I’d love to see more faces in the 9-10pm classes that start next Wednesday, running Jan 4 - Apr 25.

Buy a Season Flow pass for the late class before Jan 1 for $188, $20 off the regular price of $209.

Details about classes can be found here, and package details here.

Register via the Contact page!

This is my version of Groupon, LivingSocial, etc… a super sale:

For $176, you will enjoy 16 weeks of Wednesday night hoop classes, 8-9pm OR 9-10pm, at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Jan 4 - Apr 25. 2012. ($11 per class, when purchased by November 9)

The usual earlybird price is $192 ($12 per class, when paid by Dec 3) or $208 regular ($13 per class). A single drop-in is $20, $10 for first-time Vancouver students.

My weekly hoop classes are suitable for all levels - check the Weekly Classes page for details, or my Video page for some ideas of the things you can learn in class.

To purchase, contact me this week to arrange payment via cash or Paypal, to be received by Nov 9. If you would like to pay the super sale price but need to break it up into multiple payments, I will accept half by Nov 9, and the remainder due by Dec 3.

Please read the fine print regarding credit, refunds, and missed classes at the bottom of the Class Fees page

PS - I have featherlight polypro and regular mid-weight polyeth hoops available, check out the Hoop Shop page for details, and remember that any hoop order includes a $10 credit towards a class or pass!

Buy a Season Flow pass (15 weeks of Wednesdays, 8-9pm, from Sep 7 - Dec 14) before Aug 7 for $180 - that’s $12 per class!

There are only TWO spots remaining in the 8-9pm class, due to the success of my super duper earlybird sale that ended July 26. Thanks for your support, everyone!

If the 8-9pm class fills up, and I get enough interest (at least five students willing to pre-pay for two months of classes) I will add another class from 9-10pm. Monday nights will not return for the Fall or Winter, as I am teaching knitting classes at Three Bags Full!

UPDATE: the 8-9pm class is FULL. Let me know if you’re interested in a 9-10pm class, or in taking over a 8-9pm space if someone drops out!

(Want to learn to knit? http://christaknits.com has more about that side of my life!)

This is my version of Groupon, LivingSocial, etc… a super sale!

My weekly hoop classes are suitable for all levels - check the Weekly Classes page for details!

For $150, You will enjoy 15 weeks of Wednesday night hoop classes, 8-9pm, at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Sept 7 - Dec 14, 2011. ($10 per class, when purchased by July 26)

The usual earlybird price is $180 ($12 per class, when paid by Aug 7) or $195 regular ($13 per class). A single drop-in is $20, $10 for first-time Vancouver students.

To purchase, contact me this week to arrange payment via cash or Paypal, to be received by July 26. If you would like to pay the super sale price but need to break it up into multiple payments, I will accept half by July 26, and the remainder due by Aug 6.

Please read the fine print regarding credit, refunds, and missed classes at the bottom of the Class Fees page

PS - I have featherlight polypro and regular mid-weight polyeth hoops available, check out the Hoop Shop page for details, and remember that any hoop order includes a $10 credit towards a class or pass!

I have two exciting things to tell you about!

1 - the HoopShop now has PolyPro hoops!

You may have heard about these: ultra light-weight but stiff and responsive hoops that make lifts, drops, breaks, and soo many other moves look sleek and effortless! I’ve had a hoop made from polypro for the last year, and during time of recovering from illness or injury, this lightweight hoop let me continue my favourite activity. In the upcoming music festival season, my polypro hoop will let me dance all day long with less shoulder joint and overall muscle fatigue, yay!

$50 for a standard hoop with a single spiral of textured tape - no background tape on the clear tubing lets your surrounding light shine through, creating a pretty helix effect with the single spiral. Bling tape can be added, and I’ve recently made one with gold prism covered in clear and edged with deep brown on both sides, yum! See the Hoop Shop page for pricing for custom tape jobs.

2 - Madskillz Vancouver - Flow Juggle Spin festival June 24-26, 2011

In 2010 we presented the first annual Madskillz Festival, and it was awesome! This year is even better, in our new digs at the Circus West space on the PNE grounds for the daytime workshops and nearby East Van locations for the Renegade show on Friday night, and the Gala show on Saturday. Full details can be found at http://madskillzvancouver.com.

