The Courage to Ask for Help, Counting Your Blessings & Diving Into the Unknown

The Courage to Ask for Help

As I sit on the brink of my biggest dreams and projects getting ready to unfold, I reflect. 2013 is almost half way over! Wow, that went fast. Pretty much all of my 2013 has been spent in anticipation of this moment. Or the moment I'm about to experience actually, The Burlesque Hall of Fame in Vegas and my US Tour with Bags. I have been planning, organizing, promoting, creating, communicating, working and dreaming about this tour since December of last year. 6 months in the oven! This project has been baking real good :) And it's about to be ready for consumption! It's the oddest feeling to about to be doing something you've spent the last 6 months thinking about. I just want the next few weeks to happen already!

They are going to zip by! I know it! In about a week I will be driving out to Vegas with 3 amazing women to compete in the Best Group Category at the Burlesque Hall of Fame. We are SO excited! We have been working extremely hard to get ready for this. I launched a crowd-funding campaign to help us afford this expensive endeavor, and we made our goal! Thank you to everyone who contributed or helped spread the word about our campaign! It was the first time I have launched such a project and I have to say it was an amazing experience. It made me think about the concept of asking for help. It's hard to ask for help. I know I struggle with it. Something inside me tells me I'm supposed to seem as if I can do everything, all of it, on my own. That's just craziness! That mixed with my own notion of...if it's going to be done right, I have to do it myself. Silly! I watched Amanda Palmer's Ted talk "The Art of Asking" and was so inspired by her courage to ask for help. That video is definitely worth a watch! 

Not only did I put myself out there in a new way to ask for help financially with BHoF, I have also asked dozens of hoopers to help us with our tour. We will be hosted in about 20 different cities this summer! That is a lot of hosts! I have hosted countless hoopers over the years in San Diego and I have also been hosted in Canada and the UK. I know what it takes to host a touring workshop instructor, it's no small feet! Organizing the space rental, spreading the word to your local hoop community and managing sign-ups. Hard work but totally worth it! I wrote a blog post on The Hoop Hub about the benefits of hosting and taking workshops from out of town hoop instructors. It brings in outside inspiration, grows your community, creates a bond within your community, generates revenue and allows the host to network and pay it forward. 

I hope that my Indiegogo Campaign as well as my tour has inspired you to have the courage to ask for help! Sometimes dreams are so big that they take the greater community to manifest. I know that both of these impending projects are bigger than any other dream I have attempted to bring to fruition. That's why they required collaboration on a larger scale. Dream big! Ask for help! One of the most satisfying things I do in my life is help people's dreams of performance come true. I alter people's life-paths by providing empowering performance opportunities, and it feels great!

Counting Your Blessings

On the news with The Hoop Unit as 1950s hula hoopers

April might have been one of my most exciting months to date! I got to do a few gigs with Anahata at the Figueroa Hotel in downtown LA, taught some awesome hoopers private lessons (including Kana from Japan!), The Hoop Unit performed at Lucidity Festival, I was flown to the Bay Area to perform at the Vaudeville Festival in Tracy, CA, I performed on a yacht for The High Seas Tease, Ninja Hoops from Oakland came to town for workshops AND we were featured on San Diego Living's morning news show to talk about Hooping as a tool for health. Whew! 

The Hoop Unit at Lucidity!

Lucidity was amazing! Our performances were different than any I have ever experienced. We were slated to do a renegade performance of our new Space routine at the main stage in the middle of the crowd at midnight on Friday night. Earlier that evening we looked at the main stage and wondered how we were going to work our way into that massive crowd! We were certain people would give us room when they saw a dozen girls all in the same spacey outfit coming through with glow hoops. We got ready and rehearsed a few times at our camp. Even that caused a scene! This routine is different because it isn't set strictly to music with counts like all of the other numbers I've choreographed in the past. It has a lot of partner work that's more loose. We set off from our camp as a caterpillar (each person's hoop looped on top of the person in front of her) and snaked our way over to the main stage. I was in the front and waved our train all over the place! The reactions we got from people were amazing! When we got to the main stage just after midnight, the music was off! Turns out the person who booked us forgot the music ended at midnight, duh! Well we didn't let that stop us! We set up and did our whole routine anyway and allowed a crowd to form around us. It was interactive and spontaneous. I loved it! We did the same thing a few more times in various places around the festival. Pretty much wherever we felt like...at a silent disco (people all wearing headphones listening to the same music), at the Spin Cycle camp, etc. I am usually performing on a stage and it is very planned out. This was the exact opposite! It is so nice to have opportunities to switch it up every so often!

