reading, and here is Authenticity, the painting.
Below it, Authenticity copied, mirrored, rearranged and changed colors with the use of my computer's photo editing software.

  And to be authentic here, in my writing process?  I totally thought about deleting half of what I wrote.  Perhaps it's too much personal information regarding my feelings.  It's too wordy, and self-centered.  Maybe it's boring, and no one will make it to the end..

Authenticity by Sarah Torgerson

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