I will be teaching two workshops: Beginner Hooping 4-5pm on Friday June 24, and Intro to Poi-style Hoop 4-5pm on Saturday. No preregistration required, all workshops during the festival are included with your admission! Earlybird pricing is in effect until June 21, with the full weekend festival pass (including both shows!) only $40. $50 at the door, this is still a great deal for a weekend of fun. Come play!

It has been a little while since I’ve posted - life has been full, busy, interesting…. but I’m ready for some warm weather hooping!

Class news: I’ll be teaching Spring and Summer weekly classes on Wednesdays only as of May, Mondays will resume in September if there is sufficient demand.

Special Events news: Jonathan Baxter of The Hoop Path is coming to offer his Deep Water workshop on the May Long Weekend - details on the Special Events page.

Also: MadSkillz Vancouver - Flow Juggle Spin is set for the last weekend in June this year, woot! Details on the MadSkillz page.

Saturday Circus: our playspace has been under construction all winter, but that will hopefully be finishing up soon! Can’t wait to get back to the outdoor jam

Inspiration: http://hooping.org has been running a Hooping Idol competition, and the quality of skill and video production has been amazing! Go check it out!

Dashing off to work, Happy Spring! - C

I have had a fantastic year, with lots of personal growth, awesome work opportunities, and loving friends and family to keep me company along the journey! 2011 has a lot in store, too.. and if you’re curious about my day-to-day life, follow me on Twitter @christagiles for updates in 140 characters or less!

The big news in my hooping world is that I’m developing a method for hooping students to guide and track their progress! It is still taking shape, but this is the current form:

Skills are roughly divided into families of movement styles, that I’m calling Streams.

The six Main Streams are:
On Body
Lifts and Transitions
Hand Hooping (Spinning)
Hand Hooping (Grip)
Jumps and Step-Throughs
Exits and Re-Entries

The six Secondary Streams are:
Air and Floor
Other Body Parts
Poi Style
Twins
Partner and Group Work
Dance + Performance

The different Streams are intended to give students opportunities to focus in one area of interest, and earn recognition for their efforts and achievement in that area.

To encourage students to become well-rounded hoopers, I have also developed six levels or Circles. To complete a Circle, students must demonstrate proficiency at a set number of skills, perform a short routine that combines those skills in flow, and connect with the greater hooping community through a blog or video post. Click here to see a chart outlining the content of each Circle.


I’m still playing with the recognition system, and I have a lot of examples to choose from! I worked as a full-time lifeguard and swim instructor/supervisor for 17 years, so I’ve seen everything in that environment from badges with report cards to posters with stickers. Other inspirations include the Scouting system of merit badges, and the coloured wrist cords used by the swordfighting school Academie Duello.

Do you want a report card? A poster for collecting stickers or stars? What do you think about earning bands of glitter tape to add to your hoop?

This whole concept actually popped into my head while watching a demonstration by the Academie Duello team, and Devon was kind enough to let me watch some of his students go through their Cord exams at the Academie.

(Side note: Academie Duello is in a GORGEOUS space in downtown/Gastown, and they offer a wide range of courses in swordfighting and other martial arts for all ages and levels of interest… including horsemanship, whee! Go check out their website for more information!)

So at this point, I’d love some feedback! Here are the main questions:

1 - would you be intested in using this program to guide your hoop practice?

2 - are there any aspects of the program that you’d like to see dropped or changed?

3 - what sort of recognition system would you enjoy?


Please drop me a line at christa@christahoops.com with your thoughts, thanks!

Tonight, Sunday Dec 19, 6:30-10:30pm, MadSkillz is back in action! I’ll be teaching a Beginner Hoop workshop 6:30-7:30 and then running out the door to another event (I’m so sad!) but you should come and stick around for the evening, it will be AMAZING! Revolva (an amazing hooper) has come up from Portland, and a handful of folks from Vulcan Crew in San Francisco are joining us again with their mad multi-tool flow skills!

I hope you can make it out to support this event, and help us raise funds for our big three-day festival in June! See you there

Christa

Creekside Community Centre (in the Olympic Village by Main St Skytrain)
1 Athletes Way
Vancouver, BC
http://vancouver.ca/parks/cc/creekside/index.htm

We had our first ever event last year before Christmas, and we are doing it again.