Performing at the Vaudeville Festival in Tracy, CA

One of my favorite shows I have EVER done was at the Grand Theater in Tracy, CA for their Vaudeville Festival w/ the Fishnet Follies Burlesque Revue. It was in a huge, beautiful original theater from the 1920's! The stage was amazing, the cast was epic and the show was spectacular. I really enjoyed being surrounded by such beautiful Burlesque stars in a venue that was truly worthy and deserving of our talent! The night that I arrived in my hotel room, after driving from the airport in my rental car (all of which was provided by the festival who hired us) - I laid in bed and counted my blessings. I was feeling so grateful! I thanked everything that I could think of. I started with the things that were closest to me and the gig I was doing. Thanking Mynx, the festival organizers, etc. then I started moving outward and thanked everything in my head that I could think of, getting as far away as the moon, stars, mother earth, trees...everything! Naming them all off in my head. Thank you "fill in the blank." I can't stress enough how important it is to carry gratitude with you through your daily life! It is the only way to move forward.

The High Seas Tease

The High Seas Tease was definitely one for the books! I danced with my snake, Manasa as well as performed my 4 hoop routine. It is the first time I have done a summersault on a moving yacht while hooping on my foot :) I am always up for a challenge and I love firsts! The Bourbon Dames Burlesque will be producing another amazing event on June 7th at Sunset Temple: Rack of Ages. I am really looking forward to performing to one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs. It's one that I have wanted to dance to for years! Don't miss it!

Ninja Hoops came to San Diego to teach 2 days of amazing hoop workshops! Wow! My brain was all full and melty. I loved it! Thanks to Zach and Marria from Oakland for making the trek down to teach us your amazingness!

Ninja Hoops Workshop in San Diego

The weekend after Ninja Hoops were in town, I went to Colorado to participate in the Spin Summit. This was my second year teaching and performing. It was a really good time for reflection because that event last year was the start of my huge self-initiated life change. I got to sleep in the same exact bed I slept in last year and think about  all that I have experienced since then. I got to compare my current self with my past self. Something I noticed was how much more comfortable I feel inside myself. I am so much more ready to be me. And nothing else. No one else. Just me. I also feel much more empowered within my potential as a hooper and circus artist. I have grown a lot as a hooper in the last year. I can feel how much I have pushed myself to grow. 

Diving Into the Unknown
I like details. I thrive on organizing and planning them out. Something about my tour that is both scary and exhilarating is how unfathomable it is. I can't fathom all of the details. It will be for 3 months and it will mostly be in places I have never been. There is A LOT of unknown factors. No matter what I do now to prepare as best as I can, there is no way I can know everything. I'm freaked out and excited at the same time. I think this must be the reason I'm doing this. I'm in a phase of my life where I am pushing myself into the unknown, the uncomfortable, the unfathomable. I think if you're not scaring yourself, you're not really living your life to the fullest. Scare yourself. Just a little bit. Get out of your comfort zone and grow! I am also pushing myself into a place of discovery about what I really "need" to survive. Putting everything back in storage, and packing up only enough for a 3 month adventure in a car is going to put the idea of "need" into perspective!

What's Coming Up!
Rack of Ages - June 7th at Sunset Temple

Bags is coming to teach!

