How to Hula Hoop around Your Shoulders

Learn how to hula hoop around your shoulders from hula hooping expert Natalie "McFancy" Wise in this Howcast video.

So to start shoulder hooping, we want to make sure that our chest hooping is nice and solid first. We start with our chest isolation, moving your chest around in a circle, giving the hoop a push, arms out of the way. And notice that I’m pushing with the left side of my chest and my right shoulder to get the hoop to come around. So, chest, chest, chest, chest, chest. As the hoop is coming around I’m going to notice when the hoop is in front of me. Front, front, front, front. That’s when I’m going to put my arms in to start my shoulder hooping.

OK. So we’ve got that timing first. So, front, front, front, front, front, shoulder, arms in. OK. Once we have that motion, that’s how we get into it. One more time I’ll show it, and then we’ll focus on the actual shoulder hooping. So, front, front, front, front, front, front, arms in. OK.

What’s more difficult about shoulder hooping from chest hooping is that you’re taking your body from being a round shape, like the round hoop, to a flat or oval shape. And what tends to happen is the hoop comes around and it smacks against this shoulder, and then it goes wobbly and it falls. What we have to do is smooth out the transition from the hoop from this shoulder to this shoulder.

So what we want to do is use your left side of your chest to gently guide the hoop onto that left arm. What you’re doing basically is you’re going to put the hoop down, arms in at your sides, shoulders relaxed and down. Practice making big circles with your chest, really focusing on that left one, exaggerating the back right shoulder blade and the left chest in the front.

So, we’ll just start on the shoulders to try and get this started. If you have trouble getting it started on your shoulders start from the chest like we did at the beginning of the video. Give the hoop a push, chest, chest, chest. Notice I’m pulling back with my right arm and pressing forward my left chest. It is also helpful if you turn slowly to the left while you do this. It will give you a little more time to recover when the hoop starts to fall. Right elbow back. Left chest forward.

And that’s how we do shoulder hooping. So, let’s practice the transition from chest to shoulder. OK. We start hooping on our chest, front, front, front, front, front, arms in, chest. That’s how we do shoulder hooping.