Steve Bags
Bags’ Nicaragua PWB Hoop Diary Part One
Here’s the first part of my Nicaragua hoop diary.
Thursday 10 January
It’s five to six in the morning. Yesterday was my birthday and leaving party which involved a few beers then staying up all night packing in a frenzied fashion while worrying about my taxes. I make my last conformational click on my online tax return then rush out the door to catch a bus to Heathrow.
Friday 11 January
It’s about forty hours later and we have finally arrived in Managua. We have come via Toronto and Houston which might seem slightly illogical but apparently it isn’t if you want a cheap flight to Central America.
By “we” I’m referring to myself and seven others who make up our intrepid and mildly eccentric team of circus artists on the Performers Without Borders 2013 Nicaragua tour. Performers Without Borders (http://performerswithoutborders.org.uk/) is a charity that teaches performing arts to vulnerable children in countries of high child poverty. We are at the start of our three month tour here in Nicaragua which is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and is still in the process of recovering from it’s horrific civil wars that happened twenty years ago.
Continue reading
Feel Yourself
This video by Evenfurthurspaceage has lots of interesting bits in it. Starts with some cool single hooping then does some interesting doubles. Notice how I’m mature enough that I can make it through this whole post without making any jokes about the title of the video.
Hoopsmiles Foot Hula Hooping Combo Practice
I can’t say that I normally find foot hooping particularly exciting but this little combo by Hoopsmiles is pretty epic. If you’re not familiar with his videos then you should definitely check out his channel.
What Got Me Into Hoop – Steve Bags
Hey there, I’d thought I’d write a quick article about how I started hooping. I become obsessed with hoop around March 2010. I’d been doing various circus skills for about ten years, starting off as a juggler and then learning a bit of everything including keeping a hoop going on my waist but that was about it. Then in January 2010 I did a project in Thailand called Spark! Circus. Here’s the promo from that tour:
The lady in the video preview is called Choi and she spent the whole project hooping continuously. Everywhere she went she had hoops on her and random people would always come up to her and start playing hoops with her. I’d done some hooping before and hung out with a lot of hoopers but never really gotten into it. However, Choi made me think that perhaps this hoop thing was a good idea after all. So I made some hoops and got stuck in, quickly getting myself completely hooked. Continue reading
Hoop, It’s Not Just For Girls – Bags Hoop Demo 2012
Here’s my new hoop demo for 2012. It’s got some of my favourite bits from my previous videos and then some new footage from recent performances. I think it’s the best video I’ve made and does a good job of summarising my style of hooping 
Enjoy xx
I Like Giants – Hooping with Revolva, Valentina, Gail, Tiana and Harlequin
What better way to ward off the end of the world then to watch some bad-ass hoopers being epic somewhere beautiful? Well here’s Revolva, Valentina (Unity), Gail O’Brien, Tiana Zoumer and Harlequin Hoops rocking out at Giant’s Causeway. My advice to you: if the world is going to end today why not try and do at least three awesome things before breakfast? Then have pancakes. Mmm, pancakes. Oh wait, and watch this vid:
Hobotech: The Mixes
This mix-tape is by Hobotech who Valentina recently put me onto. It’s lots of fun. Give it a listen!
The Rising Sun with Marria and Zach from Ninja Hoops!
I’m a huge fan of the wonderful Ninja Hoops and I’m also rather fond of Jaguar Mary’s tutorials so I have no choice but to post this lovely little video on how to do a move they call “The Rising Sun”.
Tilly Twist’s Twelve Hour Hoop-A-Thon for PWB
At midnight last night Tilly Twist completed an epic twelve hours hooping! This is a marvellous achievement and she’s currently raised £383.33 in the process. She is travelling to Nicaragua in 2013 to work with charity Performers Without Borders (PWB) so she needed to raise some money to cover her costs of doing this project, and she hopes to raise some more for the charity itself to buy circus equipment for the children.
I just spoke to her this morning and she says that she’s really tired and stiff all over but she’s really happy she managed it. Apparently the first four or five hours were the hardest bit because it seemed really daunting at that point but then when she reached halfway it seemed more acheivable.
I asked what the last bit was like and she said:
“The last hour was physically quite hard because I was achey in all the bits I’d been hooping on. But mentally by the time you’ve done eleven hours you’re like: ‘Dammit, I can do the last hour!’”
She was careful to vary where she was hooped and hoop in both directions so as not to damage herself but she still ended up with a rash on the bits where she hooped lots.
As you can see from the end of part two she appears to have lost the plot slightly but she’s still hooping. The last part should be up around lunchtime. Well done Tilly!
You can still donate money on her… Continue reading
Stones & Circles – Henge Hooping with Valentina & Bags
Here is a quick video of Valentina and I at Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles in Wiltshire, UK. It was something Valentina wanted to do to tick off her bucket list so we thought we’d make a little video while we were there.
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