11/8/10

Guided Hoop Meditation Series

So over the weekend I played with an idea that I had been wanting to experiment with lately.  I have been studying and practicing yoga for over four years.  During this time, I have tried to pick up meditiation, mainly without success.  I am what you would call, a busy-body type person and it can be very hard to turn off my mind.  I knew that meditation could potentially help this, which is the reason why I started to meditate in the first place.  Sometimes I would get rather flustered and annoyed with myself for not being able to quiet my mind and eventually stopped trying. 

Then, one day I found a wonderful podcast full of guided meditations.  This helped me extremely.  I felt like it compared very closely to what the setting was like during savasana at a formal yoga class; the sound of the voice, the gentle music, and the imagery that usually accompanied it.  I was hooked.  Now, I can usually sit down for 5-10 minutes and do a regular medition that focuses on the breath- though I do prefer to still do guided meditations and especially mantra meditations.

I began to think how amazing it would be to connect this practice with my hoop practice.  Since I came from a yoga background before I hooped, I always tend to try to meld the two.  I started to incorporate meditation into my hoop practice, especially after joining the Holistic Hooping newsletter in which they send you a hoop meditation to help jumpstart your holistic hoop healing journey.

Well, this weekend I actually had the time to sit down and come up with my first guided hoop meditation.  I focused on Metta meditation only because I love how joyous and energizing that Metta can be.  It is ultimately one of my favorite types of guided meditations.

My goal of starting this series is to prepare myself for potentially teaching hoop-yoga fusion in the future.  I have all these really great ideas for a practice that joins the two.  Also, I am trying to get a few really great videos together for the website that I am putting together for my hoop business Centric Hoops.  I hope to have the website up and available for viewing by the end of the month.  I will be sure to make an announcement here and on my Hoop City page.

Though it is suggested to do light yoga before meditating, as yoga was orginally practiced to help condition the body and mind for meditation, it is not required to do so. I do plan on doing a hoop-yoga sequence very soon which could be practiced prior to doing this, or any other, meditation.

Guided Hoop Meditation #1- Metta



I want to apologize for the extended beginning and end.  My movie maker was being a pain and YouTube is having technical difficulties with their editor.  I hope to fix it once it is back up, but for now, please excuse me getting comfortable at the beginning and such.

Like I said, this is the first guided meditation I have ever done for someone other than myself so it isn't perfect and I am still trying to work on my vocabulary and tone/softness of my voice.

If you have any questions about meditation, guided meditation, or hoop yoga, please don't hesitate to ask and I will do my best to answer or find someone who can.

Peace.

2 comments:

  1. It's so awesome to see you do this -- your meditation video is calming and very professional, I get this safe feeling that you know what you're talking about. Totally continue with meditation videos, and fusing hooping with meditation and yoga, this is great, needs to be spread more and more, and will bring lots of goodness to whomever you'll teach.

    BTW I didn't notice that you had already started writing in your blog - will keep my eyes peeled for your posts from now on. Did you shoot this video in your house? Nice surroundings! What is that thing on the left that looks like a pool or something? Sorry I'm nosy :D

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  2. Yes, this is in my downstairs. That is an endless pool to the left. The people whose house we live in used it a lot. It was too much of an upkeep for us to use it so we just check the chemicals and things periodically. You're not nosy; just interested (and observant)!!

    I'm glad that you enjoyed the meditation. I was a little nervous- as I always am whenever I record anything. It was funny because I had a take before this one, which was the first take, and I was so nervous. I messed up but continues with it for a few minutes anyway. Eventually the breathing and imagery totally calmed me!! So I restarted and this was the final take.

    I really hope to go forward with this idea I have. The website is coming along nicely and I have been really getting excited making it. I just have to wait for my boyfriend to take some nice looking pictures of me (and for my shoppe's new items), but he has been working on the weekends so it is hard.

    Can't wait for you to see it and let me know what you think; you're always so helpful and encouraging!! Thanks, Bhakti!!

    Much hooper friend love to you!!

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