It’s gonna be a night of informal workshops, great music, dancing, jamming, and maybe even a Renegade show, setting a tone for some serious cross pollination.
…
The event is going to be held at the Creekside Community Centre. It’s located in the Olympic Village, 4 min walk from the Main/Terminal skytrain station. Here’s some more info on the venue.http://vancouver.ca/parks/cc/creekside/index.htm

Come and be part of the silliness. Entry is by donation(suggested $5 -$20 sliding scale) and all proceeds to making the Madskillz Festival a fantastic event for everyone.

Workshop schedule!
6:30-7:30
Beginner hoop - Christa

7-8
Intermediate 3 Ball Cascade - Yuki
Beginner Contact - Dawn
Poi (All Level) - Rebekah

8-9
Clown - Ariel
Intermediate/Advanced poi - David Yates
Beginner Staff - Chris Murdoch
Hoop: Tosses and Throws - Alley Oop

DJ = Spaceman Laurent

There will also be props vendors, and a food vendor. So don’t be surprised!

*All sorts of toys are welcome - if your gear has been burned, please have covers over the sooty bits!*

Bring all your friends and lets get ready to feed our souls!!

I’ve been working on a new concept for classes: still a work-at-your-own-pace idea, but with specific progressions, skills and levels with measurable achievement!

This idea came to me after watching a swordfighting demo by Academie Duello at VCon, Vancouver’s Sci-fi/Fantasy convention that happened in Richmond in the Fall. The swordfighters have leather gauntlets with coloured cording to mark their achievements, and this immediately made me think of glitter banding that could be applied to hoops!

My background in aquatics has also let me experience a number of programs for monitoring progress through swim lessons, and my favourite system was “I Can Swim” by Swim/Natation Canada. They had created a method of acknowledging participants’ skills in specific areas: still working on basic front crawl, but you’ve got an awesome breaststroke? Great! Let’s give you stickers for each skill you’ve achieved in the breaststroke category! Unlike the Canadian Red Cross and YMCA programs (which required everyone to complete all of the skills attached to a specific level before earning a badge and moving on), the I Can Swim system recognized that each learner had their own strengths and weaknesses and could benefit from the positive reinforcement of earning recognition of their successes!

This applies easily to hooping: right from the start, many hoopers struggle with basic waist hooping but are quickly in control of off-body moves, and are able to polish up their planes and horizontal/vertical transitions when the hoop is in their hands. Some students are fascinated by shoulder hooping, barrel rolls, and working on their on-body angle control, while others want to jump into poi-style moves with smaller hoops. I’ve always taught the weekly classes as all-levels, work-at-your-own-pace lessons, so students have been able to focus on their particular interests…. this new system will just provide a method to track progress and provide specific routes to travel, for the students who prefer a more structured approach!

My program is still in the development phase, but by the time classes resume in January I expect to have a Skills List ready to go, with progressions grouped into categories of movement. Beyond that, I’ll be working on the Examination and Recognition side of things: creating standards for each skill (probably at both a “basic achievement” and “mastery” level) and developing the tracking and reward system.

I’d appreciate it if you took a moment to let me know what you think! Is this something you would use? Are you motivated by having a checklist of skills to master? Do you want a progress report card? Would earning a stripe of glitter tape to add to your hoop make you happy? I’m open to suggestions and brainstorming - I love the springboard effect of sharing ideas, and how more input and excited energy leads to a better product! Please leave a comment here, or email me at christa@christahoops.com with your thoughts.

One more thing to share: I’ve been taking videos with my iPhone when I have a few moments of quiet studio time, and this is one of my latest clips!

I’ve extended earlybird pricing up to Wednesday Aug 25 - just $12 per class when you buy a Season Flow pass:

Mondays Sep 13 - Dec 13, no class Oct 11
13 weeks x $12/class = $156

Wednesdays Sep 8 - Dec 15
15 weeks x $12/class = $180

Interested in attending the remaining August classes? Add classes onto your Fall Season Flow pass for the same per-class rate!

Already have a pass for August Monday or Wednesdays? Double up your weekly dose of hooping for $10 per class!

Email me at christa@christahoops.com to register with an online payment through PayPal, or to arrange a cash payment dropoff. Your space will be reserved when payment is received.

Come play!