Actually, not jumping, but that might have actually been easier and far less embarrassing. In the spring of 2010 (shortly after I started on my diet journey in earnest) got a groupon deal for a hula hooping fitness class... in Central Park. It was a great deal and since I had decided to take on new challenges, this one sounded like a great idea. On paper. In my brain I could just magically start hula hooping even though I'd never displayed any aptitude for the hobby before. And in my head I didn't take into account doing it in public, where people could watch. Perhaps I should have invested seven bucks and bought a hoop from Target to try at home before making an idiot out of myself.
But I'm not exactly one to think these things through all that well, so I happily signed up and before you know it I was in the middle of Central Park (right near a very well-trafficked running loop) and given a weighted hoop (taped up with brightly colored electrical tape) and being taught to hula hoop. To say that everyone else caught on more quickly would be an understatement. By 10 minutes into the class most people could do a hoop for at least a few spins around their hips. I couldn't. I spent all of my time spinning it wildly fast and then gyrating like a lunatic until the hoop fell and I had to pick it up.
By the time the very patient instructor started trying to teach the others how to walk and hula at the same time I was out of breath and fairly well exhausted. For a girl who was about 250 lbs. at the time, bending over repeatedly was quite an effort. But, because I'm insanely stubborn like the rest of my family, I stuck with it and then finally he started teaching a skill that didn't involve getting the hoop around my hips. Instead, it involved taking the hoop up and over your head, whipping it around your hand and then taking it behind your back and then back over your head, in one big loop. Now this? This I had a handle on.
All of a sudden, everyone else was struggling and I was a pro. Thank goodness for all that time in high school doing Winter Color Guard, learning how to take a flag and wooden gun up over my head. And the hula hoop was far less of a potential concussion than those metal poles.
The instructor was visibly confused at my ability to somehow do this task, which was tripping everyone else up, and baffled that after 60 minutes I still couldn't manage to hoop for more than six times. But everyone's talented in different ways... and at least being good at some portion of it made me feel slightly less self-concious about looking foolish in front of thousands of people (my friend Jennie, among them). And because I could do the hoop overhead, at least it kept me from passing out from bending over to retrieve my hoop for the entire length of the class.
For the record, though I bought a hoop and occasionally pick it up to give it a whirl.. I'm still awful at it. I've watched youtube videos, practiced and tried changing spinning directions, but to no avail. At least my six-year-old kid is an expert hooper and she gets a lot of use out of all the hoops we have in our house. But I swear, every time she tells me, "Mommy, its so easy!" I start screaming on the inside. But, I tried. And that's the important part... or at least I tell myself that when I see how ridiculous I look in these pictures.
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