More info: http://rackofages.eventbrite.com/

Show Variete - June 7th at Queen Bee's
More Info: http://queenbeessd.com/

Del Mar Fair Performance - June 9th at the Del Mar Fair
More info HERE

Double Hoop Workshop w/ Bags in San Diego! - June 13th at Dance Place San Diego, 7-9pm, $40
More info: http://unityhoops.com/events/bags-uk-hoop-workshop-san-diego

OB Spin Jam and Farewell Party! - June 14th at the Saratoga Greens in OB
More info HERE

UK Hoopers Invade LA - June 15th at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Pasadena w/ Bags, Kenna Hoops & Gail O'Brien
More info: http://unityhoops.com/events/uk-hoopers-invade-la

Hoop Dance as a Tool for Empowerment

Ninja Hoops Badassery

Since my last post I have experienced some serious up's and down's, as per usual. It's been the theme of the past year. Consistency in mood is a thing of the past. Instead I am feeling intense highs - super elation, true gratifying experiences, exciting opportunities - and equally intense lows - confusion, betrayal, disappointment, emotional mood swings, harsh realizations about myself. It feels like this Saturn Return is still holding strong. As I make my way into my late 20's and see the dawn of my 30's closing in, I experience super-charged downloads about who I am and what is important to me. I feel a serious break with my past-self and an opportunity to create my new present/future self. That opportunity is always there but for some reason, at this time of my life, it's very apparent. Change is good, right? Bags said that when you initiate change on your own, it makes you more flexible and ready to deal with change when it happens without your consent. I like that outlook. 

Check out the Spin Summit!

The future is truly shining bright! I am ecstatic to have some tremendous opportunities ahead. I will be performing all over California in April, including at the Lucidity Festival in Santa Barbara, an exciting burlesque show in San Francisco with Mynx D'Meanor and onboard a yacht (!!!) for the High Seas Tease. Just to name a few! Ninja Hoops from Oakland will be gracing us with their presence teaching workshops in San Diego the weekend of April 27th & 28th. You do not want to miss that!

Then I am off to Colorado to participate in the Spin Summit! I am so excited to be going back there this year! I will get to teach, perform, play, share and connect with amazing flow artists in the beautiful rocky mountains. If you are interested, check out their amazing instructor line-up. The tickets are incredibly affordable for all of the epicness you get to be apart of. 

Hello Vegas! Are you ready?

Shortly after that I will be heading to Las Vegas to compete in the Best Group Category with my troupe, The Hoop Unit at the Burlesque Hall of Fame! This is a dream of mine that I have had for 3+ years! And it's finally happening! Woohoo! (<--- insert that "Manifestation...Hoop Dance as a Tool for Empowerment HOORAY" here!) I have applied to be apart of this event since 2010 and am honored to have been accepted in the running. Needless to say, my life will be consumed with preparation for such a HUGE opportunity. I better start rhinestoning NOW! My life can't be completely

Travel through Time and Space on June 14th!

consumed by it though because not only will I be preparing for that, I will also be producing a show June 14th in San Diego! The Time Machine Show will take the audience on a journey through time and space with Tribal, Circus and Burlesque fusion performance art! We even have a Tardis! And Bags, the male hooper of the Year on Hooping.org from the UK, will be performing an epic Dr. Whoop act! This is the second time in 2013 I will have an international headliner. I think I am seeing a pattern :) There is also an out-of-state performance happening from Caterina Suttin (If you don't know who she is yet, you're about to! This woman is taking the hooping scene by storm!) and my number-one Burlesque inspiration, Kristina Nekyia, will once again be gracing my stage! I am beyond stoked to be having her back!

Epic Road Trip!

If that wasn't enough. And if that didn't get your head spinning into a frenzy of excitement, I am ALSO planning a 3 month cross country road trip/workshop tour "Dreaming Circles" with Bags starting in mid June and ending after Burning Man and the Lake Tahoe Flow Arts Festival. I get to live in my car, camp and stay with amazing hoopers all over this beautiful country with the Male Hooper of the Year who also happens to be my lover and has a British accent :) Not only does he speak British to me and make me feel like I am imbued with Super Hooper Powers (juggling has become an obsession and I blame it on him) he is also vegan and pretty much holds every quality in a human that I want from a lover at the moment. How did I get so lucky? LIFE IS SWEET! If you live in any of these 20 cities, or know people who do, please spread the word! I am excited that I get to visit cities like New York and New Orleans that I have never been to (I will be in New York on my 28th birthday!) and I am excited to be spinning fire with the UK Fireworks Collective at Burning Man this year. Yes, I am an honorary Brit. Yes, I am obsessed with British culture and pretty much wish that I am British. I'll admit it.